Laptop combo DVD/CDRW $150 at PC Liquidators

[beergeek]

For those who were looking for a DVD/CDRW combo for a laptop in this thread last week, I found a NEC CB-2100A (8x8x24x8) for $150 at PC Liquidators. Don't know if it's a great price, but it's $20 less than the cheapest laptop combo on Pricewatch. Only interesting thing is that the NEC site doesn't show any such animal, so I don't know if it's current (the specs imply it's recent, anyway) or anything else about it.

Anyone out there know anything?

ted

 

[Gorby911]

Hmm... great price... will it fit an IBM ThinkPad?? Anyone?

 

[takhyon]

According to this auction page it fits the ThinkPad T20.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2049018064

 

[takhyon]

Looks like it has burn-proof too.

http://www.vob.de/Devices/RecorderN.htm

 

[HeinekinMan]

This looks to be a decent price for this drive. I paid $99.00 for a 8x8x24x Teac bare CDRW drive a while back for my IBM T21. This drive is even better since it will read DVDs without the need for a separate DVD drive like my setup. IBM wants close to $400.00 for a new one similar to this one!

For those buying this and expecting it to fit without modifying, make sure you do some thorough homework! If this particular drive is similar to the one pictured in the ebay link that someone posted, the drive will NOT fit without a "FRU adapter". Not sure what IBM calls it but a "FRU adapter" as I call it is a caddy-type of covering that fits the sides of the drive to ensure a proper fit into the laptop (in this case IBM; the ebay link mentions that this drive will work with the T20). The "FRU adapter" or Field Replaceable Unit adapter is just a couple of plastic side rails and a VERY SPECIAL rear adapter/connector that determines if the drive will actually plug correctly into the internal UltraBay 2000 housing. IBM has a tendency to change the design of this rear adapter/connector such that devices that fit a Thinkpad 600 will not fit a T series, etc. It's keyed and will only work with certain series of lappys.

If you buy this drive and it doesn't fit your IBM, for example, you can do like what I did and buy a used/broken CDROM drive/DVD drive from a vendor that specializes in used parts (Laptop Parts) from a lappy similar to yours and cannabalize it for this "FRU adapter"...I paid like $10.00 for a broken CDROM so it cost me still less than what IBM would have charged for a new CDRW for my T21.

 

[handydave]

There is no way this will work in a Thinkpad T series laptop. The connector is completely different. For the IBM drives there is thin oval connector centered on the back of the drive. The picture on ebay shows what looks like a small edge connector on the right side of the drive.

 

[paulieside]

nice price.. but gives me a headache just reading about how to connect this ish

 

[Beldar]

I went into thier store today and they had one of these things mounted in an IBM T20. They removed the existing CD-ROM and replaced it with one of these. It looked like it was a perfect fit.

The only down side was that the IBM was black and the drive was white or beige.

 

[shopper94519]

Any idea if this will work in a Dell Inspiron 4k?

 

[beergeek]

Judging from the eBay picture, and comparing it to the back of th CDROM drive from my Dell C600, it isn't an exact match for that either. For people who have taken bare (laptop) drives out the plastic surround (caddy?), is the electrical connector part of the bare drive or part of the carrier (which would imply an adaptor as part of the carrier)? I would prefer not to take my existing drive apart before knowing about this .

 

[shopper94519]

It looks like NEC introduced this at CeBIT in March 2002. Here's their announcement:

http://www.nec-cebit.com/press_detail.asp?press_id=58

It doesn't show up on the US NEC site, but it is on the German site:

http://www.necd.de/productdetail.php?id=148

I still can't tell if this will work in my Dell Inspiron 4k, but I can say that inside the caddy, there's an adapter that plugs into the drive's ide connector. I did this with a Toshiba drive a few years ago and added some spacers to kludge a fit into the drive bay. I think the part number for the ide adapter is 2935D.

A check at Pricewatch shows that the Ebay seller, HMR LA, has it in their storefront for $99.95, here.

 

[beergeek]

Originally posted by: shopper94519
A check at Pricewatch shows that the Ebay seller, HMR LA, has it in their storefront for $99.95, here.

I like that price! Anyone done business with HMR before and have any comments?

These guys also have a selection of other combo drives (Sony CRX800E, Panasonic UJDA710, TEAC DW-28E, Toshiba SD-R2102, Toshiba SD-R2002) some new OEM, some pulls, for prices ranging from$95 to $115. The $95 one is slower (4x4x6x24), the others are all 8x8x24x8, and I don't see anything to choose amongst them except price, so the NEC seems the most promising. Anyone know of anything particularly good or bad about any of these units?

Having looked at the pictures and at my existing CDROM drive, I'm pretty confident that I can replace both the caddy and the bezel successfully (bold claim!). I'd prefer to get either a dead drive to cannibalize or a bare caddy/bezel, but I haven't found either, at least not at a reasonable price.

 

[DesiRich]

Nevermind...

 

[shopper94519]

Just to follow up, I ordered one from HMR and received it today. It was fairly simple to dissassemble the caddy for my Dell Inspiron 4K CDRW and put this one in. I couldn't swap the bezel so I had to trim with scissors to make it fit. It seems to work great!

 

[beergeek]

What was the difficulty with mounting the Dell bezel? Were the mounting holes in the wrong places or did the cutout/keying not match the front of the disk drawer? Was it close?

 

[manholdup]

I got my DELL 24x DVD/CDRW combo from a friend for $100. He had a spare and was going to eBay it. 24x - CDR/10x - CDRW/8x - DVD/24x CD-Read

 

[fr]

Originally posted by: beergeek
What was the difficulty with mounting the Dell bezel? Were the mounting holes in the wrong places or did the cutout/keying not match the front of the disk drawer? Was it close?

I just finished sucessfully converting an Archos MiniDVD external drive into my Dell 24X CD-ROM bay. The connectors and mounting holes were exactly the same. The Dell bezel is curved at the top and 1mm shorter than the Archos one, but I unscrewed it and trimed it with regular scissors.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: beergeek
Judging from the eBay picture, and comparing it to the back of th CDROM drive from my Dell C600, it isn't an exact match for that either. For people who have taken bare (laptop) drives out the plastic surround (caddy?), is the electrical connector part of the bare drive or part of the carrier (which would imply an adaptor as part of the carrier)? I would prefer not to take my existing drive apart before knowing about this .

all laptop cdrom drives are a standard 44 pin. they just put adapters, to change the shape of the port on most removeable laptop designs.

 

[fr]

Yeah, what he said ^

 

[beergeek]

Originally posted by: frI just finished sucessfully converting an Archos MiniDVD external drive into my Dell 24X CD-ROM bay. The connectors and mounting holes were exactly the same. The Dell bezel is curved at the top and 1mm shorter than the Archos one, but I unscrewed it and trimed it with regular scissors.

(Same question to shopper94519, for the NEC drive) The bezel you trimmed was the Archos one or the Dell one? Where on the bezel did you trim? (I took the bezel off my existing CDROM and tried to picture this trimming, without success...)

 

[fr]

I had to trim the Archos one because I was putting the drive into the Dell casing. I have an Inspiron 4100 so I don't know if mine is the same as yours. On my Dell CD-ROM, the top corners are curved, but they are flat on the Archos drive so I just clipped off a little bit. The Archos face is also 1mm longer on the right side. I had no problems trimming that off either.

 

[shopper94519]

I took the bezels off the three drives I have:
Dell Inspiron 4k CDRW, the new NEC combo, and a Toshiba DVD

I was hoping to be able to switch either the Dell or the Toshiba onto the NEC, but the connectors didn't match up. So I just put the Dell bezel against the new NEC one and trimmed off what didn't match up. Also I had to trim the upper left and right corners so that it would clear the caddy more easily. The bezel is putty-colored and my Inspiron 4k is black, so I just colored it over with a black magic marker. There's a blank space on the lower-right side, but the caddy keeps stuff from going further than 1/2" in, so I'm not too worried about that.

By the way, I tested the overburn with Nero and CDRDAO and it works pretty good.