Removing Extensa 5620 Optical Drive

The DVD drive in this computer has stopped working. I want to remove and reinsert in, on the theory that it may be a loose connector, but I can't figure out how. Is a loose connector even a viable theory on this system?

 

Not really. When the DVD drive is slid in it's being pushed in the connector so the drive itself would have to be partially out of the laptop not to be connected properly. Chances of the connector being lose are slim to none.

It's more likely that it's the drive itself.

 

I agree. Are you getting any power to the cd/dvd drive? Are there any activity lights? By "stopped working", do you mean not reading anything or dead? I'm not sure of the model # of the cd/dvd drive, but most drives have a ribbon that transfers the data from the optical sensor elsewhere. It could be torn (unlikely, but possible) or need re-seating.

 

The drive is getting power. However, the computer doesn't seem to recognize that the drive is installed. This problem came up when I was dealing with another problem, which turned out to be a bad memory module. As part of troubleshooting that problem I went into BIOS and activated the F12 boot menu, which lets you choose which drive you boot from. The optical drive doesn't show up there as an option. Nor does it show up in Explorer once I get into Windows.

 

You didn't happen to disable it in bios did you? I'm not sure its possible in your bios, but it's worth checking as a last ditch effort. I wouldn't think a bad memory module would have directly affected the drive. Unfortunately, if you have power, but it's not detected at Bios, most likely you're going to have to replace the drive.

 

I thought about that, too, but I couldn't even find an option to do that in BIOS. Will the replacement need to come from Acer? Let me re-ask the question about how to remove it, because if I have to replace it then that will be step one. Thanks.

 

The replacement one doesn't have to be from Acer- it can be basically any slim drive with the possible exception of those locked to work only in Lenovo or HP.

As for removing the drive- usually there's only one screw that can be accessed from the outside (without disassembling the notebook)

Can you post a photo of the bottom of the notebook (reasonably high resolution but thumbnailed please)

 

Remove the the screw, like downloads stated. Just open the tray (before hand) and pull. It shouldn't be difficult. Here's a photo demonstration on my computer (similar to what yours might look like). Do the opposite to re-install.

 

Thanks very much for your help, guys. I took it out, put it back in, and it works. I don't know what the issue was but I'm not arguing with success.

 

Glad everything worked out O.K. I'm surprised there was an activity light if removing and re-inserting fixed the problem. Maybe just a few of the connectors were not contacting properly.