SOLVED: Why won't Satellite 4090XCDT not boot with DVD-R/W drive?

Question

Hi,
as I stated in the other thread which has been closed already, I purchased an used Satellite notebook which would not boot from the 3rd Party DVD-RW drive (Quanta Storage SDW-042) included, even though Windows could it read well enough.
I found out why, starting with the help of the user replies in the other thread.
In the user manual there is a description in the capitel about system configuration regarding tconfig, which proved to be a valuable hint: HDD = Primary IDE (1F0H/IRQ14) (...), CD-ROM = Secondary IDE (170H/IRQ15). Compared to my desktop, it seemed to me that both drives should be masters on Cable Nr. 1 and Cable Nr. 2, not like Master and Slave on the same HDD Cable. So, my CD-ROM probably had to be Master.
Then I researched further into the matter and found out, that there are CD-ROM where cable select choses if they are master or slave. Then I found in
http://www.dschen.de/laptop_brenner/ a remark that in his Toshiba Satellite Pro 4290, there seemed to be no Cable Select and his notebook expected the CD-ROM (or the DVD drive he wished to use) to be a master.
Cable select means that Pin 47 is grounded, which he did by applying a drop of solder from Pin 47 to Pin 49, which is besides Pin 47. I tried the same and took apart the DVD drive which was in my Notebook. (My record in taking apart my notebook and mounting everything again correctly now has gone down to 50 minutes). And know what, my Satellite 4090XCDT now can boot from the DVD RW!
To perform the task I needed a watchmaker's screwdriver to open the DVD RW (three screws, and then you must insert a pin to open the tray and see the plug from the backside), a 12 Volt pin type soldering iron for SMD and I controlled the solder bridge with a stereo microscope, so this task is not trivial. See the mentioned link to find out which pins are bridged (sorry, the website is in german but the Pic is clear: in the upper row of pins, the only you can see, the 2nd and third from the right). And of course with a replacement part "from the scrap", you might grant your notebook a second life but you run a risk, because you can not know what you have, master or slave (by firmware or hardware), broken anyway, cable select - and another website states that they have watched up to 17 firmware variants in exactly the same drive, depending on what notebook it was intended for use.

Answer 1

Wow, thats really interesting posting, buddy!
Thank you! :)
I will save this thread in my Bookmarks.