Are all CD/DVD drives in laptops all the same? I am asking because I pulled
out one of my spare MX6124 DVD burners and I was thinking of making an
external USB DVD drive out of it. And I was hoping if I bought one of those
external USB cases that it would work. Although the connections look a
little strange to me. I never even noticed the laptop CD/DVD connections
before. They don't look like hard drive IDE connections like I thought they
were.

I did buy and get yesterday from Hong Kong of all places, an external USB
DVD burner. Looks very nice, but can't read anything after 5 to 10 minutes
(never even tried burning anything). I popped the cover off and no way would
my MX6124 connect to it. There are no plugs inside and it is all soldered.

--
Bill
Gateway Celeron M 370 (1.5GHZ)
MX6124 (laptop) w/2GB
Windows XP Home SP2 (120GB HD)
Intel(r) 910GML (64MB shared)

"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message
news:48879a76$0$10970$834e42db@reader.greatnowhere .com...
> Are all CD/DVD drives in laptops all the same

Physically ? NO. Often not even for same vendor. Only exact model fits.
"whatever makes 'em fit " in the box and 'who makes the cheapest connector
this week' is their only goal.

"- Bobb -" <bobb@noemail.123> wrote in message
news:bvudnbJZppUZHxXVnZ2dnUVZ_gOdnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
> Physically ? NO. Often not even for same vendor. Only exact model fits.
> "whatever makes 'em fit " in the box and 'who makes the cheapest connector
> this week' is their only goal.

It's not really nearly that bad -- I'd guesstimate that at least 80% of new
laptops today are using standard form-factor SATA CD/DVD drives. I've swapped
plenty of these between computers, with the one caveat being that the
(snap-on/snap-off) bezel on the "front" of the drive tends to vary a few
millimeters here and there from manufacturer to manufacturer. (Essentially
there seems to be one "standard" size, but many manufacturers replace it so
that it has the same color/curves/whatever that the rest of the laptop housing
does.)

The electrical interface to laptop IDE optical drives are pretty much
all standardized, but:

1. I've never seen external cases for them (for any type of interfaces).

2. The interface, while pretty much standardized and while it is IDE,
uses a different connector from any other desktop or laptop IDE connector.

3. Although the connector and it's location are pretty much
standardized, not all aspects of laptop IDE optical drives are
standardized. Thus the physical installation often requires various
mechanical adapters, and also sometimes an electrical adapter from the
drive connector to the motherboard connector.

4. In most cases, master / slave / cable select is factory set inside
the drive by soldering. There is usually no documentation on changing
it, nor is there provision to make it user-changeable. And it's often
"wrong" for an application other than the original use in a laptop.

5. There is a huge issue with the faceplates of laptop optical drives.
They are almost always custom by laptop model, can't easily be
obtained (and often can't easily be changed even if you get one), and
are totally non-standardized from drive model to drive model. It's a
huge issue, as some of these are neither rectangular nor even flat, and
with the wrong faceplate, even forgetting cosmetic issues, the drive
won't open / close properly.

Also note that newer laptops may use SATA drives instead of IDE.



BillW50 wrote:
> Are all CD/DVD drives in laptops all the same? I am asking because I pulled
> out one of my spare MX6124 DVD burners and I was thinking of making an
> external USB DVD drive out of it. And I was hoping if I bought one of those
> external USB cases that it would work. Although the connections look a
> little strange to me. I never even noticed the laptop CD/DVD connections
> before. They don't look like hard drive IDE connections like I thought they
> were.
>
> I did buy and get yesterday from Hong Kong of all places, an external USB
> DVD burner. Looks very nice, but can't read anything after 5 to 10 minutes
> (never even tried burning anything). I popped the cover off and no way would
> my MX6124 connect to it. There are no plugs inside and it is all soldered.
>
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

Actually, this is wrong. The connectors and their location IS pretty
much standardized (which is not to say that drives, overally, are either
standardized or interchangeable). See my post on this subject.


- Bobb - wrote:
>
> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message
> news:48879a76$0$10970$834e42db@reader.greatnowhere .com...
>> Are all CD/DVD drives in laptops all the same
>
> Physically ? NO. Often not even for same vendor. Only exact model fits.
> "whatever makes 'em fit " in the box and 'who makes the cheapest
> connector this week' is their only goal.
>
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **