an apparatus for holding a portable hard disk drive in a desk - top personal computer has a bay that fits into the 3 . 5 &# 34 ; form - factor cavity which is formed in most ibm ®- compatible pcs . the portable hard disk drive is disposed in a protective sleeve . a motor - driven carriage is reciprocably positioned within the bay , and the sleeve is advanced part way into the bay , until the carriage engages the sleeve . then , the carriage automatically pulls the sleeve the rest of the way into the bay until the disk drive is operably engaged with the computer . when it is desired to eject the sleeve with disk drive , a button is pushed to cause the carriage to push the sleeve out of the bay , perhaps after a short delay time period to allow the disk drive to spin down prior to ejection . an external docking station and laptop computer adaptor are also disclosed .