This is one thing I learn over the year on tearing down stuff. Take tons of pictures during the disassembling process. So I can go back and see how to put the thing back together.

Most of the Sony's I've dealt with take a fair amount of effort to get to the drive. A lot of times it seems like what you have to do is get the palmrest area off, which typically takes removing the keyboard (generally pretty easy), and figuring out from there what screws you need to remove to get the palmrest off. Sony also likes to use stickers and labels to seal cables together, which can make pulling a hard drive a little more entertaining.

Could be worse, if it was a Z series, I don't know that I'd recommend trying to replace the drive :). It's a fair amount of dissembly to get to the drive on one of those, and they're a pain to get back together. (I watched an onsite tech fail to put one back together once, and quite frankly, after watching it be taken apart, I wasn't convinced it was going back together anyways.) The Z series makes replacing a drive in an imac look easy.

Well, if it helps anyone who wants to try, these are the useful, step-by-step instructions I used when replacing the hard drive on my own Sony laptop:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/D...d-Drive/2254/1

There are lots of screws that you need to uncover through 2 or 3 stages of disassembly, and you have to detach the keyboard which is attached via a very short and flimsy cable. It sounds like some of these other Sony models involve similar headaches, but may have the same disassembly process.

Replacing the hard drive in my Dell and HP laptops involved removing 1 screw.

I think this will help too. Not sure if it's the right one, but give it a shot.

http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=43

Alternatively, a USB stick/drive will be your best "I don't want to open it" alternative. 128GB USB sticks are out there.

HTSC