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Dell Latitude Laptop... FD and CD hot swappable?

H

H8tank

Banned
We have this laptop that has a removable floppy drive and CD-ROM, they both share the same slot in the laptop.

Are they hot swappable, in other words, am I supposed to be able to exchange them while the PC is running? If you do it now, the system locks up. Is that the norm?

Running WinME.

Not to familiar with laptops, thanks for any info.
 
I have Dell Latitude CPx and both FD and CD-ROM are hot swappable. My Dell also came with a special cable which you can connect to the back and have both FD and CD-ROM connected at the same time. I hope this helps,
 
I had an old latitude where you could use a key combination to hot swap the drives. I don't remember the combo though; it should be in the manual or on the website somewhere.
 
Ummm, I rent these for a living, and in the system tray, there is an icon to click on for hot-swapping. After that, it's self-explanatory. If that doesn't work, something's wrong.

My FIRST post as a member!!! 🙂
 
There is some utility down there, but it only talks about the ethernet card, doesn't mention the CD or floppy.

I tried to install the Sentax Baymaster Software Dell says you need, but the installation aborted saying I needed to update the BIOS.???

So, back to square one.
 
Yikes!

Sorry, man. [excuse] I'm just in sales...not tech support. I did the best I could![/excuse]

[\hangs his head in shame] 😱

Nelm$ter
 
Do you have one of those cables that you can hook one up to the port on the back to use both at the same time?
 
I checked dell's website, there is a program called Baymanager that has to be installed for them to be swappable, but in order to install it I had to flash the BIOS.

Works now. 🙂 There are some other wierd issues with this thing, but this one is solved. 🙂

Thanks guys!
 
H8,
I deal with Latitudes all the time. We've bought 62 of them this year. So ask any questions you might have.
BTW, don't try to use the CDROM with the cable that's MARKED CLEARLY For Floppy Drive only! :| Arggg.. I get so Tired of telling those idiot salesmen that when they ask why the CDROM doesn't work! arg!
 
Well, I'll tell you this last weird problem...

If the floppy drive is in there, it shuts down no prob.

If the CD-ROM is in there, it acts like it shuts down, the screen goes blank, but it just hangs. The power light stays on, and the battery light blinks every 30secs or so.

You can either take the battery out, or hold the power button down for two seconds for it to actually 'shut-down'. I figure it's some weird bug in WinME and this laptop.
 
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