Panasonic CF 51 DVD Drive Replacement Issues

Hi,

I need to replace my DVD Drive as it has finally bitten the Dust.

I didnt want to spend an arm and a leg getting an OEM part as i didnt seem it cost effective considering the age of my laptop now.

So i did a little bit of research and discovered that the Panasonic Model number UJDA770 Drive is a rebranded Matsua UJDA770 Drive.

I have obtained one of these drives and fitted the replacement.

The drive powers up but it is not recognised by the Bios or the OS.

Does anyone know if panasonic did something odd to the drive or am i missing an obvious step?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance


Coxy

 

New drive is probably Cable select..It needs to be set as Master for the Toughbook to see it..We don't have the firmware to do that so you have to connect pins 45 and 47 on the inside of the drive.

here.... http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/666623-panasonic-dvd-rw-cd-rw-drive-ide-uj-820b.html

 

Shawn,

You were SPOT ON!

Thanks ever so much for the pointer!

Little bit fiddly but soldered across without too much mess and now have a working drive back in my trusty 51.

Thanks ever so much

Kind regards


Coxy

 

Welcome to the Panasonic Toughbook Forum

What is your full model number ? The 51 is a great Toughbook and if you have a MK3 then it can be upgraded to a Core 2 Duo and give it some new life.

 

My Model number is CF-51RCVDNBE

If memory serves it was the cheaper model

 

Core duo 1.66. Go on ebay and get a T7200 cpu for about $20,kick the ram up to 4gb and hang on. It will run great,don't forget the cpu paste.It's a very easy job to replace the cpu.

 

The T7200 is the best bang for the buck and will open up 64bit OS options, but A T2500 isn't too bad either, sometimes easier to find and I think I paid 6 bucks for one last time. I have a mini ITX build with it right now, but it's 32 bit only, with a 6570 ATI card It can play Skyrim on Med Settings.

 

Check this out... http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/526150-cf-51-cpu-upgrading.html

 

Well guys,

That was a LOT of reading lol.

I have taken the plunge and ordered a T7200 from fleabay for £12 delivered. I am going to hold off on the RAM as I don't have much funds left to play with at the minute.

I will however be looking at upping the ram to 4GB, as well as increasing the HDD as well.

Do you guys think the DVD Drive/HDD caddy are any good? And are they hot swappable or do i need to power down, remove DVD drive, Stick in 2nd HDD and then power on?

Also anything i should look out for when i am updating the OS to win 7 x64? Should i avoid it and stick with ubuntu?

 

I had a HDD in the DVD in my CF51. From what I remember, a SATA HDD will work but it takes a little bit longer to boot.
The original DVD is PATA/IDE..It will work best if the HDD in the DVD bay is PATA/IDE....But they are hard to find and expensive.
They are hot swappable when using the PATA/IDE....The SATA conversion can be finicky..it depends on the drive and the adapter.
If I recall....sometimes I had to go to device manager and do a hardware refresh.....

I spent the extra and put a PATA/IDE HDD in the DVD in my CF52...Works every time and is hot swappable........NO issues....
The CF52 will not boot with a SATA HDD in the DVD..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/671264-cf-51-2nd-hard-drive-media-bay.html#post8622064

http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/471261-2nd-hdd-caddy-dvd-bay-sata-pata.html#post6070831


https://www.google.com/search?num=20&safe=off&pws=0&q=cf51+2nd+site%3Aforum.notebookreview.com%2Fpanasonic&oq=cf51+2nd+site%3Aforum.notebookreview.com%2Fpanasonic&gs_l=serp.3...3129.7610.0.8220.8.8.0.0.0.0.284.1269.0j7j1.8.0....0...1c.1.45.serp..8.0.0.izVN7R1xgPw

 

I recently found both 7200 rpm100gb drives and 5400 rpm 250gb drives both ide,the pair of 250's cost $134 and work great.The 100gb is easy to find.Market has gone to blazes now that the 51's and 29's are fading out so prices are decent.

Windows7 runs great on a 51 with a T7200,sold a bunch of them,2gb of ram will do for now until you can kick it up.

 

Well, I have done the CPU upgrade to a T7200. Very pleased with the results and speed improvement on openelec and linux mint.

Things to do:
1. Get more RAM, 1GB is not enough for media handling
2. Expansion bay HDD for media storage - not booting

It appears i have caught the upgrade bug