Laptop cd-rom tray for expansion?

[Visivicous]

My Dad has a laptop with a faulty dvd-rom drive and bad usb ports. Unfortunately the laptop does not have a pc-card, pcmcia, or express card expansion slot. So I am looking for two things:

1: Something that can fit into the cd-rom tray, replacing the faulty drive, which has usb connectors. I am not sure if such a product exists, but basically it would convert the sata connection into several usb connections.

2: A compactflash card with usb inputs. I know that compactflash Wi-Fi cards exist, so the built in compactflash reader can be used as an expansion slot (of sorts), but are any made that function as usb expansion?

Obscure stuff, I am sure, but any help would be appreciated.

 

[C1]

Bothersome is the problem with USB. It is possible that the optical drive issue relates to the USB issue.

Advice is to replace the notebook, otherwise drop it off at a competent repair shop (as they may be able to fix both issues - could be just an installation corruption problem).

Finally, (and which I really dont advise), notebooks typically have a 1394 port. One should be able to use the 1394 (FW) port directly with an appropriate optical drive (like for a MAC). Also, there are various 1394 to USB converters available and thus should also permit use of USB devices as well as an external optical drive.

I think when the $$$$ smoke clears of buying all the extra crap, you may find that having a repair shop look at it is a deal.

 

[Visivicous]

Fresh install, so not a problem with the OS (used recovery partition as we could not use dvd drive or external). And no firewire on this one.

I've seen plenty of usb/sata adapters and converters, so I was just hoping that some company had designed a laptop drive caddy that used the sata connection to create a usb hub.

How I miss PCMCIA and PC-Card :'-(