We have a Dell tower from roughly 2008 and inherited a newer Dell tower recently. Newer Dell has a busted CD player. If I take the CD player from 2008 Dell and install it in Newer Dell, what else would I need to do to make the older CD player work in the newer computer?
Nothing, if they both have the same types of plugs on the back, Just unplug both the connector and power from the bad one, and plug them into the good one. If they don’t, you’re pretty much out of luck, as you’d be better off buying another one with the right plugs.
Edit: Well, you’d probably also need a screwdriver to get them out.
nothing else.
CD/DVD drives are very standardized devices that windows knows how to speak to natively. As long as they are both (most likely ) SATA then all it will take is undoing a few screws, sliding one out, slide the other in, reconnect a couple plugs and you are in business.
Please turn off/unplug computer while doing this
Yes I know most are hot swappable, but stray dropped screws can do bad things to an energized machine.
BigT, Isilder and drachillix: I thank you for your know-how.
drachillix, it does my heart good to hear a fellow un-plugger testify. Spread the word!
Again, thanks.
Update:
If you’re like me, you want to know how these things turn out; at the very least, so I won’t repeat the same mistakes.
2008 Dell’s CD drive was not compatible with Newer Dell :smack:–it is not SATA (I learned a new thing, so not a total waste of time).
Newer Dell’s CD drive was not busted, after all, just malfunctioning. A spring-loaded door gets pushed down by the tray sliding out and covers up the open/close button and the previous owner undoubtedly strong-armed the tray closed which made said tray “jump the track”–a plastic stud somewhere inside wasn’t in place to do its job. Take out tray, put it back in, Shazam!
This will come as news to no one: the repair took about 15 minutes. Prep, clean-up, troubleshooting, swearing, Band-aids and all that good stuff took 3-1/2 hours +/-.
But it works!
Thanks again to my three cohorts for their input.
I see the news of my patented “take it apart and put it back together again” school of computer maintenance has spread to the world. Good, good…
::Bemused sigh:: What’s your cut? 