Laptop DVD Drive change. Easy?
Discussion
Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600, Win XP Pro SP2 all up to date.
It's old and heavy but it does what I want!
The CD/DVD drive has been noisy for some time and now it fails to read any disk and makes more scraping noises than before. I don't think I'm making the wrong assumption that it's dead!
How cheap/easy is it to replace the drive? Is it likely I can pop into PC World and pick up a replacement which I can screw in myself? Are these generic drives like the IDE ones in a desktop or are they specific to the particular machine.
If it's too pricey I just wont bother as I can share another drive over the network to install stuff. It does stuff me when I travel though.
It's old and heavy but it does what I want!
The CD/DVD drive has been noisy for some time and now it fails to read any disk and makes more scraping noises than before. I don't think I'm making the wrong assumption that it's dead!
How cheap/easy is it to replace the drive? Is it likely I can pop into PC World and pick up a replacement which I can screw in myself? Are these generic drives like the IDE ones in a desktop or are they specific to the particular machine.
If it's too pricey I just wont bother as I can share another drive over the network to install stuff. It does stuff me when I travel though.
It's probably three years old at least (came with Win98 on originally!) My experience with external drives has been bad but that was in the early days so they are probably OK now. To be honest I would probably not bother with an external as, already said, I can share another over the home network and adding another drive to carry around is not desirable.
Are they generic drives?
Are they generic drives?
It's easy to do.
The parts are not on the shelves of PC World or the like, you'll probably need to make use of fleabay (search for laptop dvd drive).
They're pretty much a standard layout although often manufacturers slap custom facias on them, so you might end up having to loose a colour matched unit or a nice curvy facia in favour of a straigh generic one.
Generally speaking, most laptop optical drives are held in by a combination of 1 or more screws and often a catch on the bottom (similar to the battery 'eject' mechanism). Once these screws have been removed and/or the eject mechanism triggered the unit will fall out.
Strip the drive of it's carrier (often just some thin metal rails screwed to the sides) and put these on the new unit along with anything else 'not normal' (socket conversion PCB's, etc.) that you took off the original; slide the new unit back in to the hole, fasten the screws and if needed lock the ejection mechanism.
Power up the laptop, the BIOS might complain about hardware changes if so enter the BIOS, select "save changes and exit" confirm you want to do this, the laptop will again reboot and begin loading the operating system. Windows/Linux will automatically see the capabilities of the new device without requiring addtional tinkering time.
Total swap time: 30min if your cautious.
Edit: If the laptop is that old then it won't have USB2 ports on it... it would make a USB external drive rather slow to use. The best thing would be to get a PCMCIA USB2 card then attach the external drive to that.
The parts are not on the shelves of PC World or the like, you'll probably need to make use of fleabay (search for laptop dvd drive).
They're pretty much a standard layout although often manufacturers slap custom facias on them, so you might end up having to loose a colour matched unit or a nice curvy facia in favour of a straigh generic one.
Generally speaking, most laptop optical drives are held in by a combination of 1 or more screws and often a catch on the bottom (similar to the battery 'eject' mechanism). Once these screws have been removed and/or the eject mechanism triggered the unit will fall out.
Strip the drive of it's carrier (often just some thin metal rails screwed to the sides) and put these on the new unit along with anything else 'not normal' (socket conversion PCB's, etc.) that you took off the original; slide the new unit back in to the hole, fasten the screws and if needed lock the ejection mechanism.
Power up the laptop, the BIOS might complain about hardware changes if so enter the BIOS, select "save changes and exit" confirm you want to do this, the laptop will again reboot and begin loading the operating system. Windows/Linux will automatically see the capabilities of the new device without requiring addtional tinkering time.
Total swap time: 30min if your cautious.
Edit: If the laptop is that old then it won't have USB2 ports on it... it would make a USB external drive rather slow to use. The best thing would be to get a PCMCIA USB2 card then attach the external drive to that.
Edited by ThePassenger on Wednesday 8th November 11:18
from what i can remember when i played around with the hardware side of things, is that all optical drives (for laptops and slimline machines) are the same size and shape, but it's only the plastic facsia that alters between each make. If this theory still holds water you could buy a cheap drive off ebay and then swap the plastic bits over from your old drive so that it will fit in your laptop. You could even swap the front plastic too! Just be careful that you don't snap anything off. Alternativly as mentioned get yourself on ebay and pick up a cheap same make drive.
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff