Thinkpads Forum

the usb port works fine with everything, and I know the cd-rom drive works with other computers. It is a portable usb powered cd-rom. It might have even come with the computer. It was bundled with the refurbished unit.

It works fine with my desktop. The thinkpad detects it in XP and will eject if I right click on the cd-rom drive and click eject. The issues is when I try to play a cd. The cd-drive doesn't start up, it just makes a clicking sound. Again, it spins up fine and works great on any other system.

Any ideas? I'm totally lost and need this thing working.

Some USB devices draw more power than they should. For desktops, where power isn't a huge deal, this may not pose a problem. For notebooks, where power is a paramount concern, it can cause problems.

If you want to test to see if this is the problem, plug a *powered* USB hub into the thinkpad, and plug the cdrom drive into the powered hub. If it works there. . . your CD drive is drawing too much power. I suspect this is the case.

Haha, that sucks since it was bundled with the laptop as a factory refurb.

I guessed that was the case too because it works fine with my desktop.

I guess this is the incentive more me to buy an ebay ultrabay dock/drive.