CF30 DVD RW Swap-R2 Problem!

I have obtained a Sony Optiarc AD-5540A drive (csel), plus a HP UJ-851 light-scribe drive.

I did understand from other threads here that the drive needed to be set as master for the bios to see it/them, now here is the problem, neither drive is set as master as we know and theres no "R2" solder connections on the cable assembly. Apart from directly shorting pins (45/47?) with a piece of wire, I'm open to suggestions?

The pictures are of the oem ribbon cable assembly from a Panasonic CF-VDR301U dvd-rom/cd-r/rw caddy.

 

All of the R2 conversation refer to the CF-29 caddy. NOT the CF-30. You should be able to just swap them out. I have not tried it myself.

 

Hi Rusty, I agree the R2 connections are in/on the CF-29 drive cable/ribbon, but the optical drive is still an ide drive in the CF-30.

I posted a question in another thread about the lack of R2 connections in the cf-30 caddy, before receiving the drives, hoping (foolishly) that the CF-30 had moved over to cable select... ....but didn't get a reply.

Apart from a very delicate soldering job (pin45 to pin47) on one of the ribbon cable connection plug legs the only answer appears to be purchasing a drive
set to master, has anyone tried sorting the pins inside the optical drive?

If there was a firmware flash from slave/csel to master things would be easier... .

 

If you know which pin on the drive side needs to be grounded to make it master then you should be able buzz out the pin to the bigger connector. If you are lucky the adjacent pin will be ground and you can just dab some solder to bridge across the pins. The next best thing would be to open up the drive and do the grounding inside the drive.

 

Have you tried them as-is? I recently tried all this on a CF-51 and it didn't matter. I tried all the drives the CF-29 would not recognize without the R2 mod on the CF-51 and it saw every one of them. It wouldn't hurt to try your two drives as is.

I just pulled my DVD drive from my CF-30 and it is almost identical to the CF-51 one. The difference is the "retractable handle" or whatever you want to call it. My suggestion is to just try your new drives as is. When you power up, go into BIOS and see if the drive is shown there.

 

I've fitted both drives into the caddy before posting this thread, neither are seen by the bios as bootable drives, required for OS installation but XP sees them as plug n play.

Not a problem as long as you never need to re-install the OS, l'm looking for a firmware upgrade/hack at the moment to make the drive a master, hopefully.

 

Good luck with that, it is almost impossible to get firmware for these laptop drives. if you find it, it will most likely be on an obscure japanese website. A while back i did find some firmware for a drive I was trying to make master but there was no option in the firmware to make the change. Needless to say it did not work.

 

For those trying to mod Sony DVD-RW's theres info here, seems that all you need is an IDE to Slimline adaptor (which l don't have) and a desktop computer to flash the drive from Slave to Master.

I ended up getting the soldering iron out for a bit of delicate soldering between contacts 45 and 47 on the rear of the drives main connector on both drives.

The picture is of the HP Lightscribes socket, the Sony AD5540-A Optiarc drive doesn't have the connector mounted on a pcb, instead there is a ribbon cable attached to the connector and the pcb components have been moved to the bottom of the disc slide. Personally l found the Sony drive easer to mod.

Both drives are seen by the bios now.

hth

zzr

 

Good job! Great pic!

 

Wow! I did not realize how great this soldering was until I saw the actual size. The UJ870QJ did require this. Any updates on a good DVD burner that are set to master?

 

Reviving this a little.
I have a CF30 mk1, bought the vdm302u a couple of weeks ago. keeping my old caddy for a back-up. Finally figured out how to pull it apart.
After removing the left side screw and rear right side screw, you extend the tab (easier) and remove the 2x screw retaining it to the caddy, exposing the channel to the last screw holding the caddy to side. Its a mother putting back in. magnetic tip you better have. remove 2x screws on back of unit and use a small flat tip to gently pop retaining tabs out.
And then...its held on by sticky glue around the housing. very gently, using a small flat tip seperate housing from unit.
Now seeing how easy it is to do, want to replace with a better unit for my caddy.
So, .....wanting to use a blu-ray w/o soldering together pins, does anyone know of any that are already set to Masters? If not, what about at least an DVD+DL w/ Lightscribe capabilities?
Thanks in advance.

 

Forget blu-ray on your cf-30 mk-1 as the video memory is too small to display moves
I have a blu-ray writer in my cf-30 mk-2 that works well as I have 384MB of video memory
The pins usualy need to be modded by joining two connectors, but I always try the drive first to check if it is found in the bios and is bootable
If you need help ,if the drive is not bootable after the dvd-rw upgrade I can look up what to do
I have done quite a few cf-74 and cf-30 optical mods

 

Thanks. Have been lurking here for awhile. The search on this site blows, so figured I'd ask/post. Have had my cf30 for several yrs, not a single problem out of it yet. work in security, so keep it mounted in car good bit of the time. since speaker isnt the best for movie playback, I decided surround sound in the car was best option. hook the headphone out jack with the 1/8 cord to your radios `AUX' jack, and its amazing what a movie sounds like. I digress though.
Thanks for info on video mem, never knew that. Got a dvd lightscribe for my cf29 on ebay, works fine, but wanted one that can also do D/L for my CF30. any good ones out there you could recommend, that doesnt require pin soldering? can prob do, but not that confident in hands. will use my old caddy for new drive when I get one. talk about rare things.
thanks for info.

 

Try this search, replace the word "Test" with what you are looking for
TEST site:forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic - Google Search

 

Link to my old post in the cf-30 thread
Info on a dvd-rw drive there that does not require modding (UJ-831S)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/4893908-post102.html

 

Thanks for info. Found one but not sure if it does LS. here is link: Matshita UJ-831S UJ-831D laptop CD DVD DL drive burner - eBay (item 160531148965 end time Feb-10-11 17:36:33 PST)
might have to copy/paste it. Havent looked for a laptop drive before, so not sure. Is this the only one? my internal caddy is a vdr301u. also, about video mem you posted, is their anyway to upgrade a mk1's?
sorry for so many questions, just dont want to buy a drive I cant use as bootable. dont mind spending some on a good one, just dont need a collection. Have been reading a lot on here, and this is the most informative site I've found. Have got a lot of questions answered here. again, thanks in advance. and not wanting to keep hijacking this thread, so if its easier to start a new one, please advise and will do so.

 

This item will works but again make sure it will work for you and know what your doin. No return!!


ohlip

 

-?- It works but make sure it works for me? Ok, i'm def to tired to catch this. I'm going to go on a limb here and figure its LS capable. Know what I'm doing? Am trying to keep from modding anything. Doing my best `KISS' for this, believe me. It might help to state I'm mechanically inclined. my specialty is bigger things like trannys and engines in my 94 Crown Vic PI. Doing wiring for yrs. Just bought a cf29 base last week, stripped with a wwan hookup inside. building a cf29 for wife, the mousepad was missing a small chunk, so just completely disassembled the CF29, swapped out motherboard and all, and had it back up and running just a few minutes short of 4hrs. for a 1st time ever, I did good. only had 1x small part left over I couldnt find. small flat silver piece about 2 1/2" long, about a 1/2" tall with a slot about the size of a pcmcia, with tangs drooping over each side. came out near pcmcia. couldnt find it on schematic. whats a rebuild w/o a couple leftover parts anyway? Not really good with electronics, but can tackle the physical aspects of things. Yes, it works fine, it was a stripped `SBC' with only minor blemishes.

~~I digress again. -Sorry- tis late, and my little ones both have the flu. sleep happens,....sorta.~~

I realize no return, which is why I dont want to do something silly. I would rather buy one and only one drive and be done with it. Also looking at the UJ-851 and UJ-861. 861 seems a little faster. Does anyone know if it would work or need to be modded? Am learning as I go, thanks.

 

The left over is the retainer on the base of the PCMCIA slot. Its like a reinforcing link on the base of the connector. But you need to dismantle the whole thing again to install this piece.

ohlip

 

Since it has the prefix D , not S like I posted ,there are no guarantee's

That brand that you are linking to has the benefit of having the same front bezel clips ,so you can remove your specialty front bezel that the cf-30 uses that provides a space for the spring loaded puller thingy lol

Then you go and ask about other models not mentioned as compatible without soldering connections
There is no list,we here solder to short connectors if the drive does not work (98% of the time btw)

My advice at this point of time is for you to buy a fully modded cf-30 dvdrw and sell your old optical dvd/cdrw , or have someone here mod a dvd multidrive for you

The video cards that the cf-30 uses are not removable, they are a chip built-in on the motherboard and share ram with the motherboard and this is not upgradable like a gaming or high end laptop ,so you are out of luck on any upgrades

 

Thanks for the pcmcia info ohlip and tom for the dvd info. I truly have no idea what the prefix codes are for the drives...anyone have a list? Am taking it the `S' prefix code on units means its a `?'. and not wanting to come off sounding wrong, but wouldn't that actually be a suffix code? will try searching for that info. nothing wrong with the vdm302u I got about 2wks ago, just would like a LS model now that I have the extra caddy to play with. thanks again for video info, never know until you ask.

Found out the type of bezel on front. the ones on ours are referred to as `G' models, which are snap-ins, while the screw-in ones are referred to as `B' models. Nice to know since I can use my old bezel or not, as new ones dont have the cut-out for the tab. saw someone here awhile back used a dremel tool to trim it down. would buy a kit of 5 in case a boo-boo. hate to sneeze while doing that.

**bangs head on keyboard**
Going to have to start a new thread here, this is getting overwhelming.
Some say code is for bezels, others state it the difference is between dvd-rom and dvd-ram. trying to figure out different models is beyond annoying. is their a sequence to know what I'm looking at?