Disabling the internal CD/DVD-RX drive

Can someone please help? I have a Mecer laptop 2 years old. My internal CD/DVD-rom has broken down and cannot be replaced. I have purchased a new external USB drive, but now, when I want to play games, the software still asks me to place the games disk into the CD-ROM (does not recognise the external drive as the main CD-Rom). How do I remove the internal drive from the laptop without having to unplug it and leave a gaping hole in my laptop? I've tried the BIOS, uninstalling the device in Device Manager, etc.

 

Have a look on the underside of the laptop, there should either be a latch that you can pull back to release the drive or it might be screwed in.

Persoanlly I would recommend replacing the internal drive with at least a DVD-ROM if possible, as your laptop might well not boot off an external drive meaning that re-installing windows or running hardware tests might not be possible.

 

In device manager right click on the device and disable.

 

Thanks for the feedback. The external device is recognised in my BIOS, so boot-up should be okay. I've tried the disable command in Device manager, it is disabled as I type this reply. My problem is that I need to somehow remove the internal CD/DVD drive so games looking for the master disk will not see it and default to my external drive in stead.

 

That is very strange if its disabled then the drive shouldn't be available (doesn't show up as any drive letter).

Anyhow if you're absolutely sure your DVD drive is busted you can always remove the pins (if any on the optical drive) or the connecting part of the drive. Just be careful no loose bits are left that may cause it to get stuck inside your laptop.

Is the connecting part of your optical drive male or female?

 

I think the problem is that the games (and probably other software) has remembered the install path. This is where it expects to find the optical disk.

First suggestion: Use My Computer > Manage to exchange round the drive letters of the internal and external optical drives (first change the internal ODD to an unused letter then move the external ODD to the letter which the internal ODD used to use).

Second suggestion (if the above fails): Trawl through the registry (and any other software specific ini files) and change references to the internal ODD to the external ODD. If the internal ODD was D: then a search for D:\ may be sufficient.

John

 

Nice suggestion John, I like the first one.