How to replace a busted laptop DVD-drive? [SOLVED]

sundialsvc4 · Guru Joined: 10 Nov 2005 Posts: 436

One of my laptops, a Sony Viao PCG-FX140, has a busted DVD-drive.

I simply don't feel comfortable ordering a spare-part from a company that I've never heard of in Singapore.

I'd like to know more about what my options are in this case. The part, if I had it, is easy to install. It also occurs to me that maybe the drive is an entirely-stock part and I just don't know it.

I'd also like to know of the BIOS ROM can be "flashed."

Where are the sources of information that I don't yet know about . . . ? Thanks.

chrism · Guru Joined: 15 Jul 2004 Posts: 526

What country do you live in?
And what's the company's name?

widan

bjd · Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:41 am Post subject:

The drives (on the laptops Ive used at least) are all standardised. They do however usually have mounting hardware and connectors specific to the laptop bolted to them. Once you get that off the drive underneath is the same. You just have to transfer these bits to the new drive, problem is due to their size they usually have screws with impossibly small heads, so a thin scredriver and patience is necessary

The faceplate may also be a different design/colour, but again they just snap into place.

fangorn · Veteran Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 1886

If the front panel of your built in dvd drive has a missing corner (for usb connectors or something) you can either forget it or damage your laptop or your new drive (with loss of waranty) to get it in. And even then there is the possiblity the laptop builder used a oem version of the drive, which has a switched connector. That means it is not recognized, becaus all slimline drives are master cableselect usually and the oem versions are sometimes slave cableselect. For some of the drives the manufactorer delivers a firmware update, but in my case there only was a window tool and windows did not recognize the drive at all. :evil:

To make it short, this can be a really sh***y issue

sundialsvc4 · Guru Joined: 10 Nov 2005 Posts: 436

I'm located in the USA.

This Sony Viao is particularly easy to get into: a top panel is held on with one screw, it slides slightly sideways to come off, and then the entire keyboard simply folds upward towards you. The hard-disk enclosure and the DVD-drive enclosure are then "right there." Both are held on with a couple of screws, and the DVD-drive simply slides out.

I guess that "slimline" is the magic-word I was looking for: do retail computer-stores customarily carry such parts?

Fangorn, I'd really appreciate it if you could explain a little bit more about "switched connectors." I understand, of course, the distinction between "master" and "slave," but in all the drives I have seen so-far there was a jumper that allowed you to select both modes.

For what it's worth, /dev/cdrom is /dev/hdc, which I believe would make it the master drive on the second chain that's (must be...) in this unit. (Is this supposition correct?)

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I'd like to "flash" the BIOS ROM because APIC support doesn't work... "the ROM version is too old," saith Knoppix, while Gentoo's universal-CD simply froze without "NOAPIC" (this before the drive died).

Mark Clegg · Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 7:35 pm Post subject:

As bjd says, they're nearly always the same basic drive once you've removed the custom faceplate, mounting brackets and connector converter.

The other thing you need to watch for is the position of the eject button. It does tend to wander around a little from drive to drive, so you may find that your front panel button doesn't line up with your new drive's button, so you'll be stuck having to use software eject.

sundialsvc4 · Guru Joined: 10 Nov 2005 Posts: 436

Okay, thanks. What kinds of "connectors" can there be? What is a "switched" connector?

fangorn · Veteran Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 1886

As I tried to explain:

The connector is standardized. No problems there.

But some drives (the ones for laptop builders, mainly the cheap ones) are switched in connection logic. That means, for them to be found as a master drive on the secondary IDE port they have to be addressed as slave drives by the controller chip :!:

If you put in a standard drive in a notebook that wants drive with switched connection logic, the system will see a secondary IDE port with only a slave drive. Windows cannot handle this at all, Linux can handle it in a failsafe mode (non performat at all). But as I said, most drive manufactorors only get you flashing utilities for windows, so ...

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sundialsvc4 · Guru Joined: 10 Nov 2005 Posts: 436

Upon buying a slimline drive, I was able to replace it by disassembling and reassembling its carrier.