Toshiba Tecra slimline drive replacement

Hi
A friend of mine owns an older Toshiba Tecra laptop (about 4 years old, not sure of the exact model) with a TEAC combo CD Burner/DVD reader. He wanted to swap this drive with a new DVD burner, but when I had a look I realized that his TEAC has a long slimline IDE connector, its connector is about twice as long as the one on my own NEC slimline drives (ND-6650A and 7551A). I tried to find a new burner with a long connector but in all cases the sites don't mention the type of slimline IDE connector, and I suspect most of the modern drives available online will have a small connector which won't fit on the Tecra. Any advice will be appreciated. If anyone knows of any links on a DVD burner that features the long connector, please post. Thanks!

I guess most drives will now have this IDE connector as it's somewhat standardized. Are you sure that your old drive does not use an adapter to make it fit? Similar to something like the following one?

The adapter would be fitted on the Tecra's connector not on the drive itself, is this right? Couldn't notice anything fitted on the Teac itself, so I'd probably have to open up the Tecra to remove the adaptor. Thanks for the input Liggy!

For me the adapter was connected to the old drive. I removed some screws and could remove it from there and attach it to the new drive. Maybe you can take a photo of your drive, showing the connector?

You were right Liggy, the drive itself has the adaptor screwed on it, so it's just a case of removing it and attaching it to the new one. Thanks again!

i own a tecra 8100, 8200, 9000 and a 9100. all of these are within the time frame you describe for your firends tecra machine.

i have never had any trouble installing a slim line nec drive in any of these machines. simply use the exisitng adaptor that comes with the current drive.

be aware however that these tecra will want to install the nec drive as a secondary master when the nec drive will insist upon installing the drive as primary master.

this will leave you with 2 choices: modify the setup info on the drive to be a reverse (see liggys site) or modify the adaptor with solder. look around here for how to do that.

perhaps the newest optiarc drive will permit a more flexible setup in a tecra of that era.

the drives from nd6750a and back will not.

This is definitely a problem of Toshiba not complying to standards what I could find out by checking Optiarc firmware. The drives default to using Cable Select. This means a proper implementation would make the drive decide whether to use master or slave. Unfortunately Toshiba laptops indicate they need a master drive but actually need it set to slave. That's why you need to change the behavior on the drive. I'm not sure what setting the tools actually uses, but I assume they're setting the drive to Inverse Cable Select.
The Optiarc slimline drives allow 4 different settings:
Cable Select (default), Inverse Cable Select, Master and Slave.

Went back to my friend's house today and screwed the adaptor on my ND-6650, plugged it in, the Tecra didn't recognize it. Downloaded Liggy's reverse flasher for the 6650, the flasher couldn't detect the drive. Couldn't even access the bios of the laptop, (wanted to disable the boot logo). Tried the usual keys, (Delete and some Function keys), none would do it. Anyone knows which button needs to be pressed at boot-up to access the bios?

I know soldering the adaptor is not hard, I just don't want to take the risk of doing such a mod on someone else's laptop. So I suppose he has to put up with the TEAC.

I'm suprised that big companies like Toshiba are not complying to standards. My Fujitsu Siemens Amilo 1667G had no problems with any slimline drives, I've tried four different models so far (two NEC, one Sony, one Samsung), they were all recognized straight away. And the Amilo doesn't need an adaptor either... Imagine how many new users buy new burners as upgrades for their laptops, only to find out that the drives are not recognized without soldering... Pretty bad for such a big brand as Toshiba...

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Last edited by CyberMan969; 05-01-2007 at 20:24.

My friend wanted me to add:

Toshiba laptops should come with easy-to-see (meaning big print) optical drive upgradeability warnings!

Like hell they will... It's like putting a "DON'T BUY ME" sticker on the laptop...

Better luck next time mate! Just make sure your next laptop features SATA drives...

the drive can't be flashed to reverse because the tecra doesn't recognise it at boot up. it is a catch 22 with no resolution.

i found this is the easiest and least risky way to resolve your problem in the older tecras.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=180871

scroll down to see where to solder the adaptor

If you have access to a laptop with a proper IDE implementation, you could try changing the bootcode there and then use your laptop to flash a regular firmware.

So it's OK to install the drive on my Fujitsu/Siemens and change the bootcode using Liggy's slave flasher, at this point the drive will be flashing constantly but Binflash should still recognize the drive is this right? Then reboot, flash the latest firmware with Binflash, remove the drive from the Fujitsu, screw the adaptor and install the drive on the Tecra, in this case it should be recognized OK. Is is the correct proccess?

Also, this applies to NEC drives, and thanks to Liggy we can change the bootcode in Windows. What if my friend wants to get a different brand in the future, (e.g a LiteOn or Samsung slimline)? I'm not aware of any such bootcode-changing mods existing for other brands apart from NEC. Is soldering the only option for non-NEC drives?

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Last edited by CyberMan969; 07-01-2007 at 20:38.

Changing the bootcode with my tool on your Fujitsu/Siemens should be OK. But I guess the drive won't be recognized by that laptop after the change. So you would have to apply the main firmware in your Tecra already. Flashing the bootcode already makes your drive a slave (ReverseATA) device, which probably is not recognized in the F/S anymore. But the Tecra should see it already.

Thanks Liggy for clarifying the issue, will try it next time I go over to his house.