Hi Joe,
On 2/11/2011 11:00 PM, Joe wrote:
It worked! Thanks for the info that made me bold enough to squeeze those
plastic pieces hard enough to get some of the "fingers" (tabs on
fingers(?)) to pop out of the grooves. See what follows for a few of my
comments interspersed about what you had said.
Having *done* it, I think you will agree that it is a lot
easier to *do* than to describe *how* to do it! : My
language skills are just not up to that sort of challenge.
And, like most snap-together-things, it "makes incredible sense"
once you see how it all works.
In , D Yuniskis
wrote:
On 2/11/2011 3:25 PM, Joe wrote:
I have a Que Fire, model QPS-525. I would like to remove the Teac CD
burner and replace it with a bare Combo drive (CD Read/Write and DVD
Read). How do I open that plastic case that encloses the drive? The only
visible screws are very small ones on the back that look like they only
hold the on/off switch and the firewire ports to a black plastic panel.
Thanks.
If it is similar to the other Que's that I've had, the
"accent colored" pieces (wrap over each side and another
on the front) snap off.
The third "accent colored" piece is on the back, but nothing really
different about its being there.
Ah, my bad. I remembered it was on one *end* and assumed
"front" instead of "back" :-( (I don't have a Que to
look at)
Once they are off, you'll understand
how to *get* them off (catch-22) -- hard to explain, here.
(putting them on, you kind of have to *hook* one half and
then "stretch" the other half -- of each *piece* -- until
it clicks into place)
IIRC, once these are off, the top and bottom halves of the
shell separate.
Nope, once I had the "accent colored" pieces off, the sumbitch was still
solidly held together. There are three tabs X 2 on the translucent
colorless halves, and they come apart in the same way that the other
Ah, OK.
pieces came off. But the front-most tabs on fingers were a real biyatch
to open, even though I had already honed my tab-releasing skills on the
preceding eight tabs. Holey moley, Batman!
Just remember: plastic breaks!
Disassembled without breaking any of it! 
I wonder if the folks who design these enclosures sit around
chuckling over how devious their designs are? Maybe getting
some pleasure out of knowing how frustrating it is to sort
out The Trick without damaging or scarring the product in the
process?
I can't recall the role of the screws you mentioned. Can't
hurt to take them out *first* and see what else loosens up.
Didn't have to loosen those screws.
OK. I have other external enclosures where two screws on
the rear hold the "guts" in place (and the case slides off
like a sleeve). Couldn't recall if that was the case, here.
You should probably test new drive cabled into the case
*before* reassembling.
Absolutely! I have been playing with it for (mumble) some time now, and
some things work, others don't. The interesting thing is that my internal
Make sure the Master/Slave/etc. straps on the drive are set
properly (look at the previous drive). I have a cute little
*4* CD drive that I pulled from a machine some time ago.
I have been wanting to coax it to work in an external
enclosure but, I suspect, the command interface that tells
the drive (changer) which CD to load is "proprietary". And,
if you can't command it to change disks, it's no better than
a *single* CD drive! :-/
CD DVD R& W won't read some data Maxell DVD-R's that *it* burned but the
DVD reader that is now in the Que Fire *will* read those DVD-R's.
I keep a variety of CD/DVD drives (R & R/W) to handle the inevitable
"read error" problems that seem to crop up. I haven't sorted out
whether it is differences in laser "color" (with age), mechanism
"slop", etc. Drives are cheap and reasonably small so it's easier
to have a few "spares"...
And the whole operation only took like 15 minutes! Yeah, right, April Fool
Wanna bet you'll forget *something* and remember it 1.5 ohnoseconds
*after* you snap the outer panels on?? : (Hint: think about which
"side" should be top/bottom before installing the drive)
--don