Disassembly Instructions for Fantom Drives external DVD+RW

[kms69panther]

Hello,

I'm trying to find some disassembly instructions for opening up my
external DVD+RW drive by Fantom Drives. I took the 4 screws off in
the back, but that just detaches the connector plate from the
enclosure. The reason I want to disassemble it is I am building a new
desktop computer and want to use the drive as an internal drive now,
and I'm a cheap college student and want to save myself the $30 of
buying a new internal drive. Also I'd rather not have to break the
case, but will resort to that if I get frustrated enough.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[kony]

Hello,

I'm trying to find some disassembly instructions for opening up my
external DVD+RW drive by Fantom Drives. I took the 4 screws off in
the back, but that just detaches the connector plate from the
enclosure. The reason I want to disassemble it is I am building a new
desktop computer and want to use the drive as an internal drive now,
and I'm a cheap college student and want to save myself the $30 of
buying a new internal drive. Also I'd rather not have to break the
case, but will resort to that if I get frustrated enough.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I have no idea what your external enclosure looks like (and
most people won't, so it would have been a good idea to link
to a good picture of it), but the general procedure is as
follows:

- Feel under stickers for the possiblity of hidden screws.

- Peel back any rubber feet, screws are sometimes hidden
behind them.

- Firmly, but carefully, push on the sides of the enclosure
and while doing so, look at the seams. Does it appear they
shift as two separate pieces or that they are heat-set or
glued together? If glued or heat-set, look at other
possible ways to gain entry like a slide-out end panel, but
if that is all there is, you would have to force it apart
semi-destructively.

- If the seams show separate pieces you probably have
(barring any other screws you can't find) plastic locking
tabs. Look for small holes, often rectangular with at least
one side of the hole extending downward from the same piece
of plastic. If there is such a hole(s) (spaced nearer the
perimeter usually), a long thin tool like a jeweler's
screwdriver may be used to flex the tab away from the mating
latch and free one section of the shell at a time.

- Other locking tabs may be invisible from the outside so
it is a matter of using a strong light and a thin blade
(like a small knife) to flex the lip of the shell away,
whichever half of the shell is the outer channel of the two
pieces, creating just enough space to see upwards at an
angle with the strong light, to determine where the friction
tabs are. This will often mar the edges of the case, but if
that's all you can do, it's necessary.

 

[Paul]

Hello,

I'm trying to find some disassembly instructions for opening up my
external DVD+RW drive by Fantom Drives. I took the 4 screws off in
the back, but that just detaches the connector plate from the
enclosure. The reason I want to disassemble it is I am building a new
desktop computer and want to use the drive as an internal drive now,
and I'm a cheap college student and want to save myself the $30 of
buying a new internal drive. Also I'd rather not have to break the
case, but will resort to that if I get frustrated enough.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

There are some (useless) manuals here:
http://www.fantomdrives.com/support/doc.php4

On page 4 here, I can see the device on the right, and its "I/O" plate.
On some of the Fantom enclosures featured on Newegg, it is obvious that
some screws on the end open it up. Perhaps in this case, since the
product has a "dedicated function", maybe the plastics use snap-in tabs
on the end plates ? (One favorite place to hide screws, is underneath
rubber feet, but I don't see any rubber feet here. And prying on the
plastic is going to scratch it up.)

http://www.fantomdrives.com/support/manuals/New_FD_Manual_092203.pdf

Would it be so bad to continue to use the drive in its external
enclosure ?

Paul