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Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) jsmmd Profile In the original thread in the News area someone asked if a cd-rom drive could be added to the machine. Aside from simply plugging in a USB drive, I now have proof of concept. Even though it's horrible looking. AOL Computers Forum - Adding a CD Drive (Translation via Google) jsmmd / MethodicJon 04-01-2003 21:25:08

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 1 times) Kludgemeister Profile Now that I have Manuel mostly reassembled, one thing is starting to make sense. I removed the blanking plate from the opening below the screen in the inner bezel. When I reinserted the chassis, the top surface ("shelf") of the forward part is right at the bottom edge of the resulting hole. The full-height part of hole is about 5.1" wide and .6" high--just about right for a notebook CD-ROM (which typically is 5.04-5.06" wide by .5" high). The shelf is deep enough for such a drive also. The 50-pin "notebook" IDE connector fits in with this also. The only thing remaining is to make a slot in the cover of the forward sheet metal for the 50-pin cable (which has power lines in it--remember the iopener HD cable?) All that would be remaining would be to mount the drive (maybe foam double-sided tape), cut an appropriate slot in the outer bezel, and either let the notebook CD-ROM faceplate show through, or cut the tabs off the blanking plate and glue it onto the front of the faceplate to help it blend in a little. Notebook CD-ROMS are not too expensive. One is http://www.essencompu.com/nupplysingar.asp?ID=2709 Once the BIOS unpleasantness is dealt with... Kludgemeister (Manuel still boots after my unsoldering and socketing of the BIOS chip. It's just a shame that we don't have the right adapter for the BP Microsysems programmer at work...) 04-10-2003 23:49:50

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile This is a learning curve and a half! Even though the board header is a regular 50-pin 2mm pitch double-row, the connector at the cd-rom end is way different: http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/reviews/article/1448.2 Not at all like the notebook HD cable I'm used to! There is a notebook cdrom to regular IDE adapter at http://www.timports.com/products/electronics/computer/notebook/parts/cdrom/ Last night I did run across a surplus notebook cdrom tray with a short adapter cable to a 50-pin connector, but forgot to bookmark it. I'm still looking! Kludgemeister 04-17-2003 13:09:33

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile Here's the notebook-to-desktop adapter cheaper: http://www.bixnet.com/notslimcdtod.html Still looking for the drive tray/bracket/slide/mount/whatever (trying to remember my search terms is the hard part!) K 04-17-2003 13:36:05

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile adapter is cheaper still ($15 ) at Essential Computers, who supplied my slimline CD-ROM drive. sure wished I'd checked and ordered at the same time as the drive!! 3391 Internal Slimline CD to Desktop IDE Adapter CD-ROM / DVD-ROM http://www.essencompu.com/nupplysingar.asp?ID=3624 04-17-2003 14:07:33

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) jsmmd Profile I've had to learn the hard way on this BBS to put out a dislclaimer. --- I found this on eBay, waiting for an email from the seller. It would apprear to be what one would need to use the 50 pin ide header. I've searched online and can't find a picture of the rear. Please don't bid. We might be able to arrange a group buy at a lower price. (I was about to arrange one for the MB, but SOMEONE got all gung ho! ) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3413376881&category=31536 04-17-2003 14:24:14

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile Well, excuuuuuuuse us for being enthusiastic! Adapter King in Germany has slimline CDROM to 44-pin notebook IDE header adapters: http://www.adapter-king.de/Produkte/CD-ROM-ADAPTER/ADA-CDROM-IDE.htm I've printed out their PDF datasheet and am comparing the pinout to the 50-pin header on the D810EMO board to see what correspondence there might be. Kludgemeister 04-17-2003 15:20:53

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) jsmmd Profile :)- ---- The seller from the ebay auction emailed me back that he could take another picture when he returns on monday. 04-17-2003 15:39:02

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 1 times) Kludgemeister Profile That does look promising, jsmmd. I'm working really hard at not bidding. On the alternate front, the ADA-CDROM-IDE44-DIREKT-A adapter from ES&S/Adapter King (link above) breaks out the 50-pin JAE CDROM connector into a 44-pin data header and a 4-pin audio header. Pins 1-44 of the data header do correspond to pins 7-50 of the D810EMO slim IDE header. It would be pretty easy to make a 2mm ribbon cable with a 50-pin socket at the motherboard end, splitting off the first 4 wires at the cdrom end to go over to the audio header and terminating the remaining 44 in a 44-pin socket. This would not be as cheap as the drive on eBay (assuming it already has a 50-pin header) but it would open up to using any slim laptop cdrom. Kludgemeister 04-17-2003 18:14:51

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile Make that "splitting off the first 6 wires..." The first 4 go to the audio connector, and the next 2 are just grounds, so aren't needed. Kludgemeister (there seems to be a time limit for modifying a previous message, otherwise I would have just fixed it directly) 04-17-2003 19:22:42

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile jsmmd, I think the eBay drive has a Multibay connector--see http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3413501331&category=31563 for another similar drive. The Multibay connector has 68 pins, and the pinout is on the last page of http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~f96maki/freakgrabber/005a1098_ch11.pdf The good news is that the first 43 pins of the Multibay connector are the same as pins 7 through 49 of the D810EMO header. (Almost--there is a device select line where the key usually goes.) A straight-through ribbon cable (with carefully-placed connectors!) works. Pins 44, 45, 46, and 47 correspond to pins 1, 3, 4, and 2 of the D810EMO header. Pins 5 and 6 of the D810EMO header are no-contact still. So I hope the seller has a pile of drives, and will cut a bulk deal! Kludgemeister 04-17-2003 19:44:26

Adding a CD drive - Cheap Adapter (modified 0 times) wvgeo Profile Found the slim CD adapter even cheaper ($9.00 + $7.96 shipping). Go to http://www.idot.com and go to Accessories -> Miscellaneous. Just bought two for a total of $25.96. Someone could buy ten for less than $100.00! As for the slim CD-ROM drives, the weird trapazoidal connector on back of most drives is referred to as a 50-pin connector. The only drive I found that uses a 50-pin IDE connector is an old IBM drive I bought for my Webplayer. I don't have the part number in front of me but you could search the Webplayer thread. I can't rememeber the drive speed either. When I get home I can look at the drive and repost. Dan 04-18-2003 10:03:00

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile Nice find, wvgeo. The 40-pin IDE adapter will be fine, since the D810EMO has an ATAPI input connector for the audio in from the cd. I'm still wondering how Intel intended the cable(s) to get out to the cdrom from the inside of the case. I will probably just cut a slot. Kludgemeister 04-18-2003 10:56:02

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile Kludgemeister: ya mean there ain't no slot labeled cut with Dremel tool HERE on yours ?? actually, my system doesn't have the blank/cutout behind the front bezel for the CD-ROM (like jsmmd's does), so I'm going to be doing a lot of measuring, fitting, adjusting, etc. cutting a slot into the metal case for the IDE cable shouldn't be so terribly difficult. it will however, probably require removing the motherboard to prevent metal filings and dust from getting into and under the components. have you seen your replacement motherboard from NWTEC, yet ?? keith721 04-18-2003 11:09:55

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile keith721, UPS tracking says the box from NWTEC left their Suisun hub (the last stop before my house) this morning, and it will be delivered today. Don't go cutting on your bezel quite yet. I need to cut the opening in my own outer bezel. But I have a small CNC milling machine (another "surplus equipment" home project), and I plan to outline the bezel opening with a narrow cutter so I can use the removed piece as a faceplate applique on the cdrom tray. Once I get that setup and programming done, and assuming it goes well, there's no reason I couldn't do more for other folks. And the inner bezel wouldn't be any harder to do, if it is not too hard to remove from the monitor frame in the first place (I haven't looked at that yet) Kludgemeister 04-18-2003 12:02:28

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile Kludgemeister: Thanks for the offer! I'm in the fortunate position to have a replacement outer bezel/lens coming, since the lens on my original arrived with a major crack through it. I figure I'll have extra materials to work with, depending on how careful and/or sloppy I get. Seriously though, the motherboard to CD cable has got me flummoxed. The motherboard IDE1 connector is a 50-pin, and the slimline CD adapter presents a 40-pin connector. Do we just carefully fit the 40-pine IDE socket into the 50-pin connector, and wire the other pins back to the CD adapter? I guess it'll make more sense when everything else arrives, and I get a look at the hardware. keith721 (still recovering from a cold virus that's almost as bad as influenza) 04-18-2003 12:48:47

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) wvgeo Profile You're better off just ignoring the 50-pin connector and replace the 40-pin ribbon with a dual connector (Master/Slave). A problem I encountered with using the slim CD adapter is that there is no way to set the CD-ROM drive as slave. If you place the CD-ROM on the same channel as the hard drive you may have to set the hard drive as slave. This is the same problem the Virgin Webplayer had; the hard drive will still boot if set as slave. 04-18-2003 15:31:53

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 2 times) Kludgemeister Profile keith721, [Note:I started writing this before wvgeo's reply, so was unaware of the master/slave conflict! wvgeo, I thought the regular and slimline headers were separate channels, so the HD could be master on the primary IDE and the cdrom master on secondary.] The 40-pin adapter would need to be used as a slave drive on the main IDE channel. To use the 50-pin "slimline IDE" (apparently Intel's own term--I haven't seen it anywhere else) connector, you need the 44-pin adapter from Germany. The slimline header on the motherboard is 2mm pitch (laptop standard) and the regular IDE header is .100" pitch (desktop standard.) If you wanted to go from the 40-pin adapter to the slimline IDE on the motherboard, you'd need to "shred" (iopener term) the 2mm cable into individual wires at the 40-pin end and individually place the wires into the connector. That's why I was searching for an adapter that would be the same pitch as the slimline IDE, leading to the German adapter (less shredding to do--only the first four ATAPI wires for the audio header at the adapter end.) Kludgemeister 04-18-2003 15:48:22

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile okay, thanks for the information. I'm hoping to receive a 50-conductor IDE cable with my boxed Intel D810EMO motherboard, which should alleviate 50% of the problem. Kludgemeister: - did your mobo arrive? - does it have a 50-conductor cable? - what bios is included on the CD-ROM? - have I asked enough questions yet? keith721 04-18-2003 16:37:30

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile keith721, 1 - yes. 2 - yes, in fact it is a standard 40-pin dual IDE cable shredded at the end to a 50-pin connector! (do I call 'em or what? ) 3 - there is no BIOS updater on the cdrom. "Contains: Intel Desktop Board D810EMO Product Guide, Software Drivers for Video, LAN and Audio, Norton Antivirus Software, Internet Utilities, and Desktop Board Warranty." English PDF manual. (I wonder if it is violating copyright to send jsmmd a copy to post in the files area?) 4 - not at all--ask away! The disk controller chip is the 82801AA, so an 80-pin ATA/66 cable is included. BIOS chip is soldered on, but I'll fix that Monday and socket it, so I can hotflash Manuel's BIOS. I'll need to remove and replace the VGA and audio back-panel connectors. The ATAPI audio header is present, but the header for audio out to the dot's cable bundle is absent. So this weekend I can boot up and reformat the dot's hard drive and install Win98SE, but I need to buy a straight-up VGA connector before I can rework the board to fit in Manuel's case. Kludgemeister 04-18-2003 21:19:46

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile good to hear that the cables look correct sorry to hear there's no BIOS code on the CD-ROM (but that's a different message thread ) keith721 04-19-2003 05:52:35

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile To anybody considering modifying your Dot.Station motherboard or case: Notice that if you carefully peel off the black Intel sticker from across the bottom of the case, you will notice knockouts already prepared for other jacks. My Model 2300 has a large round and another RJ-45 size knockout to the left of the existing Ethernet jack, and a smaller round (reset switch?) to the right, just before the ventilation holes. So, taking the motherboard out while cutting holes in the case (or swapping the motherboard altogether ) may give you opportunities to make use of the pre-fabricated knockouts. Yippee!! keith721 04-19-2003 14:55:59

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile The surplus Teac CD-ROM drive arrived from eBay, the adapter arrived from idot, and tonight I installed the drive in Frankendot on the 50-pin IDE port to test. It powers up at boot, but unfortunately I can't set the BIOS to see it until I have a working [esc] key. (Pakito on the AOL forum has modded his keyboard to give [F1] through [F10] and [esc], but they are all out of order. Tevac says he has done the keys in order, but needs to borrow a digital camera to provide pictures of his method.) The CD-ROM mounting requires one hole in the sheet metal for the JAE connector on the adapter to pass through. It uses the two outer rear mounting holes on the drive, with the sheet metal sandwiched between the drive and the adapter. Photos of my trial assembly in the case are at http://www.rickadee.net/~zephyrus/dot/cdrom.html The adapter and IDE cable are a tight fit in the box, so tight in fact that only the end connector on the ribbon cable will fit, and only without the strain relief. But it fits sweetly! I haven't cut the outer bezel yet. I'll provide more writeup and pictures in the next day or so. Right now I need some sleep. Kludgemeister 04-25-2003 03:21:22

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile Kludgemeister: Thanks for the photos!! Since my dot.Tiger didn't have the pre-fabricated knockout for the CD-ROM, I'm gonna have to do some heavy surgery on the front panel behind the bezel. If you could provide some measurements from the face of your dot.Bob that I might work from, I would greatly appreciate it. keith721 04-25-2003 07:58:55

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile keith721, I did a PDF of the cutting pattern (it registers on the two little pins on the outer bezel--cut the outer bezel first, then install the outer bezel onto the inner bezel, mark and cut it) and attached a copy to jsmmd. But now that I seem to be starting a page of my own on the CD-ROM mod, I can put a link to it there. If you send me an email (use passive_i [at] yahoo [dot] com) I can attach a copy to you directly. jsmmd, Would you prefer to keep all the info on the "shared" Dot files area? I'd almost prefer that because it would keep all the info centralized, but you're the webmaster. 04-25-2003 11:46:34

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) jaume Profile Hallo! Hi!everybody. An Kludgemeister: Hier kannst du lesen was wir in Spanien bestellen haben: http://www.vegazone.com/upb1_9/viewtopic.php?id=1&t_id=78 06-22-2003 04:21:14

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile I just noticed that http://www.rickadee.net/~zephyrus/dot/cdrom.html "got lost" so I reloaded it tonight. The laptop CDROM drives are cable select--the manual for my Teac drive says The setting to master or slave is determined by the -CSEL signal (interface connector 47 pin). If the -CSEL signal is at low level, the CD-ROM drive is set to the slave, and if it is open or at high level, it is set to the master. (This logic is different in the ATA standard.) I have not worked with this before, but apparently some motherboards can set this in the BIOS. Otherwise a little cut-n-jumper might be called for to ensure the drive is set to master on the slim IDE interface. I also found a picture of the Idot slim CDROM adapter with pinouts for the small connectors: http://www.ainex.jp/list/case_in/img/wa-010_p.jpg Kludgemeister 06-28-2003 02:08:23

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 1 times) Kludgemeister Profile Mixed results with the CD-ROM so far. I haven't gotten it to be recognized by the BIOS as master on the slimline interface, even after cutting the line going to Pin 47 (pin 43 on the slimline header). BIOS detects and does recognize the drive (a Teac CD224E) as slave on the primary IDE. Unfortunately Win98SE does not see the drive at all, even when I manually run the "search for new hardware". Kludgemeister 07-28-2003 12:07:34

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile bizarre . . . my slimline CD-ROM attached to the secondary slimline IDE channel worked fine for loading Linux. of course, the whole thing is still butchered and Frankensteined on my work table. is your small adapter board firmly secured to the back of the slimline CD-ROM drive with screws, or just sorta fit together? if that connection isn't firmly connected, i imagine all sorts of flakey stuff would be the result. 07-29-2003 09:27:19

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) Kludgemeister Profile I have the adapter screwed in securely to the drive. On the other hand, the slimline IDE cable that came with the Box motherboard is very loose in the motherboard header--I had to add a spot of hot-melt glue to each end to keep it from falling off (our Dot is also still Frankensteined on my workbench). That might be the problem there. Did you make a slimline cable, or are you using an off-the-shelf cable? Kludgemeister 07-29-2003 11:42:10

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <Kludgemeister>Ordered a slim cd adaptor for Idot. My dot.bob has been sitting apart now for a couple of months. Still waiting to upgrade the processor. Hopefully to 800 Mhz. Currently running it a 550Mhz WinXP with a slocket board. Did you test a custom cable aside from the cable that came with your Intel MB? Would something like a 40 pin to 44 Pin laptop cable work? IE: http://www.cablesonline.net/940pinto44pi.html 09-10-2003 22:37:42

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) mayayo Profile | Email Hello , my english is very bad , but i think that this link in the Spanish AOL Forum is very interesting .Thanks . http://www.vegazone.com/upb1_9/viewtopic.php?id=3&t_id=54 09-28-2003 16:19:45

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <Kludgemeister>&<mayayo> Did the fix...works like a charm....started to put it back together tonight...and decided to take it to another step....first taking the slim cdrom and replacing it with a combo DVD/CDRW drive. Next a small tuner to replace the modem...give it an ICE box type function... 10-03-2003 23:19:01

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 1 times) mayayo Profile | Email Hello Petec , in this link two image http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/osamb/trasera.JPG . IDE 40 EXT valid for DVD , COMBO DVD-CDRW , HD . Connect to SEC IDE 2 SLIM http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/osamb/cable5040.JPG , http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/osamb/cable504040.JPG http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/osamb/cable504050.JPG and AVERMEDIA AVER TV . 10-04-2003 14:05:43

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) radarman Profile I almost forgot about it, but I still had a 44-pin slimline ATA to standard (40-pin) ATA + 2-pin 5V power cable from a doomed experiment with one of the GCT Allwell STB's. (specifically, an STB 3036N). It fits perfectly in the slimline connector on the board, and is quite tight despite not connecting to the first 6 pins. I modified the power connector on my laptop CD-ROM adapter board to accomodate the 2-pin power connector, so I didn't have to add a Y power cable. The cable is a bit long, but I just curled the excess cable in the unused compartment below the CD-ROM. So far, the CD-ROM has performed reliably using this cable. Note that this was designed for attaching laptop hard disks to normal PC's, so any 2.5" ATA to normal ATA converter *should* work. You just have to use it "backwards" so to speak. (treat the mainboard like a 2.5" hard disk) Unfortunately, most of the converters I have seen come in a PC board format that might be a little tight given all the wiring in that area. The cable, however, works great. I'll try to take some pictures soon, though there are probably pictures on the GCT-Allwell site. A side benefit is that OS installs go *MUCH* faster with the CD-ROM on the second controller! :) 12-12-2003 11:24:44

RE:Adding a CD drive (modified 0 times) radarman Profile Darn - modify apparently disappears if you close the window. Anyway - I found a potential winner if the cables can't be obtained from GCT allwell. The adapter board looks darn tiny - perhaps small enough to not cause problems with the rest of the wiring in that area. http://www.provantage.com/buy-7strt06x-2-5in-3-ide-hard-drive-cable-adapter-notebook-hd-pc-startech-cables-accessories-ide4044-shopping.htm and a bigger picture: http://www.provantage.com/scripts/go.dll/magnify/STRT06X.GIF Would require a bit of a modification to the power cable, but that's only a bit of solder away. 12-12-2003 11:29:57

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