Thinkpads Forum

I'm looking for a replacement CD-R/RW Drive for my IBM Thinkpad 600E. The current drive is a M a t s u s h i t a (UJDA310V) model. Is there some other suitable substitute model that would be acceptable, that I could use?

I've got to figure that a number of other drive models and manufacturers could substitute, and that I could adapt to the IBM caddy.

Any suggestions?

Five out of my six 600X systems have a HLDS GCC-4240N CDRW/DVD combo drive. They should also work for the 600E. Most any 12.5mm high optical drive can be used in the 600's Ultraslimbay. You are correct in saying that the drive caddy (rails) need to be swapped from your existing drive. Seven screws and four plastic pieces are the only things you need to remove.

Is there a particular reason why you are looking to replace the drive. Is it broken or just too slow? The specs I've found for the UJDA310V says its a 20x/4x/4x (read/write/re-write). The GCC-4240N is 24x/8x/8x.

Replacing the drive because its become non-functional. Assume that the optics or some other component have gone south after five or six years.

The alternate model that runs faster would certainly be a bonus. Thanks for the tip on the drive model.

I'm looking now at a cdrw/dvd combo that was bought for my T20 but modified for my 600e. It is a Hitachi model GCC-4160N. Searching by the model number in eBay returned 3 hits (as of writing). The dvd option should widen your multimedia horizon.

I thought the idea of moving up to a HLDS GCC-4240N combo drive on my Thinkpad 600E was a good one. I even managed to snag a used drive off eBay. But when it arrived it was configured in a case that didn't configure correctly with my existing drives.

The drive that arrived didn't have the angled cutout configuration at the rear of the drive and that interface connector seemed to be in the wrong position to align with the ultraslimbay drive internal connector.

It almost seemed to me that the casing had been "built out" to form the drive into a more standard rectangular shape. Although if you looked into the built-out portion of the drive, you can still see the original two-layer shape drive, with the standard angled cutout that would fit my bay is still apparent.

As far as I can tell, and the drive spec labels all suggest that this is a HLDS GCC-4240N drive, but the current configuration is not going to fit. What's the story? Can I reconfigure the casing myself? The connector interface looks not to be re-configurable though - even after I attach the IBM caddy connector assembly. But reconfiguring is the only way that I'd be able to attach the IBM caddy assemble to allow the drive to slide into the bay.

Worse case, I could probably find a buyer at work for the existing drive and I see other HLDS GCC-4240N drives on eBay that look to have the "standard" configuration that would work for me. Any suggestions?

Have not seen what you are apparently describing in the difference in the housing between the CDRW/DVD drives. Can you post a link to a picture or email them to me (use email button at the bottom of my post)?

Okay, got the source of the photos from CDobyns and I've hosted them on my site since they are coming from an eBay auction and the pictures will go away in a little while:

http://www.rkawakami.net/ibm_600x/cdobyns_cd/

It appears that a "full-sized" caddy has been attached to the bare drive in order to make it into a rectangular block. By this, I mean that the area under the right-hand side of the drive where the CD drawer extends over the bottom of the drive by about an inch, has been filled in so that it is flush with the rest of the bottom of the drive. I have not seen this type of arrangement before so if somebody can identify what type of laptop this came from, that would be appreciated.

I've guessed that the entire housing can be removed, leaving a standard bare drive so the IBM caddy can be installed. Hopefully CDobyns can confirm this.

edit: Replaced the two image links with a web page.

Just bought a Samsung SN-308B DVD/CDRW - 8x/24x/8x/8x from Ebay for £5 ($10) - caddy fits straight on from a 600 CD drive, and it runs just great in my 600x. THere is another one in Germany - currently 68p ($1.30) with about 50 minutes to go ... would bid, but they don't take paypal.

It's another success story for the forum, and with special thanks to Ray for both the web page hosting to illustrate my problem and some guidance that got me on the road to a resolution.

Managed to strip off that extraneous drive casing and modify the IDE interface connector and the faceplate bezel. Nice to have a drive that I don't have to swap out between the CD and the DVD. Sweet!

I'm not exactly having a wonderful experience with my DVD player software though. With regular pre-recorded DVDs, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and even the recently-installed Media Player Classic, all seem to work just fine. Unfortunately, when I try to play the DVD's I've made with my DVR recorder unit, none of the software applications will work. I can get the Media Player Classic to work, if I reduce the screen resolution down to 800x600, but then the video resolution isn't all that it can be. Any suggestions as to other software or codecs that I should be using.

yes,the compaq has its adaptor that conceals the universal dimension jae 50pin slimline drives.
each vendor affixes the adapters via 6-7 tiny screws
which can easily be exchanged between drives.
the only complications in regards to compatability is the firmware type which decides where the drive gets detected
ie,ps,sm,ss, etc from my experiences 8 out of 10 drives comes with the more universally adaptive c.s.e.l type of firmware which
is ideal for virtually all thinkpads,dell,compaq laptops.
on occaisions there are manufactures whom deliberately
configure their laptops to utilise the unorthodox firmware
which utilises its specially produced firmware in order to
confuse the consumer into upgrading or replacing a drive
with their specific firmware.one of the most universally
freindly combo drive ,which works even on 760 thinkpads
and evry single laptop tested to date is the quanta sbw xxxx types.
the drives are more robust read more types of media and faster than panasonic /masushita+toshiba brands of similar spec.
all the 600 thinkpads need the csel type firmware,if you encounter
a drive that doesn't allow boot process + or proper detection in windows because of incompatable firmware there are methods
of flashing to the csel type firmware (toshiba,h+l,quanta combos have plenty,on the other hand matushita/panasonic very uncooperative to firmware transitions(region free ok though)

I'm still having a small and continuing saga with my recently acquired Samsung SN-308B DVD/CDRW drive that I purchased.

The operating system seems to be automatically recognizing the new drive, because it shows up as properly ID'd under the system resources. The drive is also working fine for both CD's and prerecorded DVDs (although the previously described problem with home recorded DVD's still persists)

Sporadically though, when I have to reboot, apparently the internal laptop diagnostics must have trouble "resolving" the new drive, because immediately after a system check, the laptop will display a very simple line drawing showing what appears to be a floppy disk and another depicting what aapears to be a floppy disk drive. Along the bottom of the screen there is a graphic of the F1 through F12 keys, with a flashing arrow pointing at the F1 key location. Pressing the F1 key clears the screen and result in the display of an error code : I9990305

Removing the new drive from its bay and rebooting the computer seems to resolve this problem. I'm wondering if this simple graphic that is being displayed is some indication of a sytem call for a floppy disk (or some other information) to be provided?

Any suggestions from the collective audience?

The simple line-drawing you are describing is the laptop's way of saying "I didn't find a bootable drive. Install a bootable disk and press F1 to re-boot". Depending upon how your BIOS StartUp is configured, the system will look for a hard drive, floppy drive, CDROM, PCMCIA, or network to boot from. To find out how your system is currently setup:

- access the BIOS by holding the F1 key down while powering on
- continue to hold the F1 key until the Easy-Setup (BIOS) screen appears.
- arrow/mouse over to the "Start up" icon and press Enter/click on it.
- do the same and select the "Power-on" icon.
- you should see a pictorial diagram of the different bootable resources. At the top, in boxes labeled 1 through 4, are your current settings. The system will boot starting with the "device" in box 1. If it doesn't see a bootable system, it will then try 2, 3 and 4.
- at the top right is a "Reset" icon. If you select this, boxes 1-4 are cleared. This allows you to change the order of boot devices.
- in the bottom half of the display are diagrams which represent each bootable resource:

FDD - Floppy drive
HDD-1 - Hard drive #1 (the one installed inside the HD bay)
Network - ethernet
HDD-2 - Hard drive #2
HDD-3 - Hard drive #3
HDD-4 - Hard drive #4
PCMCIA - PCMCIA
CDROM - CD/DVD drive (typically in Ultrabay)

Clicking on each resource will add that device to the boot list. If the order is not what you want, use the "Reset" button. My personal choice is floppy, CDROM, HD#1. This way I can put in a bootable floppy disk or CD and run diagnostic programs from those media, without having to do anything to bypass booting from the hard drive.

The error code "I9990305" means that no bootable device was found, thus you get the nice drawing of the floppy disk and drive. I doubt that your problem is with the CDRW/DVD drive (unless it's the first device in the list). More likely, you are having a problem with the hard drive. I would suggest that you re-seat the drive in the bay and try booting again.

P.S. The Hardware Maintenance Manual (HMM) for the 600e is available from here. It lists most of the error codes that you might see on a malfunctioning system. The only ones that I am aware of that are NOT in the HMM are the individual keyboard error codes (301; stuck key). Those I have found through trial-and-error and are posted here.

Some good insights from Ray on this problem.

I took a whack at evaluating the boot-up device order. My sense is that while this was a reasonable direction to pursue in solving the problem, re-ordering those boot-up devices seemed to have no impact whatsoever in fixing the problem.

It's very clear that there is nothing wrong with the existing hard drive or the hard drive connection. However, there's a quite clear diagnostic correlation of the problem to the new CD/DVD drive. Although the laptop will not boot-up with the new CD/DVD drive inserted, removing it allows the laptop to boot-up quite normally.

I thought that modifying the start-up configuration was the answer, but it's obviously not the answer this time around.

Alternate thinking or suggestions?

CDobyns wrote:Some good insights from Ray on this problem.

Hmm... some insights but they didn't seem to help .

CDobyns wrote:Alternate thinking or suggestions?

Round two: How about getting ahold of a bootable CD and seeing if you can boot it without the hard drive installed? That should tell you if the CDROM is being recognized or not. If you have a CD burning program, grab a memtest86+ v1.70 .ISO image (.ZIP file) or you could use a Windows OS CD. If you have set the CDROM drive to be searched after the hard drive in BIOS (or removed it altogether), then the only thing I can think of is that something in the CDROM's IDE interface is screwing up the boot process. Any chance you have another Ultraslimbay system you can plug the Samsung drive into?

Been out-of-town for a little while, so have not attempted some of the Second Round fixes Ray suggested.

However, I can report a fix that may benefit others, from the software side of town. I noted previously difficulty in playing home-recordered DVD discs using any of a number of media player programs that are on the list of usual suspects.

I caught a good article in PCWorld and they advocated the media player from Videolan (www.videolan.org/vlc). The VLC media player seems to be quite versatile and plays everything from CD's to DVD's - and probably everything in between (whatever that might be). It solved the problem on my media player issue. Now back to trying to get the CD/DVD drive to be consistently recognized.

Okay, while to my disgrace I have not pursued the second round strategy that Ray suggested, I'm beginning to recognize that this is clearly a software versus any kind of hardware problem.

This seems to be reinforced by the fact that when the computer is shutdown either using the Restart or Shutdown process, the computer is clearly retaining recognition of the CD/DVD drive in the system resources, because I can hear the drive spinning up (spinning down?), as the system restarts or shuts off. On the subsequent restart, the laptop starts up normally, booting correctly from the hard drive, and with the CD/DVD drive showing up correctly in the system resources, and working just fine.

The part that is still in the inexplicable category, is why when the laptop is simply shut off, that the system no longer seems to retain recognition of the current system resources, at least as regards the CD/DVD drive. What is "failing" on the software side of Windows that is causing this? Any other takers on a solution to shoot for?

Hello,

I've too successfully upgraded my old CD Drive, with a brand new DVD-CD-RW Combo Drive.

Everything (and more ) is explained here :

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=



W.

This was a good thread from WarMachine to some guidance to upgrading to a CD/DVD drive. Unfortunately the guidance was pretty generic and lacked much relevance to the particulars and specifics that I'm currently experiencing. Woud encourage mainstream users looking to upgrade to read the thread, if they think they need help.

On the other hand, I could still use some more specific help to my continuing system resource recognition problem.

CDobyns wrote:[...]I'm beginning to recognize that this is clearly a software versus any kind of hardware problem.[....]The part that is still in the inexplicable category, is why when the laptop is simply shut off, that the system no longer seems to retain recognition of the current system resources, at least as regards the CD/DVD drive.

Strange behaviour, and I can't explain it. Ray's suggestion for "round two" testing sounds like a good approach to me. If that doesn't take you anywhere further, then here are a couple other things that come to mind for potential further research.

1. Firmware Upgrade?
The CD/DVD drive that you have may have an old/incompatible firmware version in it that was compatible with the laptop it originally came from, but is not 100% compatible with your 600E. You could try searching the web for a firmware upgrade for the drive. CAUTION: An incorrect, or improperly applied firmware upgrade can potentially render your drive inoperable, and unfixable.

2. OS driver issue?
I don't see what Operating System you are using. Have you updated your OS with the latest patches and IBM drivers? If you are using Win98 then various other possibilities may come up.

3. ThinkPad BIOS Issue?
Do you have the latest BIOS for your 600E? An older BIOS version may cause hardware incompatibilities/discrepancies such as this. This is especially true if you are using Windows XP, as the 600E will not run XP reliably without the latest BIOS.

4. CMOS Battery Failing?
Not a likely culprit, but it may be a distant possibility. If your CMOS battery is failing, then perhaps some BIOS/memory allocation settings are not being properly saved from one boot/suspend action to the next.

5. Conflicting Hardware?
Not a likely culprit, as you would probably have noticed this problem in your Device Manager. But it is possible that you have some kind of hardware conflict in the memory area that your drive wants to operate in. You should see exclamation marks in your Device Manager if this is the case.

6. Other Hardware Failing?
I didn't notice whether you've done a full hardware test on your machine yet or not. It is possible that your motherboard or IDE connector or something is starting to fail and producing intermittent errors. If you haven't done so already, you could use the built-in BIOS hardware tests to see if anything comes up with an error. To access these tests, press-and-hold F1 during start-up and then select the "Test" icon on the Easy-Setup screen.

Phil.