Laptop DVD drive

[silvermusic]

Just discovered my Sony Laptop DVD drive has died.

It's a spare machine, though £1000 new in 2004/5, trying to locate the exact drive is a bit of a needle in a haystack several second hand drives available which I'm loath to spend £30+ on but none new. I'm wondering if it's possible to fit another new drive in it. The laptop is a Sony PGC-K315M and the drive is actually a Pioneer DVR-K14VAS.

Failing that I can buy an external DVD Writer for around £30, though not sure I can boot from it to reinstall the system software?

Any ideas/suggestions.

 

[JoyDivision]

You should be able to boot from an external drive fine. It does depend on the BIOS but a 2004 model should be ok. The great thing about an external one is they come in handy for netbooks too.

 

[shaunb]

Theres usually two main types of optical drives in laptops, IDE and SATA, the same as in desktops just different looking connections.

With that age laptop, its more than likely an IDE drive so any IDE drive would be fine to replace it, the front fascia just clips off the old one and onto the new one.

Sometimes there are separate securing pieces of metal screwed to the drive to secure it to the casing, you can just swap these to the new drive.

Hope this helps.

Shaun

 

[nr-ts]

any IDE drive would be fine to replace it, the front fascia just clips off the old one and onto the new one.

Thats a bold statement as most fascia's are drive model specific, though some brands remain consistent across a number of models.

 

[shaunb]

Thats a bold statement as most fascia's are drive model specific, though some brands remain consistent across a number of models.

Well all the drives we have replace have standard clips on the back of the fascia and a slot where the clips go into the drive. Just from my experience.

Shaun.

 

[silvermusic]

You should be able to boot from an external drive fine. It does depend on the BIOS but a 2004 model should be ok. The great thing about an external one is they come in handy for netbooks too.

Had a look at the BIOs tonight, first chance I've had what with Xmas. It can boot from the hard drive, internal DVD drive, a network or a floppy drive (heaven knows how it doesn't have one or any way of connecting one ). No way of booting from a USB drive on the BIOS.

I agree about an external one, it would come in handy next year when I hope to buy a netbook. However, the restore DVDs that came with the Laptop, I'm not sure if you can restore from an external drive with these, I have a feeling the machine needs to boot from DVD for these to install properly. guess the only way is to try, at worst I'll be left with an expensive brick. LOL

 

[Ewins]

Your original Optical drive DVR-K14VAS is SATA 12.7MM Tray loading DVDRW, you can try to change a new internal dvdrw or an external dvdrw, for the external one, it will be more convenient, and only about USD25