Just cut a piece of plastic ice cream container to size and secure it with felcro(hook and loop strips from a $2 shop. Paint to match the rest of vthe system.

I agree to Caluser2000 for asthetics. Any flat plastic will do.

As for storage, does the computer use normal 44p 2,5"or 40p 3,5" hard disks? the easiest way then is CF with an adapter. Does the computer allow you to manually fill in csh specs or are you stick to a fixed list?

Oops, sorry I forgot to mention, I have the trim cap, the photo is merely illustrative, my big problem is that I don't have the IDE interface that connects the HD to the motherboard, so I can't use a HD on it. It originally uses a traditional IDE 2.5 hd

Hey there, I've also got a T4900CT, which thankfully came with a hard drive.

The connector itself is a 1mm pitch, 25-way 2 row connector, with a 1.2mm gap between the pins. The part itself seems a bit unavailable as does that type of PCB connector, but here's what it looks like:

Found from checking my connector and doing a search for "Toshiba PCB FX5HD1 P000199390 Satellite 4900CT HDD" but those pictures may fall offline soon so they're attached here.

The maintenance manual says this connector has 60 pins? Well that's wrong 🙁 so maybe we can't just check the maintenance manual - I could help with finding the pinout, but then how to sort the PCB > PCB connector? I'm thinking some 3d printed holder for 2x 1mm spaced FPC cables, going to a custom PCB with the HDD pins on it.

I think the only alternative for me would be to solder wire to wire in a female IDE connector

That would be the quick way, another would be to use a 1mm pitch connector like this one, with a PCB or flat flex PCB: https://www.toby.co.uk/board-to-board-pcb-con … -125-03-F-DV-A/

Direct soldering is do-able, though not fun to solder: Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
I suppose there's not much demand for the IDE connectors on these things to make it really worth designing up a PCB.

But I'll need to beep out the pins of each connector to determine which pin goes where, I'll try to do that after work today 😀

I have some old motherboards that have turned to scrap, which I can remove the IDE connector, which I think will be annoying, is that on the toshiba motherboard, the soldering points are small and very close to each other, I think this will take a few weeks to get ready

Yeah 1mm pitch is too fine for me to solder, especially with that many connections close together. Another option though - is to buy some 1mm pitch Flat Flex Cable (ffc). You can find them if you search for 1mm ffc on thebay, they're usually quite cheap and you can get 26 wire cables quite easily. There's only one seller that sells 25 wire cables.
You can use a pair of those to solder the FFC onto the edges of the IDE connector without removing it. That then lets you run the ribbon cables further off in the hard drive and because they're aware from the connector and fixed at each end, it should be easier to solder.

Well this was an experience, compared to resoldering that MBC laptop's IDE cable, lots of the pins on this cable are re-arranged:

Silver paint dot is pin 1 technically, though my derivation of the pinout doesn't use specific pin numbers. Also - Today I learned that my Toshiba T4900CT CAN NOT do DMA, it doesn't have the pins for it on the connector, wow!

Oh also, I have my suspicions from the other recent Toshiba HDD connector thread that maybe the connector is from 3M, the PK10-050P-R-DA or PK10 series in general are a close fit. Checking the datasheet vs my connector, the central part is 1mm on the PK10 and 1.2mm on my part, so. not sure...

Just on idea, but I could design a board and print to pcbway, so all I would have to do is solder a 90 degree ide connector, and the supposed PK10-050P-R-DA connector to the board. I don't understand anything about these boards, but I believe it's something so simple, that maybe I can do. I believe I just need to know what the pinout of the toshiba board is

I am now relatively sure from checking the dimensions that this is a Kyocera 5078 connector: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/365434 … nector-products

Here's the full dimensions:

It's the receptacle rather than the plug, so the full part code should be: 24 5078 050 100 861
It does not seem to be available anywhere, it's possible that although it's called Kyocera now, it could've been called AVX or Elco in the past?.

This is pretty cool, now I might know who made all the really fine pitch connectors for lots of Toshiba, Sony and IBM laptops from that era.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2022-02-12, 23:56:

I am now relatively sure from checking the dimensions that this is a Kyocera 5078 connector: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/v […]
Show full quote

I am now relatively sure from checking the dimensions that this is a Kyocera 5078 connector: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/365434 … nector-products

Here's the full dimensions: Kyocera-5078-69814.pdf

It's the receptacle rather than the plug, so the full part code should be: 24 5078 050 100 861
It does not seem to be available anywhere, it's possible that although it's called Kyocera now, it could've been called AVX or Elco in the past?.

This is pretty cool, now I might know who made all the really fine pitch connectors for lots of Toshiba, Sony and IBM laptops from that era.

I haven't checked yet, but I found a very similar connector on a sony vaio laptop (actually it's the interface that connects a tv capture card), when I have time, I'll check to see if it fits and if the number of connections and their positions align with the connector present on the toshiba

I found a connector that might work - this one here: 64 Way 2 Row Connector SMT 1mm Pitch AMP 120521-1 2 PIECES Z307

I bought some to play around with and the pin pitch is correct. The connector must be trimmed down to fit in a rather delicate way - each of those pins is ~1mm:

But it did fit onto the connector with some wiggling.
I did have continuity on the pins I checked, with none shorting pins to adjacent pins.

This connector is too tall to make a PCB fit onto directly, which was my original hope - but the cover does still close with this connector in place. I was going to suggest that you could get this and solder wires on for all the pins, but I've got a better idea - what if I make a PCB that solders onto the upper part of the pins facing the HD bay, then run a cheap and easily available flex cable onto pads on that PCB, like this:

Or maybe even simpler, just make a PCB that will be soldered onto two strips of 6cm flex cable, then perhaps that could even just have a regular 44 pin IDE connector

But what about pinout? Has anyone been able to confirm if the diagram provided by Thermalwrong is correct?

Well um, I have. But if anyone else can confirm, that would be nice also. I'm planning to put together some kind of connector / adapter. Not completely sure of the form it should take yet. My thinking is a PCB that adapts that 50 position 1mm pitch connector into a 50 pin FPC cable, that goes into a 44-pin IDE cable connector