Using a laptop CD/DVD ROM in a KPC

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Hardware Repairs

Written by Anna Hegedus

Thursday, 26 February 2009 14:30

I love the Shuttle KPC. I love it so much that I've built four of them around the office here. Two are user computers, one is a print server, and another is a firewall.

The one main issue is a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. I always wanted to use one of these but didn't like the idea of sitting a USB CD-ROM with one of the units. It would be too easy to steal or fall off.

On NewEgg, there's a new item, called the "Face Plate Kit". It is a new frontplate for the unit as well as a background. It also comes with this nifty dealio:

It converts a slim DVD/CD drive into one that would fit in the front of the KPC. When I got it, I was really happy, but I didn't want to spend money on a new DVD drive. I like to reuse parts when I can. So when I thought of the huge stack of laptops that we have, I decided to tear a drive out of one of them and use it.

In this case, it was a Dell Latitude's drive, model number ND-5100A.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Hey, that wont work! That's the wrong style of connector!" And you would be right...right now.

The first thing to do is to take the screws out of the side. There are two on the left. Once you remove these, get the visible one on the right side. On top of the unit, there's an additional screw that holds the release latch. Take this one out too. After that, the little thing that pops out of the front should slide freely off of the unit.

Sliding the front latch from the chassis

There's a final screw that was hiding behind it. Take this last one out. It's hiding right in here:

Once this final screw is out of the chassis, the entire DVD unit should slide freely out of the case. Mine needed a bit of coaxing at one point but was mostly free-floating, so be careful not to drop the drive or let it fly into the next county.

At this point, something should look familiar to you. Very...very familiar:

Take the connector and place it onto the plug. It should snap into place with little effort. The adapter comes with two little screws that should fit in place. the one between the power connector and the IDE connector is tiny and really a pain to get into place, but you should be able to use a precision screwdriver to mount it correctly.

Once you get the adapter into place and firmly secured, the drive should be ready to go. Plug the power connector and IDE ribbon into the back of the drive and make sure the drive's master/slave setting is correct (follow the jumper's instructions that are silkscreened onto the board.) Mount the DVD ROM in the slimdrive slot after you remove the front panel and replace it with the new one you received with the adapter.