Making an external CD/DVD Drive from an older MBP for the new MPB

[PennCentralFan]

So I bought the 13"MBP with the touch bar and I"m liking it. My late 2011 MBP died a slow death. The replacement SSD hard drive I put in last year failed. I should have just bought a new MBP last year but I"m happy with my new MBP.

So I am thinking of taking out the CD/DVD superdrive from my 2011 MBP and putting it in a case and getting the right cables to make it an external CD/DVD superdrive.

Have any of you done it? Can it be done given the way the superdrive is built in the 2011 MBP. I'd rather do this and save some money if I can just take out the old superdrive.

If you can do it what recommendations do you have for a case and cable?

Thanks

 

[Sully]

So I bought the 13"MBP with the touch bar and I"m liking it. My late 2011 MBP died a slow death. The replacement SSD hard drive I put in last year failed. I should have just bought a new MBP last year but I"m happy with my new MBP.

So I am thinking of taking out the CD/DVD superdrive from my 2011 MBP and putting it in a case and getting the right cables to make it an external CD/DVD superdrive.

Have any of you done it? Can it be done given the way the superdrive is built in the 2011 MBP. I'd rather do this and save some money if I can just take out the old superdrive.

If you can do it what recommendations do you have for a case and cable?

Thanks

It seems like a lot of work when you can just buy one for under $100.

 

[Sanpete]

Haven't done it, but over the years others have without much trouble. Don't see any reason it wouldn't work with the new models too.

Unusual for an SSD to fail so soon. Wonder what happened there. Was your machine running extra hot?

 

[PennCentralFan]

Haven't done it, but over the years others have without much trouble. Don't see any reason it wouldn't work with the new models too.

Unusual for an SSD to fail so soon. Wonder what happened there. Was your machine running extra hot?

I don't know what happened. The recovery portion of the SSD works so the disc is not physically corrupted. I did disk aid first aid and it said it couldn't fix it. The old MBP will start and get to the grey apple logo screen and then the completion bar won't finish and the screen will go blank. I usually keep my notebooks for about 5 years so I was due for a new one, but I would have liked to get another year out of it. But I can get the recovery disk partition but no solution offered worked.

 

[steve62388]

It seems like a lot of work when you can just buy one for under $100.

Agreed. Well under even (circa $25).

 

[Apple_Robert]

So I bought the 13"MBP with the touch bar and I"m liking it. My late 2011 MBP died a slow death. The replacement SSD hard drive I put in last year failed. I should have just bought a new MBP last year but I"m happy with my new MBP.

So I am thinking of taking out the CD/DVD superdrive from my 2011 MBP and putting it in a case and getting the right cables to make it an external CD/DVD superdrive.

Have any of you done it? Can it be done given the way the superdrive is built in the 2011 MBP. I'd rather do this and save some money if I can just take out the old superdrive.

If you can do it what recommendations do you have for a case and cable?

Thanks

In my opinion, it would be better to spend $26.00 and get an external USB 3.0 DVD drive. I bought this one off Amazon, and it has been working flawlessly.

 

[thesaint024]

I see a lot of these external drive threads and I always wonder why more people don't just share the drive from a computer that has one? I could be out of touch and incorrectly assume that most have a computer with an optical drive somewhere in the house. I've never bothered with an external because of this. You can share a PC or Mac's drive on the occasions that you need to read from a drive.