External USB CD drive for the 240/240X

[catback]

Anyone know of an aftermarket USB external CD drive that will work with the 240X line of Thinkpads? I haven't had any luck finding the original external drive so I was considering one of the many external USB models.

[teetee]

I wonder if TEAC CD-210PU will be what you are looking for.
The one that I have was made in March 2004 and use only one USB cable. It also has the volume wheel and the phone jack so you can listen to audio CDs but I guess you still need to connect it to the computer to get the power. I like the thin profile it has with metalic feeling material on the casing. Compare to lots of other cheap plastic one with split cables(one for data and one for power) I like teac one much better.

On 240x it doesn't boot from CD. None USB drive are bootable on TP240x. If you need something bootable there is a PCMCIA cdrom from IBM (which is hard to find). You can always boot from external floppy drive too.

[thinkpad adrian]

two styles were used, both still avalable as new (surplus) stock. the origonal "IBM portable drive bay" ibm fru#37L1511, (do advanced search on e-bay searching both title and description).
the portable drive bay
is pc card only, and needs a "ultra slim bay" cd rom (not included, but is out of a 600/600e/600x
style laptop), the kit comes with the drive housing, pc card/cable
stand, and drivers. the other to use is a "portabel drive bay 2000",
ibm fru #19K4480 (do an advanced search on e-bay for it using "search title and description"
uses a later style cd rom (ultrabay 2000 cd rom) also not included, but comes with both a pci and usb adapter card, drive bay adapter, a/c power supply, stand, and drivers. i have personally purchase both styles
new in the box off e-bay for less that $60 each. your other option is to buy a ide to usb adapter (under $15.00 off e-bay) comes with a power supply, and ide/usb adapter. allows a desktop cd rom to be hooked up to any U.S.B. port as an external drive.
one last thought, if you want to boot off any of these drives,
be warned that the pci card adapters are actually scuzzi drive adapters and it is IMPOSSIBLE to directly boot off of them.
they all need a floopy drive attached to the computer, with the floopy booting first, loading the drivers to run, and then let the
cd rom take over. the usb adapters MAY be able to boot directly
providing you have a bootable cd in it, AND the bios is set to
boot from U.S.B. when i installed xp, i used the 6 xp boot floopys,
(they have the drivers to recignise the usb/ide adapter).
to install
98, use the driver floopys that come with the ibm drive kits. (no way
to boot from the ide/usb adapter with 98, no drivers avalable).
good luck, adrian
.

[phool@round]

floopys = floppies. TA, it made for an interesting read!


catback, you now have a wealth of information to sift through!