Lifting stuff into racks

I have successfully used automotive floor jacks. I use a sheet of wood on top of the swivel part, mainly to avoid marking the drive. Once it is loose it takes two people to stabilize it (they are very awkward) and a third to move the jack. This can give you good height adjustment. For several years I had a transmission jack which worked the best. It dealt with the center of gravity better. Of course these only work in the bottom half of the rack and with rails. I had several roll around tables of different heights that worked for dealing with drives in the top of the equipment. We could generally use wood blocks to get the drives to the right heights. Most of those were tape drives and tended to be more awkward and not on rails. Most of the time I have used a pallet jack with wooden blocks. They roll real easy and have an easy height adjustment. Makes it easy to slide the drive onto a pallet after removal. You can block up one fork and balance the drive on that if you can get one fork inside the cabinet. I also have a small chain hoist that I got when I bought a JEOL electron microscope. However I rarely use it for lifting drives. Paxton Astoria, OR