Thinkpads Forum

My IMB 770X DVD drive has died. I have looked on Ebay for the exact DVD drive replacement. It sells for about $40 Canadian.
I have not been able to find a DVD/ CDRW. Can I buy a DVD/CDRW drive from an other model thinkpad and but it into my DVD drive caddy?
Will this work? Are all DVD/CDRW drives compatable if I but it in to my DVD caddy? Any help would be very helpful.
Thank-you
Paul
Toronto, Ontario Canada

I researched this quite a while ago and just ended buying some retrofitted drives off eBay. (cheaper and less hassle)

There were no factory "-RW" drives from IBM for the 770. The 770 used a unique optical drive caddy, so that no other Thinkpad caddy will work. Some folks have retrofitted newer CD-RW, DVD, and various combo drives into a specific 770 caddy(s?). These drives will work but my experience is that they do not hot-swap well and occasionally do not get recognized the first time. Also, the face plates do not match the 770. I bought two off eBay (a newer DVD drive and a CD-RW drive) and they work well enough for me.

[skip to the end if you are not interested in the details...]
[from memory... correct me if I forget something...]
The typical 770 drive contains a 17mm(?) raw optical drive. The drive height indicates a lot of things about the drive's form factor, including the connector placement inside the caddy. This is the limiting factor in choice of replacement raw drives. There are no 17mm "-RW" drives made that I could find.

There were a few 770 drive caddies that used a more common, smaller raw drive (15mm?). I know that one of the two DVD drives is one and I have been told that one of CD-ROM drives is one but have never actually seen one. If you have/get one of these DVD drives (can't remember if it's the Toshiba or the M a t s u s h i t a drive) AND get the right replacement drive, you can make your own "-RW" drive... hopefully. I tried to build one and it did not work. (I don't know for sure that my replacement drive was good to begin with since I had no way to test it.)

My advice is to buy one from a reputable seller and hold them respnsible to make it work. (If you have the right caddy, you can ask them if they would give you a credit for it... might be worth a couple of bucks.)

The SR8171/05K9066 DVD drive (M a t s u s h i t a) is one of the more "standard" casings that you can probably swap something else into (best to look for a replacement drive that's slot loading if possible as the drawer bezel won't fit)

If you have a USB port, an external slim drive might be a better option. I bought a USB 2 card and an external DVD-RW drive for burning CDs. I can take it with me and wait until I have access to power to burn CDs. The really nice thing is I can use it on my desktop also for making copies, and of course I can use it with my other laptops.

There's something to know before doing the mods. If you disassamble the DVD-ROM of your 770X into the bare ODD module and bezel (guide or connector), you can put the ODD "bezel" of 770X to a new DVD/CD-RW Combo. Then it will fit to the drive bay of your 770X.

However, some early models of the 770 series could not be modified in this way, because they have a "film" connector between the ODD module and bezel. This kind of "film" connector is not being used anymore.

So you need to disassamble your DVD-Rom to know what kind of connector is used. If it is a "soket" type not a film, you can easily exchange the modules. Any standard-sized DVD/CD-RW Combo drive will be OK as in the case of 600E/X.

Kurt wrote:There's something to know before doing the mods. If you disassamble the DVD-ROM of your 770X into the bare ODD module and bezel (guide or connector), you can put the ODD "bezel" of 770X to a new DVD/CD-RW Combo. Then it will fit to the drive bay of your 770X.

However, some early models of the 770 series could not be modified in this way, because they have a "film" connector between the ODD module and bezel. This kind of "film" connector is not being used anymore.

I've again been looking for some cheap solution to replace my aging SR8171 DVD drive (useless for any "non-commercial"/ie "burned" DVDs), but that ribbon connector seems to be a huge sticking point. I'm lucky in that I have the drive that will swap out for most of the others in terms of size, but I haven't been able to find anything more recent that has the same cable orientation. There's a bunch of Hitachi/LG GDR-8082N drives that turn up on Fleabay now and again cheap but I haven't been able to find any photos showing the cable orientation on that particular drive to determine whether or not it'll work.