Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc.

James F Babb

Robert J Hastings

George R Daniels

Paily T Varghese

Dennis J Alexander

Roberta M Madsen

Donald E Moore

Dean J Ryan

Charles R Lewis

John R Bradshaw

A series of hard disk drives are secured atop molded plastic support trays slidably and removably received in opposing guide channel member pairs snap-fitted into opposite side walls of a sheet metal cage structure externally used in conjunction with a file server or other computer device. Snap-fitted into rear end portions of the trays are small printed circuit boards that are insertable into hot plug sockets at the rear of the cage. Forwardly projecting guard plates on the rear end of the cage block manual access to the board/socket interface, and the surface mounted grounding leads on the board extend rearwardly beyond its signal leads to enhance grounding safety during disk drive installation and removal. At the front end of each tray is a vertical support plate upon which LED indicating lights are conveniently mounted for the associated disk drive. Each guide channel member has a metal grounding clip portion that is pressed against the adjacent cage wall and is contacted by grounding portions of the disk drive and support tray as they are slid into the housing. To assist in installing and removing each disk drive, its associated support tray is provided at its front corners with pivotable ejection latch members removably and self-lockingly secured thereto using a molded connection structure that eliminates the requirement for attachment screws or rivets.

Apparatus for removably supporting a plurality of hot plug-connected

A pair of disk drives are mounted in a compact side-by-side relationship in two adjacent bays of an internal sheet metal computer housing chassis using a snap-in mounting system including two opposing pairs of parallel sheet metal guide channel members snapped into place within specially configured openings in parallel bay walls of the chassis, and pairs of elongated plastic retainer members secured to and longitudinally extending along opposite sides of the disk drives. To quickly mount the disk drives within their chassis bays, each retainer member pair is simply pushed rearwardly into and longitudinally through an associated opposing pair of the guide channel members until the disk drive reaches its operating position within its chassis bay. As the disk drive rearwardly approaches its operating position, leading edge portions of its associated guide channel members inwardly cam opposed front end latch portions on each of the retainer members until bosses thereon snap into notches in the guide channels, thereby releasably locking the disk drive in place. Each disk drive may be quickly removed from the chassis simply by squeezing the opposed latch portions together to remove the bosses from the guide channel member notches, and then pulling the disk drive forwardly out of its drive bay.

Computer disk drive mounting apparatus

A tower unit for a personal computer wherein the tower unit is a generally rectangular box having a generally rectangular interior chassis. The interior chassis includes a first set of interiorly extending mounting flanges and tabs which are positioned and aligned on opposing chassis walls to mount one or more drives at an upwardly facing angle in order to allow the user visual and manual access to the drives for ease of operation. A similar combination of interiorly directed tabs and flanges are formed in the opposing side walls of the frame near the bottom of the tower unit chassis in order to mount a plurality of hard disk drives in horizontal positions. The frame includes a front frame panel which combines with the front bezel to provide a gripping area which cooperates with another gripping area formed in the rear bezel to allow the tower unit to be easily moved about.

Tower system unit with angled drive bay

Growing community of inventors

Houston, TX, United States of America

James F Babb