this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
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Found this old DVD driver in the garage that looks like it was from a laptop. I’d like to use it, but I don’t know what port is that.

I thought it was SATA, but it’s a little bit more taller and narrow, maybe an old revision? Or is it HP proprietary?

Any help is appreciated!

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[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 64 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Slimline SATA.

Usual for laptop DVD drives. Can be directly converted to regular SATA with an adapter (I have one of those).
Alternatively, you can find a caddy for it on AliExpress for around 6 bucks. Pay attention to the height, there's 12.7mm and 9.5mm drives.
I bought this one: https://a.aliexpress.com/_Ewv1ers

[–] MrLLM@ani.social 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Woah, thank you!

Pay attention to the height, there's 12.7mm and 9.5mm drives.

I’ll keep that in mind!

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just to add, you can get hard drive adaptors that fit in the same slot too, so you can have extra storage. They come in a DVD drive shaped caddy with pass through connectors for a laptop SATA drive 🙂

[–] MrLLM@ani.social 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Thank you for the tip. I’ll definitely look into that, do you recommend any in particular?

[–] f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

I love these, far more useful than an optical drive. The only difference between them will be the bezel, which varies to fit different laptops' shapes. They are completely passive; no components except maybe a capacitor to prevent a power surge when hot-swapping.

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

No, I've always just used whichever cheap one matches my needs :)

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Damn man, good info. I didn't know about slim sata, looked like sas at first glance.

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

To add to that, since its an HP branded one, it might have a special front bezel to go to a specific laptop model. Those bezels are removable with just a couple clips.

AFAIK, HP doesn't actually manufacture the drives themselves, just the bezel. They just slap an HP branded sticker on there.

I was trying to get a specific bezel for a zbook for a little while and HP wants like, $100+ for a damn piece of plastic they already have in stock

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago

No idea but

bump