Thinkpads Forum

I picked up the laptop this morning.

I thought it was going to be a 365 but turns out to be a 390E which makes me very happy. Amazing what a big difference a 2626 makes versus a 2625.

However, the CD-ROM drive appears to be dead. Will not read a music CD I put in. I can hear it try to read it, but can't.

Is there anything further I can do to diagnose it?

If not, can I replace just the CD drive?

If I can replace just the CD drive, will a spare TP 600 CD drive work?

Thanks in advance.

hi.

a light, gentle lens cleaning may be all you need, but...
for an in-depth look at your hardware, if you haven't already seen it, open the pdf here:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... SHY-45WM2V

from pg109, it looks like your bay options are:
FDD ASM 05K8978
CD-ROM ASM (SANYO) 05K9075
CD-ROM ASM (LG) 05K8979
if the drive you have is indeed dead.

for reference, from pg103 of the 600's hmm, the bay options are:
CD-ROM Drive 05K9045
CD-ROM Drive 20L1926
Diskette Drive 05K8874

i don't know whether any of the fru's are interchangeable. sorry.

hth a bit.

I tried cleaning the lens but no go.

Then I downloaded PC Doctor diagnostics from IBM website, and it reported a failure for the CD drive.

It looks like I can put my spare Thinkpad 600 CD drive in after I remove it from its hardware. Hope that it is a problem with the drive and not the ribbon cable to the drive.

Edit:
The spare CD drive for the Thinkpad 600 that I had is a smidgeon taller than the 390E's broken CD drive, but it was okay. The faceplates are different and not quite compatible which means that part of the bottom of the floppy drive metal case is exposed. In the 390E's combo drive, the floppy drive sits atop the CD drive. However, this exposed metal is not visual unless you are looking from below the laptop. I'm installing a fresh install of Windows 98 as I type.