[SOLVED] Upgrading Hard Drive for the 1st time

Those "soft" washers are probably silicone washers. Throw 'em away,

They'll just cause you problems. They're probably not allowing the screws to fully seat themselves. Try the screws without the washers and tighten hand tight. Wait and see what happens. If the problem persists see my answer at the link below.

See the answer to the rest of this post here: Firefox 3.6.4 (beta) is here

I did find the answer to the vibration, luckily, I found some soft plastic washers. There was a small hole in each, I had to push the screws through. But that (along with some of that compound you were talking about) fixed the problem. Those screws were way too long, I don't see how the original drive wasn't doing the same. Those washers were about one-eighth inch thick, which doesn't sound like much, but it made up for the long screws.