Bad CDRW/DVD Drives

[mpcook]

I am on my second CDRW/DVD drive. I just re-upped my onsite warranty and just in time. They are sending me another drive, again. The drives seem somewhat fragile to me, maybe it's just my imagination. Are there better quality drives to go into a T4x? I would consider buying one, and selling off my replacement drive once I receive it.

Another comment, the last CD I put in got stuck, the drive wouldn't open. I know there is a hole to poke to get the drive one. I asked the tech on the phone how to open the drive to get the disk out - he said he did not know how, and they do not support such a repair. I asked if they would send a technician onsite to do that for me. He said they would if I insisted. BTW, I didn't insist. A sad commentary on TP tech support in any case.

Mike

[ajkula66]

Drives from T6x series fit, although their bezel is "flat" as opposed to "curved" on T4x machines.

If you don't care about that part, the solution is right there...

Hope this helps.

[SteveS]

Are you having problems with just one ThinkPad or several?

I have used or owned close to 20 different T4x series ThinkPads. One T43p seems to be “killing” optical drives. So far, four drives have died while in this unit – one DVD-ROM, two CDRW-DVD ROM, and one DVD-RW. The symptoms are that the drives lose their ability to read either all disks, or just DVDs. Once damaged, they show the same symptoms in other T4x machines as well. Cleaning the lens does not help.

I am suspecting that it is an issue in the T43p. Possibly a power supply regulator that is running over voltage or something similar. I was planning to use one of the dead drives as a load, and solder a pair of wires to bring out the power supply pins to a DMM, but I don’t know what pins carry the supply, and have not had time to trace it out on the circuit board. (if anyone knows this, I would appreciate the information)

Since I have never had an optical drive failure in any other of the T4x machines I have had, I suspect the laptop is the cause, but have not proven this yet. Is this your experience?

[mpcook]

These drives start making noise when a disk is in...they become quite noisy. It's as if the disk is not rotating freely. Very odd symptom.

[mpcook]

Well the saga continues....Lenovo sent me a refurbished drive to replace the broken one. It seems to work fine, but it pops open on it's own frequently which is very annoying. Once I feel up to it, I will call again and get yet another one.

Mike

[mpcook]

My T43 is now on it's 4th CDRW/DVD drive. Have it now for 2 days and will give it a workout over the weekend. I am happy to say that they ship replacement drives very quickly when you're under warranty.

Mike

[madkat]

in my TR451 frankenpad i currently have the original cdrw/dvd T41 drive - worked fine until about one month ago - when it ceased to burn cd's and read dvd... acted as a cd-rom

befor throwing it away - i downloaded the latest firmware from the lenovo site - did the fw upgrade and now it works fine - except when reading dvd's the led doesnt light... but it reads ok

[McLuvin]

my t42 has the combo drive and it doesn't want to read dvd's too much, I can pop in a dvd but it will eventually freeze up the laptop. I did have trouble reading cd's as well but I used a drive cleaner disc and now it reads those fine. I've heard that the combo drives didn't hold up too well and I think I'm going to go with a dvd burner drive. I've never tried to burn a disc with mine I use my desktop for that.