BluRay writer compatibility with a Toshiba laptop

[tufffta]

I am going to receive soon a Toshiba L750D laptop and I want to buy an internal BluRay Burner/Writer to put it in this laptop. From my research I found that the choice is not that big. I think I'm going to settle with Panasonic UJ 260 (or UJ 240). I was ready to buy, but then I decided to read www.centrix-intl.com compatibility guide. Here's what it says:

"Like hard drives, Slim CD/DVD must be set to ether slave or master. Because there is no jumper on the drive to change one to another it is important to know if your system requires the drive to be set as a Master. Apple and a few Toshiba systems require Master drives, however most use Cable Select-Slave / Master. Typically the drive is set to master or slave by the system cable configuration. If the optical drive is not configured properly, it will not be detected by the BIOS or you will get IDE #1 error when you start the system.

Toshiba Users.
If you own a Toshiba notebook, chances are your optical drive is Master inverted C-SEL. If you update your optical drive with anything other then inverted C-SEL you will get the infamous IDE #1 error during boot.
From our web site www.centrix-intl.com search keyword"inverted"." ( http://www.centrix-intl.com/slimcompatibility/slimcompatibilty.htm )


This Panasonic UJ 260 Default drive ID setting: CSEL, according to description on eBay : http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250952982048&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

Is there a difference bewteen an inverted C-SEL and a C-SEL? Will this one work on a Toshiba L750D laptop?

If this won't work, would you recommend me some other internal BluRay Writer/Burner, that's not more expensive than some 120-130 USD?

[aedipuss]

i csel is electrically different than csel. not interchangable but you could look around for a version of the drive firmware to convert it. there are reports that shorting pins 45 and 47 on the connector also work but i can't confirm it.

[jman98]

Maybe you need to consider adding a BD burner via USB instead. You've got what, maybe this one model that can be added internally? Posts like this are why I continuously say that laptops are poor choices for serious video work.

[tufffta]

I AM considering an external BD Burner. Unfortunately, the laptop's internal optical drive does not read BluRay, so that sucks a big time. Is it possible to just buy a regular "internal" BD drive for a laptop and an "external" case to make it an "external" drive (like they do with external 2.5 HDDs)?

By the way, that text said "If you own a Toshiba notebook, chances are " - that means that there are also chances it will be a regular configuration. Is there a way to find that out without actually trying to connect the drive?

there are reports that shorting pins 45 and 47 on the connector also work but i can't confirm it.

How can I tell which is the pin 45 and which 47?

[tufffta]

By the way, I had Toshiba Satellite L25 (from some 2006, I think), which didn't have SATA connections, only IDE, and I put a a DVD-RW drive from some HP computer - worked. And from this item description it seems L25 is inverted C-SEL - it's listed there as a model that's compatible with an inverted C-SEL optical drive: http://www.bixnet.com/insldvcodr1.html

[tufffta]

i csel is electrically different than csel.

It just came to my mind: does this all matter with SATA drives? The BluRay drive I am thinking about is SATA. I mean, people are talking about IDE errors, and since this is SATA, may there's something different going on...

[aedipuss]

I AM considering an external BD Burner. Unfortunately, the laptop's internal optical drive does not read BluRay, so that sucks a big time. Is it possible to just buy a regular "internal" BD drive for a laptop and an "external" case to make it an "external" drive (like they do with external 2.5 HDDs)?

By the way, that text said "If you own a Toshiba notebook, chances are " - that means that there are also chances it will be a regular configuration. Is there a way to find that out without actually trying to connect the drive?

there are reports that shorting pins 45 and 47 on the connector also work but i can't confirm it.

How can I tell which is the pin 45 and which 47?

if it were an ide connector you'd count from pin 1, but if it's sata it won't have an ide connector.

sata drives don't have that problem.

[jman98]

sata drives don't have that problem.

Excellent advice. Just buy a SATA BD burner and a SATA USB enclosure. Be sure to get one with power. I don't trust non-powered ones. Too many times people have problems when it would work fine if the enclosure had its own power supply. People just assume that any old USB port can provide enough power for their device and many times they can't.