HP Store Online

Is it possible to put in an eMachines W4885 CD/DVD drive into an HP a1630n?

I have an HP a1630n and I really hate how slowly it reads CDs so I wanted to put in my CD/DVD drive from my eMachines as an additional drive. I just need to know whether it will be compatible with my computer or not. Also, I need to know if it will screw up my current computer like fry the motherboard or power supply.

Public Comments

1. CD Rom based drives are pretty much compatible with any boards. Just make sure that if you are hooking it up to a current IDE cable that you set one drive as a master and the other as a slave.
2. Yep, it can be done but depending on how the drive is made it might stick out a little or just not look right in the other computer. As long as all connections are made then it should not harm anything in the computer. Oh, I wouldn't fool with the Master(primary) and Slave(secondary), I would set the jumpers on CS(Cable Select). If you connect the last end of the cable to the drive you want as the Master drive then it will recognize that as the Master drive, the connection in the middle of the ribbon will be the Slave drive. One other thing, the processor speed can also determine how fast the CD/DVD drive reads and writes. I can use the same exact drive on a dual core processor(3.0Ghz) and read and write much faster than on a single core processor(3.0Ghz).
3. The speed of the cd reader is dependent in part on the CD drive itself. If it is a 40x and still reads slowly then you may have a bad drive or a problem on your system. You can place another CD or DVD\CD drive in your system. Be sure to attach it to the same IDE cable as the original and set it as a slave as the original is already set as a master. If your present CD drive and your hard drive are on the same IDE cable, first try putting each on its own cable and see if that makes a difference.
4. Firstly, chck if your dvd-drive fits to your HP casing Secondly, check the connection at the back of the drv if your HP machine can support it. There are 2 commonly use connectors, IDE and SATA... IDE got 40 wires while SATA got 7 wires (from memory).... power are standard, u should have no problem with that.. Alternatively, if ur dvd drv doesnt fit in ur HP machine, u can buy a USB external case, put ur dvd drv in and connect to your HP using USB lead...