Blu Ray Drive swap out/trade for my HP Probook 4540s

Cocoabytes · March 15, 2015

So I got this idea.... I used to watch blu ray movies on my sony vaio laptop (PCG-71211L). After I accidentally threw my mouse at the screen it accidentally cracked. Enter my HP Probook 4540s. I've had this laptop now for a little over a year, and would like to watch some of my backlogged movies. I could dust off the ps3, but I'd much rather do it the proper way on a PC.

My Idea is that I could swap out the CD/DVD drive on my HP for the Vaio's BD/DVD. I am worried about the drivers and possibly mismatching connectors. Has anyone done this before? I don't usually mess with my laptops other than RAM or hardrive, so this will be the most intrusive thing I've attempted. I do have a lot of experience building desktops so I'm not a complete nubcake.

Thanks!

Aniallation · March 15, 2015

Theoretically it should be fine, aside from mismatching colors. Drivers shouldn't be an issue and they /should/ both be using mobile SATA.

Only way to find out is to try, really.

Cocoabytes · March 23, 2015

Theoretically it should be fine, aside from mismatching colors. Drivers shouldn't be an issue and they /should/ both be using mobile SATA.

Only way to find out is to try, really.

Thanks. I finally got around to doing the swap. It works! The only problem I ran into was with how the drive screwed into the laptop. Both only have one screw securing the drive, but the placement of the screw s are totally different. You must first remove the brackets on each individual drive, and then replace them with the original drive's brackets. Aesthetically the plastic cover now sticks out too much and I will look to fix this in the future. Also if you do not have software which allows you to play blu ray videos, the laptop will not be able to play it. I had to install cyberlink power (the advanced version).

Aniallation · March 23, 2015

Thanks. I finally got around to doing the swap. It works! The only problem I ran into was with how the drive screwed into the laptop. Both only have one screw securing the drive, but the placement of the screw s are totally different. You must first remove the brackets on each individual drive, and then replace them with the original drive's brackets. Aesthetically the plastic cover now sticks out too much and I will look to fix this in the future. Also if you do not have software which allows you to play blu ray videos, the laptop will not be able to play it. I had to install cyberlink power (the advanced version).

Yeah the drives themselves without the bracket should be the same as the bracket is made specifically for each laptop, but so is the plastic cover (as different laptops have different shapes), but hey if it works it works. Personally I use VLC to play blu-ray movies, but I've only ever played one blu-ray in my PC