Stealthing a CD/DVD Rom Drive

Okay with all these lovely aluminium cases that are so popular today the days of the beige computer are well and truly numbered. The problem is that the computer parts people are taking a while to catch up and you still struggle to find a black drive let alone a silver one to match you new aluminium case.
The are however a couple of solutions:

• Paint the drive

• Make an aluminium facia

• Stealth the drive

So I know there are gonna be a couple of you reading this going , "What the heck is stealthing ??" Well for you, here's the basics idea:
The idea is to hide the drive behind a bay plate that comes with the case, this way the drive is completly hidden from view and the bay plate will already match the case.
A couple of you brighter ones would have thought about the possible problem of this already .... "How do we get access to the damn drive ???". Well do stealthing this way and you need not worry.

Okay what do we need:

• A Slot DVD/CD/CDRW drive

• A Spare Drive Facia

• A few pieces of double sided sticky tape

• Something to eject the drive like a pin

First thing to do is to make sure the drive is ejected, you can it manually when the drive isnt powered by pushing a pin into the emergency eject hole. Next thing is to remove the front facia of the tray, this is normally done by pulling the botton of it towards yourself (Note: I am assuming the drive is facing you) and then pulling the whole facia up and it should pop of a treat.

Now most drive facias are fixed in a similar way, using little tabs on the middle top/bottom and sides of the drive, simply push all these in and pull the facia towards you and its should come off very easily.

Now its attack the bay plate time, in the case of lian li and Coolermaster drive bay plates , just lightly bend off the side tabs until the break off. No force is really require, make sure you dont break it off too close to the front.

Now you should have the bay plate as shown, now we need something for the switch to touch, I usual grab the old facia and rip the button off as its perfectly size.

At this point you need to find the double sided sticky tape. Get about four little sections and stick them onto the front of the tray facia. And then cut off a small little piece for the switch as well.

Using the orginal facia as a guide stick the tray facia and switch onto the back of the bay plate, in the same position as they were on the drive orginally. Press them down firmly and they will be fine.

All you need to do now is to attach the new stealthed facia back onto the drive, just reverse the way you pulled the tray facia off and it will slide in. And your pretty much done, refit the drive into your computer and check the facia is lined up properly.

Woot we've stealthed a drive

Now you've finished you get to play with it, to eject the drive all you need to do is lightly press the facia just over the switch and the drive will eject perfectly.

A mod well done. This is very very easy to do and works wonders, you could use the painting method but its very time consuming and can produce mixed results.

Conclusion

If you have beige drives and an aluminum case this is well worth five minutes and 50p in double sticky tape.