Hassle-free(ish) reinstall of 4400 / 7220 drive carrier

[jessenator]

65scribe mentions in his 4400/200 video that the drive carrier (CD-ROM + Floppy) si "notoriously tricky to re-install. Here are some tips to help anyone else- Remember you have to put that sucker back in after the motherboard, so you can't want to muck it up. I practiced a few times and thought it might be helpful to share these, so no one is scratching their heads as to why the carrier won't slide back into place.

1) Take the front bezel off. Seriously, it makes finessing the drives through the chassis much easier.

2) Get the drives under the springs. Angle it downward as you place it in, not parallel to the case floor. There are two sets of these springs: one over the CD-ROM (easy) and one over the floppy (****). Also align the CD-ROM side "foot" with the groove and notched section. Be careful of the floppy side "foot" so it doesn't scrape the motherboard.

3) Make sure the actual carrier (not the second bay front metal plate piece) is over the lip of the chassis (this one stumped me a bit) It also helps to apply light thumb pressure to the chassis to let the carrier slide smoothly into place on each side. Arrow marks on the CD-ROM side tell you when you're all the way in. You shouldn't have to force this at all. Once you've cleared the chassis and aligned the floppy-side mounting screws with the plastic channels atop the speaker/fan shroud, it will slide in.

4) If you care about the condition of the fan/speaker shroud, place some parchment or other paper underneath. The sharp metal with scrape the plastic like this otherwise:

 

[Franklinstein]

That blanking shield under the CDROM may go in after the drive carrier goes back in place. It has little tabs on the sides that keep it from being pushed from the front into the recess under the CDROM and those may interfere with the front of the chassis.

If the big drive carrier won't go into place, the hard drive carrier won't slot in properly, either: part of its function is to lock the big drive carrier into place with the two tabs on the bottom, so if the big carrier obscures the receiving slots for the hard drive carrier's tabs, the hard drive carrier won't go in completely and it will be difficult to get the top case back on.

 

[jessenator]

That's what it's called! Blanking shield.

Mine didn't come with the spinner, so if anyone needs that they can have it... But good to know. I definitely wasn't going to leave the big carrier partway inserted :/

 

[NJRoadfan]

I know folks like to slam the 4400's case as being cheap and PC like, but the design and finish appears to be WORSE than actual PC cases. The only case I could directly compare it with is the horrible excuse of metal that Amiga 4000 desktop came in (also recycled from a case design from Commodore's PC division).

 

[jessenator]

Yes, I will say it's very cheap. I remember my friend's dad's Gateway2k desktop being solid as a friggin rock and very well-built. Another friend's family machine was a Compaq, and while not as sturdy (to my recollection) as the Gateway, it was still more substantial than the 4400 case. Even the plastic front piece, nearly a one-piece mold, is cheaply attached. It's reasonably thick though. Doesn't feel as nasty as a 5x0/5x00 era case does today. Don't really want to test its limits all the same  

Even the metal chassis feels cheaper to the touch. But I love oddball stuff. Hopefully mine will boot once I get the PSU sorted.

 

[Franklinstein]

They were probably the most cheaply built of the Tanzania clones but because of the rainbow logo on the front, they were probably the most expensive. The StarMax DT is arguably a cheaper case, though, owing to the much smaller case/CPU fan and the fact that it flexes noticeably when it's picked up with the top removed (and that they scrimped and omitted a couple of screws to secure the power supply to the case internally to prevent said flex). At least you get three proper PCI slots and the option of a second external 5.25" bay though.