CD/DVD drive brackets **LARGE PICS**

[ramcelroy]

I need a drive bracket matrix? Is there any way to tell which drive manufacturer's drive brackets will work with which retail drive?

I adapted a Pioneer DVR-K16 to work in my A31p. I was able to use the drive brackets from a Hitachi CD/DVD drive (the M a t s u s h i t a drive brackets did not work).

I would like to do this again but I need drive brackets. There are numerous CD-ROM drives on ebay that I could harvest the brackets from but I have no idea if they are compatible.

Does anyone know if the drive brackets for Hitachi, LG, Toshiba are the same?

Thank you for any help

[rkawakami]

The A31p uses the Ultrabay Plus system for the optical drives. It is downward compatible with Ultrabay 2000 equipment. As such, there are three pieces which need to go onto any drive you wish on install. They are the two plastic side rails and the Ultrabay connector at the rear. ONLY drives designed for the IBM Ultrabay 2000/Plus will have these rails. If you are trying to buy cheap/broken drives specifically for the rails, then you need to concentrate your search for ones which are described as Ultrabay 2000 (not Ultraslimbay or Ultrabay Slim; two other bay standards).

Also, since the Ultrabay 2000/Plus bays have a "notch" to them (the right side of the drive bay is wider at the top), you may have to perform some surgery on the faceplate (bezel) of the replacement drive. A Dremel or hacksaw is all that is usually needed:

http://www.rkawakami.net/ibm_t2x/u2k_bezel_mod.jpg

I have taken CDRW/DVD combo drives and UJ-820/UJ-840 DVD burners and swapped the rails from CDROM and DVD drives and put them into T23s (Ultrabay 2000) and 600X (Ultraslimbay) systems.

ref: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/UltraBay

[ramcelroy]

Thank you for your reply. In addition to the excellent information provided there is one missing piece of information. Some drives have male connectors (outie) and some have female connectors (inie).

When I went to install the Pioneer DVR K16, I learned that this drive has a female connector (on the back of the drive) and requires a male Ultrabay adapter to plug into it. When I tried to use the Ultrabay adapter from the M a t s u s h i t a drive, I learned that this drive has a male connector (on the back of the drive) and requires a female Ultrabay adapter (just the opposite of the Pioneer). I was fortunate to have a Hitachi CD/DVD drive that also had a female connector and the corresponding male Ultrabay adapter which is what the Pioneer needed and it worked perfectly (Dremel required).

Before I purchase old drives on ebay to get the Ultrabay adapters I was hoping that someone could tell me which manufactures use the male Ultrabay adapter (like Hitachi) and which manufactures in addition to M a t s u s h i t a use the female adapter (so I can avoid these drives).

Thank you again.

[rkawakami]

Up to now I've been under the impression that all 12.7mm optical drives conform to a standard connector at the back corner of the drive. Every Teac, M a t s u s h i t a, HLDS and Toshiba (those are all that I can remember without pulling every single drive out of 25-some-odd systems) optical drive that I've tried swapping out of their original setups (Sony, HP, Dell, IBM) had the same connector. Picture of it is here:



On the left side is the rear of a HLDS DVD drive (GDR-8081N). On the right is the Ultrabay 2000 adapter as it has been removed from the drive and rotated about the axis at the right corner. The drive has what appears to be a female type connector since the matching plug fits inside of the connector's shell. Are you saying that you have 12.7mm drives with different connectors? If so, can you post a (small, < 50KB) picture here and specify what the model numbers are?

[ramcelroy]

Thank you for the photos. Here is my attempt at the same. The first photo shows a M a t s u s h i t a UJ-830B on top of a Hitachi GCC-4160N. The Hitachi is upside down so the two connectors can be seen side by side. The Hitachi is exactly as you have described. But the M a t s u s h i t a UJ-830B (top) is different.

The next picture shows the UJ-830B male connector with the female Ultrabay adapter

The next picture shows the whole assembly in front of the UJ830B

I have a two M a t s u s h i t a UJ-811B drives that have the identical connector as the UJ-830B. However, the Pioneer that I bought connects like the Hitachi.

[rkawakami]

Thanks for the pictures, but can you shrink them down about 50%?

I think I've figured out what the difference is. The UJ-830B drive you have pictured shows a 92P6575 FRU, which according to IBM/Lenovo is an Ultrabay Enhanced device.

(ref: Thinkpad Multi-burner Service Parts)

The Ultrabay matrix at http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/UltraBay says that you need an adapter for an Ultrabay Enhanced drive to fit into an Ultrabay 2000/Plus machine. That adapter looks like what you have pictured. It's a single frame that screws onto the drive, whereas the "normal" Ultrabay 2000/Plus rails consists of three separate pieces; the two thin side rails and the connector/adapter on the back.

(ref: User guide for Ultrabay Enhanced Drive Adapter)

Does this all make sense?

This is still disturbing if the drive is 12.7mm thick as I had assumed that all such drives used the same connector at the back. I've converted UJ-820 and UJ-840 drives from their "natural" configuration to an Ultrabay 2000 environment by swapping the drive rails. I've never run into this type of connector before.

[ramcelroy]

It does make sense and thank you for the solution.

If I understand it correctly, the connector for all 12.7mm drives should be compatible with the ultrabay 2000/plus drive rails. So I should be able to purchase old Ultrabay 2000 drives and use the drive rails on new laptop optical drives.

The exception to the above statement would be these M a t s u s h i t a Ultrabay Enhanced drives and possibly other Ultrabay Enhanced drives. These drives are 12.7mm thick.

I tried to shrink the pictures down. Let me know if you want them smaller.

Thanks again.

[Lockheed]

I took out my DVDRW Ultrabay Enhanced drive and now I'm trying to find out how to plug it in by USB. Is there some converter/adaptor for that connector (the top one on the picture), or does anyone know how is this connector named?