Nvidia Shield TV 1st Generation Hard Drive Replacement

Written By: Joshua Neally

Comments: 7

Nvidia Shield TV 1st Generation Hard Drive Replacement

Difficulty

Moderate

Steps

Time Required

5 - 10 minutes

Introduction

The hard drive can be replaced if the user wants to upgrade with a hard drive with more memory. It will also need to be replaced if the memory in the current hard drive becomes corrupted.

Tools

Step 1

Flip the device over and use a plastic opening tool to remove the bottom cover.

Step 2

Remove the tape that is covering the hard drive.
Place tape aside in a safe place so it can be reused to secure the hard drive when reassembling.

Step 3

Remove the indicated screw using the T6 Torx Screwdriver.

Step 4

Gently pull out the hard drive.
Remove the connector pins from the hard drive.

Conclusion

To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.

7 comments

How can I get a replacement sata cable? My tore when trying to replace with ssd.

3_D - 09/01/18

This guide completely skips over the details on how to disconnect the cables. This is by far the trickiest part of this operation. The fact that the commenter above tore his SATA cable is proof that crucial steps of this procedure are missing!

ctphillips - 11/08/18

This Fails to Mention The lower end version of the Nvidia Shield Console(16GB Storage) Is missing the cable that goes to the HDD and even the and even the soldering mounts to put a HDD in a 16GB version.

-B

Rob Craig - 05/11/20

The part that is connected to the Sata connector for the HD with the ribbon attached how do I get a replacement one please

Steve Roe - 07/02/21

How on earth do you disconnect the flat SATA cable from the motherboard safely?

Tobias Biehl - 07/06/21

the fact that you tore the ribbon cable is as sign you should do more research before pulling on cables. I have repaired quite a few of these machines and the cable is quite resilient and is not this paper thin delicate cable it is made out to be. Please do your research if you are unsure, the guides here really do rely on some level of technical knowledge and these cables exist in a lot of electronics. as for a replacement I believe you can find them overseas, ie. china and what not, just need to do some digging. also a lot of people dont actually have much success in repairing or swapping drives on these as the android system and Widevine key that exists on the original drive is absolutely manditory in restoring to the new drive, and requires a basic linux terminal knowledge and knowledge of how to view capture and edit HEX on a HDD. Be very sure you are ready to tackle this before cracking a shield open!

NFT Wraven -

One thing I will say for this guide that is very misleading, swapping the drive is not as easy as plug and play! look this up and make sure you follow guides on cloning the drive to the T. I highly recommend using a drive cloning device that does not require a computer. just make damned sure you have the source drive and destination drive in the right spot. If the drive clone goes smoothly this is easy, if it fails or you mess up the bootloader sector on the drive be in for a Google XDA forum nightmare hunt that will likely lead you to giving up or losing all your hair. One word of advice is if you do end up plugging this drive into a windows machine DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES INITIALIZE THE DRIVE! I cannot stress this enough. this will nuke the bootloader and brick the drive. it is recoverable but at great cost to sanity.