Replacing HD-A2 HD DVD Drive?

[crazzeto]

Originally Posted by Cochise

I don't think it's an IDE drive. As I recall the A1/XA1 used IDE drives from NEC, but Toshiba made the drives specifically for the 2nd & 3rd gen players. But that green board at the back of the player says: PC-ATAPI-CN.

Hmm, it looks very much like a laptop IDE connection to me... Not sure how much time you've spent inside a laptop before but that's pretty much what you get with laptop IDE... A think "plastic" cable with wire traces on it, typically the cables have a small peice of rubber on one side to ensure the cable stays in place, and also make sure you can't plug it in upside down. They're quite fragile actually, a buddy of mine destroyed a 386 laptop (years ago) he had just bought by messing around with the keyboard cable.

[crazzeto]

UPDATE:

Replacement HD DVD drive came in (thanks cochies). Works like a charm, and actually I'm willing to bet the old one does too. It was failing because the mounting brackets it was housed in fell apart!!! Grrrr, anyway at least it works and the one I got from cochies feels solid.

BTW, that's totally laptop IDE. Nifty

[Rich86]

Originally Posted by crazzeto

UPDATE:

Replacement HD DVD drive came in (thanks cochies). Works like a charm, and actually I'm willing to bet the old one does too. It was failing because the mounting brackets it was housed in fell apart!!! Grrrr, anyway at least it works and the one I got from cochies feels solid.

BTW, that's totally laptop IDE. Nifty

That is excellent - and now you have a spare drive also maybe?

[crazzeto]

Originally Posted by Rich86

That is excellent - and now you have a spare drive also maybe?

Yep, it would seem so... I'm not so sure it's compatible with my A30 based on the information here though. I'm giving the A2 back to friends whom I had previously given it to before it started acting up.

I just say I was a little peeved about the enclosure discovery. That was a pretty bad QA slipup. Seriously, it was missing screws!

[Cochise]

Originally Posted by crazzeto

UPDATE:

Replacement HD DVD drive came in (thanks cochies). Works like a charm, and actually I'm willing to bet the old one does too. It was failing because the mounting brackets it was housed in fell apart!!! Grrrr, anyway at least it works and the one I got from cochies feels solid.

BTW, that's totally laptop IDE. Nifty

Cool, glad it worked out for you. Do you mean the screws holding the drive to the player frame were missing?

No, while I've built my last two desktop PCs, I've never seen the inside of a laptop. I even have an old Gateway laptop that the power connector stopped working. I started to take it apart once, but then was afraid I'd never figure out how to put it back together again, so I bought an external battery charger instead.

[crazzeto]

Laptops aren't that scary... But then again I've been building computers for going on 13 years now so I guess my perspective is different The black screws that attach the bracket that holds the HD DVD drives housing to the unit it's self was missing completely, both of them. I realize that when I pulled the drive and the bracket immediatly fell off. Then the bracket on the left side fell off when I was carrying the drive upstairs!! It's no wonder the drive door was having issues opening and closing! There was nothing keeping it aligned!