Got a new hard drive for my Inspiron 1545 - an SSD, at last! Turns out it was probably just in time too, as I found an unrecoverable bad block on the WD it is replacing.

Just one problem. The SSD is smaller than the drive it is replacing. Not narrower (they’re both 2.5” drives - which means they’re both 2.75” wide). But thinner. I suppose that dimension isn’t standardized by anybody. But surely that can’t actually be a problem? After all, thinner still fits in the drive bay…

Guess it is a problem after all. Near as I can tell, the SATA port in the Inspiron requires the drive to completely fill the bay in order to force the all the contacts to … contact.

Good thing the problem is that it’s too thin, not too thick. I can fix this.

Problem solved.

Thanks for the well-engineered hardware, guys.