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Anyone know where I could find a CD-ROM drive like this?

Older ThinkPads from the 300, 500, 600, 700 Series, iSeries, Transnote etc.
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LarBob
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Anyone know where I could find a CD-ROM drive like this?

#1 Post by LarBob » Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:29 pm

I have a ThinkPad 365XD which uses a 2.5” 44-pin hard drive connector for the CD-ROM internally. The connector looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/STqfwYI.jpg (big image so I linked it instead, sorry about low quality but you can see the connector at least). The drive is bad and I need a new one. I can’t find the part anywhere that’s reasonable so I’d like to find a drive that used this same connection. I also have another drive that uses the standard slim 50 pin connector (JAE) but can’t seem to find a good adapter. (Would one like this work? The ThinkPad uses the 4 jumper pins seen in the original picture, so that's why I have my doubts.) Thanks for any help.

RealBlackStuff
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Re: Anyone know where I could find a CD-ROM drive like this?

#2 Post by RealBlackStuff » Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:54 pm

Something wild (and possibly too good to be true): USB Docking Station for IBM ThinkPad 365XD
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.

PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine
.

LarBob
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2017 10:26 am
Location: Louisville, KY, USA

Re: Anyone know where I could find a CD-ROM drive like this?

#3 Post by LarBob » Tue Mar 13, 2018 2:08 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:
Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:54 pm
Something wild (and possibly too good to be true): USB Docking Station for IBM ThinkPad 365XD
What if? haha

automobus
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Re: Anyone know where I could find a CD-ROM drive like this?

#4 Post by automobus » Tue Apr 03, 2018 12:36 pm

You can try to scavenge/loot one from another machine, if you are lucky (right place, right time, right connections, right opportunity, access to e-waste). Subject connector is found in multiple models of early CD-ROM drives for portables. A particularly popular (perhaps the most numerous) contemporary is Apple PowerBook 1400. Should you loot/rob/gut a PowerBook 1400 CD-ROM module, then please do not discard the shell. Pass it on to someone else, who might try to make it to be a 2nd HDD module, or just a weight saver/space filler.

It might help your search to use this phrase: 17mm CD drive.

Possibly of interest, period magazine article: 'Portables with CD-ROM drives won't be standard for a while : Manufacturers still trying to make drives less than 17mm thick' By Yvonne L. Lee, in InfoWorld Dec 19, 1994 (Goolag Books link).

Approximately five years ago, I found a converter board, "just the thing" which you want: it would be mounted on back of a standard SFF-8552 drive, and had a long double-row pin header (for CD audio, ATA, power). This was a product page in some Web shop, such as PCHub. After some years passed, I again searched for this product, but did not succeed. I didn't find a trace of it, couldn't find another part like it. I promise to report here, if I ever again find this converter board.

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