Thinkpads Forum

Having an issue with the optical drive in my T61p (1.41-inch 4:3, 8891-CTO) - I insert a disc, and it just sits there making noise and blinking the activity light. Never seems to actually recognize that it has a disc inserted.

Noticed this over the weekend while trying to burn a DVD for someone; the only troubleshooting I had a chance to do was to remove the drive from the laptop and reinsert it, this did not help. I ended up connecting the USB external drive from my work laptop and was able to burn with that.

I am going to try a different disc in the drive (a commercial one this time, instead of a blank DVD+R), but I suspect that the drive may simply have failed in some way. I don't have the FRU number of the drive I have now handy, will have to pull it out of the computer again tonight and jot it down.

If the drive's not recoverable, what are my options? Am I confined to just the OEM options (either New-Old-Stock or refurbished) for something to fit into the ultrabay (of whatever variety this thing has), or is there an aftermarket option? I'd like to stick to an internal drive, if possible.

Yeah.... I've had a few drives over the years do this, I just replace them. See if it reads CDs or pressed DVDs, maybe it's just one particular format and you can use it in another application. For example... the BD-RE drive in my W520 reads Blu-rays fine, but is cranky when reading DVDs sometimes.

The drives are ridiculously cheap on eBay... $5-$10 in general as a starting point. The T6* and T4* series use the same drives, although the bezels are different - if you'd like to widen your search criteria.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what the search criteria should be, beyond taking the calipers and measuring the thickness of the one I have (pulled it out this morning and checked, it's FRU 39T2829, the "Ultrabay Slim DVD Multi-Burner III Drive").

From what I found on Thinkwiki, sounds like it's a 9.5-mm drive that's basically a rebadged Hitachi GSA-U10N - does that mean that in theory I can use any drive of that thickness?

Rob Mayercik wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2019 12:13 pm

From what I found on Thinkwiki, sounds like it's a 9.5-mm drive that's basically a rebadged Hitachi GSA-U10N - does that mean that in theory I can use any drive of that thickness?

No. The connector on the Ultrabay Slim drives are proprietary. Comparison image: http://mcelroys.itprinciples.com/CIMG0460.JPG

Ultrabay Slim (and Enhanced) on top, standard IDE optical drive connector at the bottom.

As theterminator93 has mentioned, the T60 (T60, T60p, T61, T61p) and T40 (T40, T41, T42, T43) families both use Ultrabay Slim drives, and are interchangeable.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. Guess I'll track down one on eBay that's the same type as mine, and close to the same build date or newer (mine shows build of 12/2007).

Appreciate the help.

Quick update:

Never got around to ordering another drive, but I did try some other discs in mine:

1. Commercially-made music disc: worked fine
2. Commercially-made data disc: worked fine
3. Blank DVD+R (from same spindle as the one that touched this whole thread off): worked fine.

So it seems like maybe that one disc just didn't get along with my drive. Going to stick with the one I have for now and keep my fingers crossed.