Replace DVD burner face plate

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I own an Inspiron 5100 notebook that was originally installed with a
CD-RW/DVD drive. I recently purchased a NEC ND-6500A DVD+/-RW drive.
Other than the fact that the drive only burns DVD+/-R discs at 6X
instead of the advertised 8X, I'm very satisfied with it. However, the
face plate of this drive is black, while the color of my laptop is
grey. Also, the face place is smaller than the original drive, which
"sinks" more inside my notebook, and therefore gives the impression
that there's a big hole on the left side of it.

Is it possible to replace the face plate on the new drive with the one
from the original drive? If so, where is there a resource on the Net
that I could learn how to do this?

TIA

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Quaoar wrote:
> imamre@lycos.com wrote:
> > I own an Inspiron 5100 notebook that was originally installed with
a
> > CD-RW/DVD drive. I recently purchased a NEC ND-6500A DVD+/-RW
drive.
> > Other than the fact that the drive only burns DVD+/-R discs at 6X
> > instead of the advertised 8X, I'm very satisfied with it. However,
the
> > face plate of this drive is black, while the color of my laptop is
> > grey. Also, the face place is smaller than the original drive,
which
> > "sinks" more inside my notebook, and therefore gives the impression
> > that there's a big hole on the left side of it.
> >
> > Is it possible to replace the face plate on the new drive with the
one
> > from the original drive? If so, where is there a resource on the
Net
> > that I could learn how to do this?
> >
> > TIA
>
> Remove the faceplate from the old drive. There might be one screw or
a
> simple clip that needs to be removed. Just look at the plate with the

> tray open and you'll be able to figure out how it is removed. First,
> though, if the original eject button is not in line with the NEC
eject
> button, the change will not work. Most are; many Sony faceplates
don't
> line up.
>
> I am surprised that the NEC does not do 8x since their full size
drives
> are among the best. Is it perhaps the media you are using?
>
> Q


I've tried two different media brands so far. The first was Memorex,
then TDK. I'll experiment with a few more brands and see what happens.
Eventually, when times permits, I'm going to do a fresh install of my
laptop again (something I do about once a year), maybe that'll help
too. I have no control of DMA settings in my BIOS, and in Windows I do
have DMA turned on. Other than the changing of the media idea, perhaps
my laptop can't handle DVD burning above 6X. Oh, by the way, I'm using
Nero 6.6.0.12. I haven't tried using other burning software either.
We'll see what happens. Thanks for the input about changing the face
plate on my drive.