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    Optical Drive Upgrade ideas?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by LordOOOL, Nov 1, 2008.

  1. LordOOOL

    LordOOOL Notebook Guru

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    My old optical drive seems to be crapping out but i don't know anything really about replacing it.

    I'm on a Dell M1710 that needs to last me till the summer (if not longer). I know how to remove the old one, but what else do i need to look for/do in order to do the upgrade?

    And also, any suggestions on something cheap and quick? How much is blu-ray down to?
     
    LordOOOL, Nov 1, 2008
    #1
  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Is your existing burner IDE or SATA? It is most likely a standard "slim" 1/2" (12.7mm) thick unit.

    If IDE then they only thing to check in Device Manager that the burner has one IDE channel (usually secondary) for itself (look for a device with a current transfer rate of UDMA-2). If so, no potential problems. If the burner shares the same channel then you have to look for a new burner that is preset to slave setting.

    Liteon are usually reliable and I would avoid Matsh!ta. If you look around you might find a slot loader (but I personally don't like them since they are noisier and a pain if a disk gets stuck) or LightScribe.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Nov 1, 2008
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  3. LordOOOL

    LordOOOL Notebook Guru

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    How do i find out if it is IDE or SATA?\

    And your whole second paragraph eludes me :confused:
     
    LordOOOL, Nov 1, 2008
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  4. awdark

    awdark Notebook Consultant

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    [​IMG]

    Might look different on XP but the idea is about the same.

    I have always wanted to replace my optical drive with a second hard drive.
     
    awdark, Nov 1, 2008
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  5. LordOOOL

    LordOOOL Notebook Guru

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    Well i remembered i had some software to tell me this kind of stuff (thanks anyway though i tried to figure it out myself first). Here's what is said:


    General Capabilities
    Channel : Master
    Type : ATAPI
    Interface : ATA
    Removable : Yes
    Present : No
    Model : HL-DT-ST DVD+/-RW GSA-T11N
    Revision : A103
    Serial Number : KX575C63933
    ATA/ATAPI Approved Version : 5.19

    Transfer Modes Support
    Maximum PIO Mode : PIO-4
    Maximum DMA MW Mode : MWDMA-2
    Maximum UDMA Mode : UltraDMA-2 / ATA33

    Transfer Modes Active
    Current Active Mode : UltraDMA-2 / ATA33

    English anyone? lol
     
    LordOOOL, Nov 1, 2008
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  6. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    I was going to say his had ATAPI cd drive. My friend has a XPS 1710.

    I dont think your laptop optical drive is broken. I can say that with a pretty high confidence, only because optical drives generally do not go bad, they go dirty.

    Open the tray loading drive on your system.
    Grab some q-tips and some rubbing alcohol
    Put a little bit of alcohol on the q-tip, and than gently press the q-tip against the small lens on the inside of the drive.
    (The lens is a small shiny circle about 2-3 mm wide)
    Use very gentle swirling motions to clean the lens. This may take a few minuets to clean. Just keep going at it until the lens is clean.
    Than when you think its clean enough, put a cd in and see what happens. Like 90% of the time just cleaning the lens fixes the problem.

    If the problem does still continue, than its time for a new optical drive.
    The Pioneer DVR-K17 is a great choice.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Nov 1, 2008
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