How to add additional hard-drive to an Acer A514-53-34FR?

I am having an issue trying to add an additional hard-drive for this machine. Most of the videos I've found on YouTube (non-official) show the hard-drive being placed on top of the USB audio board cable. In my case, this seems to fit exceedingly tight:

Also, additional to the metal casing to fix the hard drive, all videos found on YouTube show a additional plastic casing in addition to the metal one. Mine only has the metal casing. This metal casing feels sharp on the edges. Placing it on top of the USB audio board cable give me some concerns about possible damage in the future:

Captura de pantalla 2024-06-18 172701.png

Wouldn't it make more sense to place the hard drive below the cable? Sorry, I ask here because there are no service manuals available for me to check.

Accepted answers

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/707546/how-to-add-additional-hard-drive-to-an-acer-a514-53-34fr

The 2.5" SATA 3 kit and its bracket that you have is all that you need to fit a 2.5" HDD/SSD drive into the Aspire A515-54 laptop, the captions below are from your laptops service guide. The drive fits into the 4x screw slots as shown below at G, but you need to take the USB board cable at I out as that fits on top of the HDD once the drive is installed, and the SATA cable fits into plug at H to connect the drive to the mainboard.

The Aspire A515-54 laptop unfortunately has a tight squeeze space as its the same as on many other Acer laptops like the Nitro 5 gaming laptops which I own, so you must persist with fitting this HDD into the below space as shown. Good luck and hope this helps you out.

This is the A515-54 SATA HDD and its cable position at H and how this 2.5" SATA drive is supposed to connect, its the same with a 2.5" SSD drive.

Screws needed to secure the HDD to the bracket and to the laptop base

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1281896#Comment_1281896

Yes, that is what you need to do, that is how the service guide instructions are to install the 2.5" HDD into the A51-54 laptop. You need to disconnect the I cable and then reconnect it on top of the HDD.

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

All comments

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/707546/how-to-add-additional-hard-drive-to-an-acer-a514-53-34fr

The 2.5" SATA 3 kit and its bracket that you have is all that you need to fit a 2.5" HDD/SSD drive into the Aspire A515-54 laptop, the captions below are from your laptops service guide. The drive fits into the 4x screw slots as shown below at G, but you need to take the USB board cable at I out as that fits on top of the HDD once the drive is installed, and the SATA cable fits into plug at H to connect the drive to the mainboard.

The Aspire A515-54 laptop unfortunately has a tight squeeze space as its the same as on many other Acer laptops like the Nitro 5 gaming laptops which I own, so you must persist with fitting this HDD into the below space as shown. Good luck and hope this helps you out.

This is the A515-54 SATA HDD and its cable position at H and how this 2.5" SATA drive is supposed to connect, its the same with a 2.5" SSD drive.

Screws needed to secure the HDD to the bracket and to the laptop base

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

EL_Kaminski

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1281895#Comment_1281895

It's tight when placing the HD on top of the USB board FCC. Otherwise, it has space. So, I have to disconnect the USB board FCC, connect the HD, and then reattach the USB board FCC again?

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1281896#Comment_1281896

Yes, that is what you need to do, that is how the service guide instructions are to install the 2.5" HDD into the A51-54 laptop. You need to disconnect the I cable and then reconnect it on top of the HDD.

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

EL_Kaminski

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1281897#Comment_1281897

Thank you. All videos that show the how-to-do procedure on YouTube have the HD on top of the cable. I knew it did not make any sense.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1281898#Comment_1281898

Good I'm glad that I've helped you out, as I know the perils of connecting these SATA 2.5" drives into these laptops, as the A515-54 SATA drive and SATA cable looks much better to connect than my Nitro 5 AN515-56 which is impossible to connect its SATA cable into the mainboard plug as the SATA cable plug is impossible to get to and clip its plug to secure and get an 100% connection, so I've given up, but luckily I've got 2x M.2 SSD slots and in the second slot I can put a 4TB M.2 SSD drive and use it as storage.

This is my Nitro 5 AN515-56 SATA mainboard plug to cable space which is impossible to connect unless you do it with a microscope and tweezers to secure the cable into that SATA mainboard plug.

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

EL_Kaminski

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1281899#Comment_1281899

As it turned out, I did not have to unplug the cable, but rather slid the HD (already on the metal casing mount) under the cable (while slightly and gently, pulling it up), and adjust it. It required no effort, as I initially thought. The complication came later, but this was due to incorrect information from the aformentioned YouTube videos. I assume this was because most of the content creators for those videos were working with a slightly different model than mine. In all these videos, you have to unplug the wifi card to access the plug for the additional hard drive. That was not the case for mine, as I found out when look closely, and when I (finally) paid attention to the "HDD" label on the motherboard next to the actual plug. In any case, if the plug had been placed under the wifi card I would not have been able to loose it, the screw was firmly attached, and I did not want to try any harder, risking any damage to the motherboard.

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