Just bought a DVD burner for my old M275 Tablet. Won't fit. Slim, what else? just a

[Mysticle31]

I just bought a DVD burner for my gateway M275 Convertible.

But I find that it (the DVD burner) is just a little under 1/2 CM thicker than the drive that came out of the tablet

Everything else looks the same. Styling, screw holes for mounting brackets, width, length..etc.

What else is there besides slim drives for laptops of this era? It's very close.

I know this isn't exactly the right place to ask, I figured someone would know,

[Rhubarb]

You could try a usb DVD writer.
These can be bought as is, or you can buy a USB 5.25" enclosure and put a standard IDE DVD burner in it.
Unfortunantly it'll need to be plugged in to a power point - it can not be powered off the laptop.

[Mysticle31]

Yeah I had realized I could do that. Although I wanted one in the laptop so I don't forget it somewhere.

I'm mostly curious about drive form factors than I am getting the burner I bought to work.

[Rhubarb]

Very good point there.
I don't even know any form factor standards for laptop optical drives.
There could be low profile drives that you could get that'll fit in there.

All I know is that laptop optical drives often come with a different face plate depending on what model you get.

I should do some reading up online about optical drive physical specifications, and if they are indeed easily interchangeable.

Short of attacking your laptop with a hacksaw and getting the soldering iron out, I don't think it'd be easy to get that drive working :P

[mips]

If I was you I would contact Gateway for the right drive. Sounds like you have a weird form factor there.

[bufsabre666]

they sell external cases for the slim drives, and alot of them are capable of running off usb alone, i got one on ebay in august for ~10$