Dell laptop hard drive carriers

[Bill Freeman]

	I'm looking for good or bad experience reports about re-using
Dell Latitude hard disk carriers with new 2.5" drives.

	I recently picked up a used Latitude.  Things are good, but
the 6GB hard drive feels tight.  (Oh, how the world changes.  I can
still remember being thrilled to add a 30MB drive to my PC.)  There
seem to be places out there offering drives already installed in
suitable carriers to just plug in, but they are a bit dear when
compared with bare 2.5" ide drives.

	It certainly looks like the drive is a standard 2.5" ide
drive, with the end of the carrier being a circuit board connecting
between the standard 46 pin (really 50 with 4 pins missing) mini ide
connector that lets them carry power on the same connector, and the
connector that Dell has chosen to connect to the rest of the laptop.
And it looks to me that removing about 6 screws and being careful
would let me reuse the existing carrier with a new drive.

	Have any of you already done this?  Are there gotchas I should
know about?

							Thanks, Bill