optical drive for thinkpad A22e

[napalmdog]

hi i want to upgrade my cd-rom drive to a combo or dvd-writer driver. however ibm drives are hard to find here and are a bit pricey if i cant find them. i can only afford other brands as they are cheaper (panasonic, toshiba, samsung, etc). could you give me some tips in what to make note of in buying and installing a combo drive. what size (12.7mm?) and connection type (IDE/ATAPI?)

what other things should i be aware of? thanks!

[fongj]

Hey napalmdog,

I was in a simliar situation as you, except I wanted to move up from a combo drive to a multi-burner. I hoped that I could possibly find one for cheap in the FS/WTB forum, but instead, I got great advice on getting a DVD-burner:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=13772

[napalmdog]

thanks fongj!

so the "rails" you guys were talking about is the black plastic things on the side of my ultrbay 2000 cd-rom? i just have to unscrew those and replace them in the new replacement drive for it to be able to fit the bay? then possibly trimming the faceplate to fit the thinkpad

[fongj]

Yup, from my understanding, that's exactly it.

Also, the ND-6650 is a few dollars cheaper today from newegg... So if you're thinking about this option, today is a good day to buy.

[napalmdog]

i got the toshiba 6472 drive. your right i just unscrewed the black things from my old ultrabay drive and placed them in the new dvdrw and it wokred fine. i need to cut the faceplate though but it still works even if i didnt, it protrudes a bit though

thanks again

[fongj]

Cool, glad it worked out.

[kuo_david29]

you can looking for "UJ-831S" super multi,
made from Panasonic OEM.
12.7mm.

and can use IBM's front brezel.