After that I was looking for a good laptop to replace it …. and finally ordered a Dell Studio XPS 1647. It took over a month and a half for Dell to ship the laptop and I finally received it last week. Its a pretty good laptop. However, Dell officially supports only one HDD on it. I wanted to use a SSD (solid state drive) as my primary drive for the OS, and then have a second HDD as secondary drive for bulk data storage. So, I bought a 60GB SSD drive and used it as the primary drive. SSD makes a HUGE difference in the performance. No more waits. The entire windows 7 installation was complete in less than 15 mins…  Its a major improvement in performance.

However, the problem is.. the SSD is way to expensive for now. For e.g: 60 GB SSD costs around $170 to $200… and larger capacities cost a fortune. I am pretty sure prices would come down eventually in a year or so.. But for now, I wanted a second HDD to store bulk data – like movies, HD videos that I capture, tons of photos from my dSLR ..etc.. and 60GB won’t suffice. Offcourse, I can connect an external HDD.. but its a hassle with the laptop. So, the search began to see if I could put a second HDD into this laptop. I had heard of people who had replaced their Optical Disk Drives (CD/DVD) with a HDD Caddy and have a second HDD.

So, I did some research on the net and across this specific thread on the notebook review forums, which I visit frequently. Thanks to the author of the thread, I could confirm that this could be done. But since Dell XPS 1647 is a new model (just released), .. no one had really done this, and I believe I am one of the first few to try this out. Not a big deals as such since 1647 is almost similar to 1645/1640 series (except for the processors) and some have reported success on those systems.

So, here is how I did it….. for all the hopefuls :

Pre-Requisites:

1. Confidence to open your laptop :)
2. HDD Caddy to replace the Optical Disk Drive – I got one from New Mode Electronics, which sells such caddys. This specific machine uses 12.7mm (height) slot-loading model with SATA external interface. You can buy it on ebay too for a cheaper price, but most of them ship from China and takes a long time to arrive.. and if there is a problem..its  a nightmare to return or re-order.
3. A second HDD
4. Dell Service Manual for Studio XPS 16 series – Specially how to replace the Optical Drive
   

Here is the Pictorial :
Click on each of the image below to see a larger image (in a new window)

Step 01 – Ready to Dismantle the Laptop

Step 02 – Remove the Back cover (10 screws to remove)

Step 03 – Remove the Rear caps (slide, and pull out as described in the dell service manual). Don’t apply force.

Step 04 – Remove 14 screws (this is needed to remove the palm rest). On my system 10 screws were marked “P”, 2 were marked “K” and 2 were flat screws.

Step 05 – Turn over, and remove the two screws to remove the palm rest. (Point to remember – once you are done, and when you tighten this later, don’t tighten it too much, else the plastic under it would crack). Once the two screws are removed, use the two tabs to pull out the palm rest (as described in the service manual)

Step 06 – Disconnect the cables connected (by lifting the tab – again – its described very well in the service manual).

Step 07 – Remove the cables connected (two of them). Now the palm rest is free & the motherboard and the ODD is visible

Step 08 – View of the mother board and ODD

Step 09 – View of the mother board and the 3 screws that need to be removed to free the OOD

Step 10 – One screw at the back to remove the ODD. Point to note – the HDD caddy did not have this screw hole – but the HDD Caddy fits in place securely with other 3 screws.

Step 11 – the ODD is now free – You can see the inter-poser (SATA to the motherboard pins) – simply pull it out from the ODD to set it free.

Step 11a – View of ODD out of the system

Step 12 – The ODD and the HDD Caddy that I got from New Mode Electronics. There is a component that is used on the ODD to secure it to the motherboard – This needs to be removed (2 screws) and put on the new HDD caddy as shown in this image.

Step 13 – View of ODD, Securing Component, Interposer, and the HDD Caddy – all side by side.

Step 14 – The new HDD caddy with the 500 GB Seagate HDD (that came with my system), interposer and the securing component

Step 15 – Plug in the HDD caddy in the system and fasten the screws. From this point, its just a reverse process of putting things back in place (palm rest, screws, rear caps and the back cover)

Step 16 – BIOS – now shows the second HDD !

Step 17 – Window Shows the second HDD!

Total time taken from start to finish (including taking photos..etc) -  60 mins!
So, there you go.. you now have a second HDD in your laptop.. hope this pictorial helps!

What if you want to use you CD/DVD drive ?
Well, I have ordered  a eSATA/USB to SATA cable. Using this cable, I can use my CD/DVD drive as an external driver (on the rare occasions that I use it!)

Wishing all of you a very Happy, Prosperous and Peaceful New Year 2010!

Welcome to the blogsphere, dear !

Amazing… highly recommend you see this movie in 3D IMAX.. its mind blowing :)

Next up 3 Idiots! :) ……….. in 30 mins from now!

So, being curious, I did some search on wikipedia on this song… and was presently surprised with the history of the song… Its based on a Greek song called Misirlou.

Further digging brought up this site : http://www.dinosaurgardens.com/archives/297. The author has nicely documented the history of this song. There have been so many different versions of this song – starting from the 1930’s!  Check out the progression:

• Michalis Batrinos – Mousourlou (cir. 1930)
• Danai – Misirlou (cir. 1947)
• Seymour Rexite – Miserlou (cir. 1950)
• Rabbi Abulafia – Misirlou (cir. 1951)
• The Cardinals – Misirlou (1955)
• Korla Pandit – Misirlou (1958)
• Enoch Light – Misirlou (1959)
• Martin Denny – Misirlou (1960)
• Dick Dale – Tribal Thunder (1993)

In addition to the above, this musical note has been used in various other recordings and sound tracks! No wonder, we have heard that track before! :)

Current favorite video : Lakadi Ki Kaati (from the movie Masoom) – He kind of sings it in his own words :) Its too funny to hear it when he sings it.

The next one on the list is: Chulbuli. Kids love this video. Its cute. And its got around 2.1 million views (21 lakhs) already! (Amogh would have contributed at least 5,000 views :)). BTW, its a Ad for Clinic Plus :)

Up next is Bholanath. A old Marathi song for kids. He loves it :)

There are many other videos — but the above are definitely top 3.

Oh, then there is the classical: Kuhu Kuhu Bole Koyaliya – he loves this song too…

And yes, Amogh is keeping both me and Chitra busy :)

More in days to come…

Well the tech slowdown in 2001 too effected me any many in my age group and it was pretty bad. Almost our entire class lost an year due to the 2001 slowdown.

This time around the situation is quite bad compared to the previous slowdown, and USA is officially in recession. The major difference this time is that its not just the IT industry thats hit, but almost all sectors are hit badly. Specially the housing & the financial market here in the US. And in today’s world, everything is interconnected. So, people from all walks of life are impacted one way or the other.

On the work side, many projects are being axes or postponed, budgets are being slashed and people are more and more cautious when it comes to spending money. For now, I have enough work lined up for the coming months. Must see how it turns out.

In other news, Amogh, my son turned One on feb 8th. Time fly’s by so fast!

Like mentioned in my previous post, both Amogh and Chitra are back in India. … and I could not miss Amogh’s 1st birthday. So, I flew all the way back to India for a week! :) and it was worth it!  The special thing about the trip was, it was a surprise trip!. Only Chitra knew that I would be flying. So, it was fun to see the reaction of every one who saw me there on his birthday!

….even for Amogh, the day I landed, it took a while for him to realize  that it was his father who had suddenly disappeared from the scene sometime back. And then, after a few minutes, he knew it was his dad :) … and clearly seemed to be very happy that day.

The Trip was quite hectic — 30 hrs of travel one way — 1 week in Mangalore & again 30 hrs of travel back to Houston!. So for around 2 to 3 weeks, my biological clock was totally out of sync due to jet lag/timezone changes! But it was worth it.

Its a pleasure to see Amogh these days. He now walks and virtually runs all around very comfortably. …and has now started to climb the stairs. He blabbers in his own baby language! ….. and has become very naughty! :)

If all goes well, Chitra & Amogh should be here soon — may be in a week or two. Waiting for thier arrival !

The year 2008 was definitely an eventful year for most of us!…and for me, personally, it was a year that was not soo good expect for one good thing that happened! ……yes, you guessed it right, our baby…. Amogh. If not for Amogh, I wouldn’t want to see a year like 2008 again.

I hope 2009 would be better!

Oh, yes, one more news, Chitra and Anogh flew back to India this week. They celebrated the new year in Mangalore.

Chitra had to get her work visa stamped.., so she had to travel back. More than the visa, everyone at Mangalore was missing Amogh.. so we thought it would be good if Chitra and Amogh visit Mangalore before Chitra resumes work.

Everyone at Mangalore is happy! Wouldn’t have been possible if Chitra hadn’t taken the difficult and painstaking journey with a 10.5 month old all the way from Houston to Mangalore all alone! Love you dear!

Nothing more…

Again, wishing all of you a very happy and prosperous 2009!

Amogh is keeping both me and Chitra busy!.

Boy.. he is growing so fast. Already 10 months old now!. He has started to walk.. takes around two to three steps.. and then realizes that he can crawl faster.. and crawls :)

He has also started to blabber words…which only he can understand ;) …… its really soo much fun to watch him grow and learn new tricks every day :)

Nothing much happening otherwise….!!!