Laptop DVD drive death. Best option?

[spinpug666]

My Toshiba laptop (circa 2005) dvd drive has died. Whats the best option?
Never had to replace a drive in a laptop before, so not to up on the info.
I'm thinking of just buying a seperate dvd drive connected via usb. This seems the laziest option but dont want another power supply, as the laptop lives mostly in the kitchen and i'm already using 2 plug sockets for it as i've a 1TB HDD connected for music.

[kernow]

Can't you get a replacement on ebay? Whats the model number?

Oh, it might be integrated I guess, mines a multibay device you can just press and it pops out, easy to replace in that case.

[spinpug666]

Think its specific to Toshiba. Can't pop it out. Looks like i'd have to get funky with it's bad self to get the drive out. Never opened a laptop before!

[CMcK]

Most of the Toshiba laptops I've repaired have been quite easy to do. Which model do you have?

[randombs]

You'd be surprised. It could simply involve removing one or two screws on the base of the laptop to release the drive, or perhaps popping out the keyboard and then removing the drive locking screw that way. As CMcK has said, Toshibas are easy to sort out. What model/number laptop is it? Satellite?

If you go into Device Manager, you can find out what model the drive is and then look on ebay for prices. I wouldn't go for an external drive unless you really cannot risk opening the laptop up enough to replace the drive or cannot find someone to do it for you, but if you do, you can get external laptop as well as desktop dvd drives, just like you can get external laptop and desktop hard drives, and the laptop ones don't usually need a power supply (although the ones on ebay I'm looking at use one usb port for data and one for power).

[Strolls]

Usually they're just two or three screws on the underside of the laptop and the drive pops-out. Look to either side of the drive's tray and about 5" inwards. Post a high-res photo of the underside of your laptop somewhere if you want a hint.

It'll be a standard EIDE optical-drive in the laptop form-factor. It doesn't need to be the exact model, just as any EIDE optical-drive will work in a tower PC. If the front fascia on the tray is curved or styled in some way then it will usually pop off if you're careful and you can put it on the replacement. There are usually a couple of bits which are bolted on the side of the drive's body in order to mount it in the laptop, and you just unscrew these and put them on the new one.

You'll be able to use something like this: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sony-...PATA-Black-OEM
Make sure you don't buy a SATA one, for a laptop of that age!

There are actually two standard thicknesses for these drives - a few are 0.2mm thicker than all the others, but these are not very common, so you're best off not worrying about it and returning it if it doesn't fit.

[randombs]

Not necessarily. Usually, the firmware for IDE laptop optical drives determines whether they're set to master, slave or cable select, there are no jumpers you can set. Get a drive that's been set to master and it won't be recognised if the laptop hard drive is also set to master (again, I'm pretty sure this is set in the firmware for the hard drive) unless the hard drive is removed. Worse, I've had situations where a laptop would not even power on (appearing completely dead, no lights, no fan, nothing) because the hard drive I put in was set to slave instead of master!

Toshibas (and probably other manufacturers, too) are very picky over things like this (they want the hard drive as primary master and the DVD drive as secondary master, nothing else), as I had to change the drive in a Toshiba and had to try about four or five different drives until I found one with the same setting. I've also found this page which helps confirm this. It's also taught me something - namely that you may be able to solder pins to change the setting, which I might try myself one day, especially if I come across a DVD drive whose firmware I can't find/flash.

[Strolls]

I've absolutely never seen this. I wouldn't say I've replaced tonnes of laptop optical drives, but I've certainly replaced a few. I have replaced tonnes of laptop hard-drives. I've never paid any attention to master / slave settings and I've never had any problems. I always assumed that they simply used one EIDE channel for the hard-drive and one for the optical-drive.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I've never experienced the problem you describe.

[randombs]

I hadn't either, until I came across it last year or so. I was all set to resign a laptop at work to the scrap heap but my boss told me about the master/slave business and that's what it turned out to be. The symptoms vary depending on the laptop, and some just won't mind.