Replacement DVD-RW or BD drive for X50

Hi All,

Its been a while though some of you might remember me from my X50 days. Well a recent HD crash, dead battery, broken power adapter, dead optical drive and faulty fan have sent me in search of an upgrade. Since Samsung doesn't make anything like the X50 anymore, I'm looking at either Lenovo Thinkpad or HP Elitebook. Whilst trying to make a decision either way, I've decided to attempt to give my X50 a new set of legs.

So far i've purchased a new power cord, battery, upgraded the ram to 2GB and bought an intel X25m G2 SSD drive. While waiting for these to arrive, i'm looking for a replacement optical drive. I've searched the web but can't find anything. If possible i'd love to upgrade to Blu Ray but i'm quite willing to settle for a DVD-RW drive similar to the one that came with the notebook. Any takers?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

A couple of questions:

1. What is the make / model of your current optical drive (check the details in Device Manager)?

2. Does the optical drive have its own IDE channel or share one with the HDD/SSD (Device Manager > ATA / ATAPI device > properties - the optical drive will be the UDMA-2 device)?

The reason for these questions is that I would expect the optical drive to have an IDE connector and the channel settings will reveal whether you need a drive that is set to slave (ie shared IDE channel). If the optical drive has its own IDE channel then the master / slave setting is irrelevant.

John

 

Thanks for the quick reply John. Unfortunately sinc ethe HD crash, I can't check these things anymore. If it helps the exact model is X50 WMV 2130 purchased from Germany.If there is anything I can check on the outside of the notebook i'd be happy to do so but at the moment booting up is not possible.

Thanks

 

You may be able to find out some of the hardware details by looking at the system info in the BIOS (I can't remember which of Esc, F1, F2 or F12 pressed while the Samsung logo is showing will get you into the BIOS setup).

Alternatively, you will have to remove the optical drive to see the model number.

John

 

I just looked in the BIOS (F2) and theres nothing about the drive there. Pulled out the tray to have a look and nothing either. Or did you mean disassemble laptop nad completely remove drive? How do I do this?

 

Yes, you will need to remove the whole optical drive module. It is probably held in place by one screw about 13cm from the edge of the computer. This screw may be on the bottom of the computer or it may be under the keyboard (that's where it was on my X60).

To remove the keyboard first remove the screws marked "KBD" on the bottom of the computer and slightly lift up the (probably the front) edge to get it clear of some small latches along the front? edge and sides. Once free of the latches lift the keyboard enough to be clear of the palmrest and then slide it forwards to release some tabs along the back edge of the keyboard. Once the back edge is free, flip the keyboard over. [This was the procedure for the X60. The X50 is probably similar.]

John

 

Thanks John, You're the man!

Pulled the drive and its a Panasonic drive manufactured June 2005. Model # UJ-822B. HW 1.01 FM 1.00. SEC S/N PHBA5901545ABIXV5A40197.

Now i googled and found that the drive appears to have been used in loads of computers. Do i need the samsung specific model or will any work? Also i'd like to get a Blu-ray or better DVD writer replacement if possible but will settle for the same drive if i have to.

Thanks again for the help.

 

OK. That's a 9.5mm high burner with PATA / IDE interface.

You need to search around for any other burners which meet the thickness and interface requirements. I can't see any quickly. The current crop of 9.5mm drives are SATA.

I think you will have even more difficult in finding any Blu-ray devices with that thickness and interface.

John

 

I found this on Ebay and am looking to pull the trigger. Is this the correct drive?

Panasonic UJ-822b 9.5mm slim dvd burner writer - eBay (item 120562360924 end time May-26-10 20:10:26 PDT)

 

There is no reason I can see for why it won't work.

John

 

Okay cheers.