Laptop DVD drive - freezes OS. External case options?

Jump to First Reply
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Hi all,



An issue has just developed with my trusty, albeit ancient, home laptop - a Pismo G4 550/120GB/768mb. i have had this machine for a couple of years, it was a bargain buy and has served me well as a web surfing, minor multi-media and basic FCP 4.5HD editing machine. soon after purchase i swapped out the flakey LG DVD-ROM for a pioneer KVR-06, which has been an excellent drive and i recently replaced the hard drive which had started to pack up.



Anyhow, a couple of days ago the machine suddenly locked up in the middle of burning a dvd - i lost all keyboard/mouse/touchpad functionality and everything froze. i did a hard re-boot, and it got stuck on the grey start up screen and wouldn't boot any further. i disconnected everything (including ejecting the battery and the optical drive) except the power cord and tried again and she booted right up.



the first time i slotted the optical drive back in, it froze up straight away again. the next time (after another hard re-boot) it seemed to work, but then later froze again during another burn.



i went to my local computer parts dealer, pioneer laptop optical drive in hand, and asked if it would go in a 2.5" external USB2 case. at $12, this looked like a cheap work-around for the problem. i was a tad flabbergasted when the fellow behind the desk said "no. that will only go in a laptop, there are no external cases that will fit it".



so 2 questions:



1- does anyone know what would cause the computer to suddenly have these issues with the optical drive? is it possibly related to it being a hot-swappable drive? or is it simply the sign of an aging computer....?



2- did this salesperson at the computer store know what he was talking about when they said there were no cases to fit the laptop dvd burner?



(in the meantime i shall google away for 2.5" enclosures that may do the trick)



now before anyone says 'just buy a new MBP', that is what i intend to do this year, but i hope to keep this little classic going all the same.



thanks in advance for any advice that ppl may have!



sennen.
Sign In or Register to comment.