I got an hand-me-down 5 year old laptop and personally it's enough for me. Thing is, I need to get a new optical drive. I got an Acer Travel-mate 4650. The optical drive, a TSST (Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology) TS-L632B is not reading burned DVD's at all, has issues reading burned CD's, as well as starting to have issues with pressed/regular disks. I can't seem to find another drive easily, given the age of the system. All I need is to read disks. If it can burn CD's, that would be great as well, but I don't need DVD burning at all. Anyone know where I can get a compatible drive? I don't want to spend too much, as I don't need much. The current drive uses an CSEL ATAPI connection Now, for anyone wanting to know why I bother, it's because I don't need much with a laptop. I an running a Linux build, and beyond that there is very little I need.
Before you look for a replacement, have you tried updating its firmware yet? The reason is a newer firmware could solve lots of read issues with burned disks.
That was the first thing I checked into. There are firmware updates for the TO and TF hardware but I can't find anything for the TS. In addidion, there are a large number of reports saying after flashing with the TO and TF firmware that Acer laptops no longer detect the drive.
maybe for that old laptop, you should considering getting an external drive then? (since both almost around the same price range over here)
If external drive is not an option for you, then you have to buy back the compatible version, which is quite difficult. Do you have second hand shop over there where you can get old laptop parts?
...ebay.. is your friend.. right now.. TS-L632B NEW ACER TravelMate 4000 DVD±RW Drive - eBay (item 170458390791 end time Apr-11-10 17:29:34 PDT) I bought a replacement battery & LCD off ebay
Exactly right Adrian. Zy, I don't have the money for that price right now as I also need to replace the keyboard. As long as a drive is compatable, can read DVD's, and burn CD's I will be happy. On a side note, the drive reads DVD+RW disks just fine. Hows that for odd?
Well, I need to be able to read burned DVD+/-R's as well. Burning RW's takes a while and honestly, I tend to use RW's for testing only. In addition, I still need to be able to read other burned disks and pressed ones. With the drive being "flakey" with burned DVD's, I would rather not risk this.
