Ultrabay questions/A31p

[smf]

Hi,
I've burnt an iso, made bootable disc (tested in another machine)
Now my A31p only has the DVD-ROM drive not the newer multi. So when I bought blank DVD's, i got DVD+R, as opposed to DVD-R is that way It would read to boot? Is there a better multi-drive for A31p systems? Will a DVD-R disc read? i have bios 1.10, what is the best drive for A31p? What's the best way to utilize the lefthand side of laptop?
Thanks for any positive feedback friend,
thx.
JIM

[ajkula66]

The disk should boot with no issues.

As for the best use...that depends on your needs. Another HDD in a caddy, FDD, numpad...you can put pretty much anything short of a Blue Ray in there.

Do bear in mind that there are two separate types of BIOS releases for A31/p series. Shoving the wrong one down the machine's throat will kill it.

Personally, I'd leave the BIOS "as-is" unless there were issues with the system that I was confident a BIOS update would fix.

[smf]

An Ide or sata hard drive caddy on left side? The bios update reflects the update when i boot into bios, so i only assumed it was without issue, again the model is 2563-a4u. I still ant figure why it will boot cds and not Dvds. its a dvd-rom drive, dvds will play on wmp in win.

[ajkula66]

The bios update reflects the update when i boot into bios, so i only assumed it was without issue,

I don't understand what you meant here. Can you please clarify ?

I'd put the HDD caddy on the RH side, your media drive can go either way but that's me.

[kfzhu1229]

An Ide or sata hard drive caddy on left side? The bios update reflects the update when i boot into bios, so i only assumed it was without issue, again the model is 2563-a4u. I still ant figure why it will boot cds and not Dvds. its a dvd-rom drive, dvds will play on wmp in win.

I personally find the support for DVD+R/+RW for these DVD-ROM drives to be pretty hit or miss. I use DVD-R/-RW personally for better compatibility and I have no issue booting a DVD-RW with Windows 7 installation on it on my A30p, though this is with CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive. And my A30p DVD-ROM drive got modded and fitted inside a ThinkPad 600, yet it can still boot off the same disc no problem (though the installation itself cannot continue due to the lack of ACPI support)

[smf]

Why no blu-ray?

[ajkula66]

Why no blu-ray?

1) There isn't a Blue Ray drive that will fit in the UltraBay...not surprisingly for a 2002 design and

2) Even if one was available, the processing power of the system would not be sufficient for trouble-free watching. Much newer units choke with one.