HD mounting torque can have catastrophic consequences?! (2.5"laptop HD on A1200 cradle)

[Jagabot]

Nah, don't bother drilling new holes. The drives are far more robust than desktop drives (they're desiged to be shaken, moved around, etc. -- they are made for mobile devices after all).

All you need to do to ensure you're safe is to insulate the cradle near the rightmost part with a strip of electrical tape. Some notebook drives have components that might touch the end of the cradle when they're mounted with the only two screws that line up.

I know what you mean by the holes not lining up, some drives have a different screw placement (actually all newer drives have a different placement than older laptop drives) this does not effect the functionality and reliability of these drives in an Amiga 1200 in any way.

[Jagabot]

My favorite real story (related to me by Jesse Wong who I worked with at AST) was the lady who called  the tech support people at Packard Bell with a "broken coffee cup holder" and demanded it be replaced under warranty. Tech support had no idea what "part" she was talking about and referred it to marketing. After this support question was forwarded around the offices trying to find out if there ever was such a promotion as a coffee cup holder for any Packard Bell machine sold, she was asked to describe what was "obviously" 3rd party accessory.

"It's on the front of my machine, it's tan l ike the rest of the computer so I KNOW IT'S FROM YOU PEOPLE. There is a button you press that makes it come out so you can set your cup on it, and you push it again to make it go back in when you aren't using it. But now it won't go back in, it's broken and I want a new one. This computer has a 3 year warranty you know."

She was using her CDROM tray as a coffee cup stand...