Customer Reviews

USB 2.0 External Slim CD/DVD Drive Enclosure Case For Laptop Notebook CD-RW DVD Drive with IDE Connector (Only Case!!)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This works perfectly with my old laptop DVD-RW drive. It seriously takes 3 minutes to open the box and insert your drive into the enclosure. The enclosure comes with 2 screws to fasten your drive in the back as well. Comes with two USB cables for power and data transmit. I have already burned DVD's/CD's with no problems at all. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate RC1, no need to install drivers, the OS recognized the DVD drive automatically when plugged in via USB. You can read CD/DVDs with only one USB plugged in as well. To be safe I plugged in both USBs when I burned a DVD.

5 Stars! Highly recommend using this approach if you have a laptop dvd drive lying around. A whole external DVD drive can be pricey, and this solution is super cheap.

I bought one of these drive enclosures to recycle an old laptop DVD/CD optical drive from a dead Compaq laptop. My new netbook (Asus Eee PC) , like all netbooks, did not come with an Optical drive and I needed one to install various software. Well after doing some different Google searches, I came across this one on Amazon. It Rocks. The price was great and I got a little joy knowing that I built something myself.

The Drive enclosure comes with the outer case , USB Power cord, and a USB cable. It also came with the drive face plate that, after looking at it, I was able to figure out how to remove my old drives face plate and the new one fit perfectly. Without this face plate, my old drive face plate would have hit the enclosure upon closing. I have not needed the power cord yet, but then I have not tried to burn a DVD yet either. DVD's and CD's work just fine. I am impressed with the quality fit and finish of this enclosure. It looks more like something tooled in japan not china. The instructions were all about using with Windows 98 and obviously written by an ESL learner. With communications at internet speeds, I don't understand why an emailed manual is not proof read and corrected stateside and re-emailed back to the East.

One thing about Slim laptop Optical drives that took me a while to learn. There seems to be two types of connectors. The old type which were IDE with ATAPI connectors and the newer style which are SATA. This enclosure fits the old Style ATAPI connector. If you don't know the difference, Google ATAPI vs SATA Connectors and View Images to see the difference.

This is a great way to re-use an older, but still useful laptop drive and save a lot of money. So before your scrap that dead laptop; Pull out the hard drive and optical drive and get USB Enclosures to make your own external disk drives.

It makes a great accessory for my Acer Aspire One which does not have an internal drive. Very handy if you have a bare laptop drive laying around.

Another reviewer said his did not come with screws, mine had everything needed to assemble it included. I do recall thinking that it did not have screws as well, but finally found them in the box (though I can't remember where, maybe in the same pack as the rubber feet?).

Only took about 10 minutes to unpack and install my drive in the enclosure. The fit was fine. I got confused with the order that the adaptor board needed to be screwed in (the screws also serve to secure the drive to the shell), but then again I did not even glance at the instructions before I started.

It was definitely designed for a flat face drive, if your drive has a sculpted face plate, it may not fit without some trimming of the case (it is plastic with no screws up front, so this should be possible).

Once assembled, it "just worked" The additional USB power cord is a nice touch (When using as a read only drive, the extra power cord isn't necessary on
my machine, but it supplies additional power when writing a CD/DVD).

I dont know what drives everyone else is using with this to get it working, but it doesn't work with my Thinkpad drive.
The door was also wedged down inside the unit when I got it. It took a while to get it out.

I received this drive case and took less than 5 minutes to pop it apart and get my laptop-size DVD burner into it. Like one of the other reviewers, mine did come with screws, in a little baggie in the box. Fits perfectly, and once I plugged in the 2 USB connectors (one for power, one for data), the drive behaved as it had when it was an internal - showed up as Drive D, read CDs just fine, although I haven't tried burning anything yet. Great product, especially for the price, and exactly what I needed!

For the price you can't go wrong. The product comes in separate pieces so you have to put it all together. Make sure that you take the outer case apart, then install the dvd drive with the adapter attached, then close up the case. I tried to shove mine into the closed case and broke it. Luckily a little soldering was all it needed to be put back together. Be extremely gentle with the circuit board while it is outside of it's enclosure because it is fragile. Once inside the enclosure it has support brackets that help support it.

Once I got it all re-soldered and installed into the case correctly it worked great. It wouldn't work on a usb hub that I had attached to my computer, I had to plug it directly into the computer before it would recognize it for some reason.

Mine came with everything that I needed: two usb cables (one is for power but shouldn't be needed), a little plastic front cover for your dvd drive, mounting screws, a plastic enclosure, a install dvd (see below)and of course the adapter itself.

There are three programs on the dvd: Nero Lite- which I haven't tried intalling, USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 - which have install programs that don't work, but the drivers do appear to be there, and some unknown program that fails install! The program names and text files on the cd appear to be in a font that my Windows XP computer can't recognize. . .

FYI: This is an older IDE/ATAPI style rear connector. Make sure your dvd drive will work with this style of connection.

I wanted it to like it and did not expect too much for such a bargain price, BUT mine did not come with the two back screws to hold the drive to the circuit board and case (I check everywhere including inside the shipping box and case). It also did not come with a front bezel. The case has a plastic rubbery feel to it. The top and bottom have clips that snap together but would probably separate if it fell from desk height. Returned it to Amazon because of the missing items.

When they say "only case" they're not kidding. I ordered 3 of these enclosures. None of them came with a front bezel or attachments screws as indicated by several past user reviews. The original attachment screws from my dead laptop were too short so I had no way to secure the drive to the enclosure. Kudos to Amazon for making the return process as painless as possible.

The face plate shown on the picture is not include. The screws to hold the board to the case are not included. Bad choice. Will return asap.

Family member has an HP Pavilion DV9610us laptop that is a few years old. The DVD Burner ceased working because Windows Vista did not recognized the drive any longer. Thinking it was a drive problem, we purchased another internal DVD burner for the laptop. That drive did not work either as it too was not recognized by the operating system. Did some research only to find out that disappearing/unrecognized optical drives seem to a common issue on some HP Pavilion laptops. Attempted all fixes suggested in HP forums and Microsoft site to no avail - became evident that this was an issue with the laptop and not the drive(s). Since USB ports worked fine, decided to give this slim optical drive enclosure a try and I am pleased say that it worked beautifully! Not only did it accept the "new" laptop internal drive we picked up...but the original optical drive works in the enclosure as well. Granted, it is nice to have a working internal optical drive in the laptop..but this is the next best thing! The enclosure enabled us to use the laptop's internal optical drive (that was not recognized when installed internally) as a fully functional external drive! Inexpensive fix for a very annoying problem. Only wished we had realized before buying a new drive.

The enclosure was very easy to use. The package included the enclosure, a slim atapi/ide interface board, a drive faceplate, 2 usb cables (one for data and one for power if necessary), three screws, driver disc and driver installation instructions that was essentially useless. Simply remove the optical drive module from the laptop. Remove the drive's faceplate and replace with new faceplate provided. Gently separate the top and bottom halves of the enclosure. Attach the interface board to the rear of the laptop drive and place the drive with the interface board attached in the lower half of the enclosure. Before snapping on the top of the enclosure, ensure the two screw holes at the rear are lined up with the drive, connector board and plastic tabs on the lower half of the enclosure. Snap the top of the enclosure into place and use two screws to secure the package. Attach USB cable to drive and plug into a USB port on laptop and you should be good to go. If the laptop is older/does not have USB 2.0 - you may need to use both USB cables to power up the drive.

This enclosure was well worth the small investment!