h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Definately sounds like the drive is dead to me then. A new CD ROM drive shouldn't set you back more than about £10, or a DVD burner from £20.

Sorry, that was an answer to the Vista post.

Is it hard to install a new drive?

Also, will any drive fit in any computer? Could we use the drive from the Pentium 70 in a Celeron 1100?

if the drive was dead would the light on it still flash when a disc is inserted? Also, there is a flashing picture of a disc on the computer screen for a minute or so after that.

Dead easy, it can be done in a couple of minutes.

* Unscrew the side panels with a posidrive screwdriver
* Remove the four screws holding the CD Drive in place
* Unplug the cables from the back of the CDROM drive
* Slide out the old drive
* Slide in the new one
* Reconnect the cables
* Screw back in place
* Stick the sides back on

Yes the light may still flash even when it's dead. It flashes when it tries to read from the CD, and if it can't it'll eventually give up. A CD lens cleaner might help, although it's likely to only be a very short term solution.

"Also, will any drive fit in any computer? Could we use the drive from the Pentium 70 in a Celeron 1100?"

As long as neither one of them has a strange shaped front panel it should be fine (some manufacturers had a tendancy to design 'curvy' PC cases with custom-built fronts to the CD drive and floppy disk.)

Fitting a new CD drive is pretty simple...

Remove the side of the case.

Find the CD

Remove the (four) screws that hold it in place (two on each side)

Remove the connectors from the back (they just pull out)
- There are generally three connectors
- The power supply (white plug - about 1" across with four wires
- The data cable (a long male strip connector on a ribbon cable)
- The sound output (not always fitted - little tiny plug - used to connect the CD to the sound card without passing through the motherboard)

Pull the old CD drive out of the front of the machine

------------------------
That's the old one out of the way, now fitting the new one...

Look at the back of the CD you've just removed, you should see, alongside the long double row of connector pins, a smaller group of (normally eight) connector pins - they might have a small 'jumper' joining two of the pins.

It'll look something like this:

. . . .
. . . .

Check which two (if any) pins are connected together...

Look at the top and bottom of the drive - there should be a diagram somewhere of that connector, giving several alternative settings of which pins should be connected together.

The alternatives should be something like this

Master / Mstr / M
Slave / Slv / S
Cable Select / CS

Figure out the setting you had on the old drive - go to you new drive and make sure it's set to the same alternative (the tiny 'jumper' just pulls off).

One point here - don't simply put the jumper in the same place as it was on the old drive - different manufacturers use different layouts...

If your old drive was set up as 'Master', look at the top of your new drive to find the pin settings for that particular drive and set it up as 'Master' as well.

-----------------------------

Then, slot the new drive into its hole
Attach the three connectors:

- The power cable (can't go in the wrong way up as its chamfered on one side

/----\
------


- The data cable (check which way up it goes - there should be a pin missing out of one of the two rows of pins in the CD and a similar blank space on the connector.... I.e.:

::::::::.::::


- The little audio plug (which should have a small clip on it to stop you putting it in the wrong way round.

Then, just replace the four screws to hold it in place and away you go.



It sounds a lot harder than it actually is - don't worry, once you can actually see the connectors it'll seem a lot clearer.

D**n Croz - sounds a heck of a lot simpler the way you explain it

If you're doing any work inside your computer its best to take static precautions. Obviously this is a very minor thing you're doing, but try not to shuffle across a shag carpet in slippers beforehand or touch exposed circuit boards or anything like that.

Its best to switch your PC off at the mains, but leave it plugged in. That way the case will be earthed/neutral. If you keep touching the case then you will be earthed too.

Not something to worry yourself too much about though. Changing out computer parts is actually really easy.

"Changing out computer parts is actually really easy"

Unless the computer you're trying to work on is an HP Vectra!

- Non-standard sized motherboard (You can't fit a standard motherboard in the case - and you can't fit the vectra motherboard into a standard case!)
- No way of disabling on-board graphics and sound
- Non-standard PSU
- Customised front panel on the floppy drive
- No second IDE channel

All in all - a complete nightmare to do anything on!

Thank you. I will print out your instructions and let the boy try at the weekend.

If he decides to save up for a DVD drive would he fit it exactly the same way?

Yup. The only possible difference is that the DVD drive might have an additional, second audio cable - the one you've got already fitted to your old drive will still work, but the new one might come with a digital audio cable as well (with a slightly different plug).

Unless your computer's sound card has a digital input you can quite happily ignore it. (And even if your computer _has_ got a digital input - unless you're planning on listening to classical music by plugging your computer into several thousand quids worth of HiFi amplifier, you can still ignore it ).

Have a quick look at this site...

http://www.fonerbooks.com/r_cd.htm

It'll give you a rough idea of what you'll be doing.

Should be fairly safe with the likes of the Red Hot Chilli peppers, Blink 182 and Green Day then.

Could be worse Whisky. I once did foreigner work on a colleague's home PC, a Tiny running Win98. Evil thing it was too, Tiny had hot glue gunned in place everything that you could possibly want to modify and desoldered the unused card bays.

http://www.fonerbooks.com/r_cd.htm

"The CD drive is mounted with two crews through each side"

Oxford and Cambridge for example?

What's this boat doing in my computer???

perhaps the crews are waiting for a front side bus.

Or they may have just drifted in on the current.