Compaq CD-rom - cable conversion

[FatMan42]

A bit of advice please... I have a cd-rom from a Compaq Deskpro, one of the small drives. It's about a half-inch high and a shade under 5-in wide. The cable is integrated data+power, as there's only one connector on it. I've like to hook it up to a conventional IDE channel and power connection. Has anybody else needed to do this? It's probably do-able to split the cable if we can figure out which cores are the power supply. Ideally, though, would be to find an adapter that takes this Compaq plug at one end and at the other has a conventional IDE plug and a standard Molex. Does that exist?

Cheers...
Fatman

 

[Gunbuster]

Never seen a cable like the one you need. a PCI IDE card may be the better choice

 

[Jhhnn]

I've been looking for something similar, hardware to convert laptop cdrom drives to desktop use. I think that a hdd adapter form these guys could be part of your solution-

Linky

They also list a converter for laptop cdrom drives, but I don't think it's designed for use with the compaq model. You're talking about one with pins like this, right?

L2

And this link might be helpful-

L3

I don't know how helpful any of this might be, it's just the little bit I've obtained in my own search. Starting to feel like the twilight zone. You might try contacting Compaq support. If you get any results, Please send me a PM, I would appreciate it very much...

 

[FatMan42]

Yeah - that's the drive. The part-number is different, but that's probably just a regional thing. Looks identical. The pins look the same as well. That adapter might well do it. The DIY approach still looks do-able, but if the 50-pin block combines power+data+master/slave jumpers as well, it's looking like a really awkward job. I'll phone the Q anyway. Later...