Replacing DVD-RW Drive

[odibex]

I did as well. At about half the price of the one I bought, in fact. So, I guess since you guys are volunteers so there's no… accountability by HP or anyone? I guess I'll have to see what FTG's return policy is. It seems hard to believe that  I'd be given wrong advice (two different kinds of wrong advice, mind) by two different people on HP's site. Is replacing this kind of drive usually this difficult? I seem to remember it being pretty straightforward last time I had to do it.

Also, do you think my inability to find installation instructions is due to it being so easy that they aren't needed, or are they hidden somewhere normal Google searches wouldn't be able to find them or something?

Don't know if you have the answers to any of that,  I appreciate your time.



EDIT: Hmm, my posts don't appear to be showing up. I've refreshed and cleared my cache and nothing. I don't recall any of my previous posts being screened or anything (?), so I'm not sure what's going on. At any rate, I'll edit the comment in here:

Hi, erico, I somehow missed one of your posts where you linked to a thread where the "topic was discussed" in 2015.  That thread seems to be (is) someone who wants to replace their DVD-RW drive with a Blu-Ray Writer drive.  Requesting help finding a suitable component, basically. There didn't seem to be (wasn't) anything particularly relevant to my situation, other than them having the same model computer (and I assume, DVD-RW drive). Also, I'd posed some questions there (and I see you were on for some hours after that), the most pressing of which is, why was it so difficult to determine the drive I needed? I mean, difficult enough that I couldn't discover that info with considerable searching, and then was twice told the wrong part by the HP Experts here? I'm sure it's not that unusual for a DVD-RW drive to need to be replaced. I bought this computer new less then a year ago. I can imagine quite a few may need replacing in four or more years time. It just doesn't make a lick of sense to me. Had I known I could open it up and read the number off the part, I sure would have done so. Well, that's one to remember, I guess. I can see I can accept one of my own comments as a solution, but I'd like to see if Dean has anything to add, particularly regarding how I ended up buying the wrong part. I'm sure I've just had some bad luck here, but I'm not exactly  sure why luck would be needed.

[erico]

If you bought the PC less than a year ago, then it should be a warranty replaceable part.

Installation instructions for PC parts like optical disks are something I have not ever seen. I never needed one.

That is probably because replacements are usually done by enthusiasts, by the manufacturers own technicians or PC technicians at stores.

I was taught to follow a repair philosophy long ago that basically  was that if you have to force it to fit then stop and rethink it.

I probably should have just said that the thread touched along a similar issue.

The member in the thread that I mlinked to was also replacing an optical disk drive.

Here is a link to some service procedures for your desktop.

https://h20574.www2.hp.com/results.htm?SID=8499650&MEID=52011117-0769-4DCF-A3F2-026059160726

[odibex]

Ah, that would be great, but I don't have any sort of documentation of purchase. That's on me. 

I wasn't really trying to force anything, like I said I didn't know what I was doing, Sometimes you have to push a tab or something to get something to go in. That's… that's why I asked.

I've had two computers and both needed their CD-RW drives replaced. I use them quite a bit.  I know absolutely zero about computers or electronics and I had no problem replacing the last one. And this one looks about twice as easy, had I had the right part. This is not the sort of thing that requires a technician, unless you've got money to throw out the window or something. I ran into several tutorials on how to replace these things on HP's site. Just not for my computer. There's one for mine in the link you just posted, in fact. That's what I was looking for. That one is on a different site than the ones I saw, though, "Hewlett Packard"'s. Which I guess would explain why it didn't show up on my searches on the HP site.

I guess you thought there might be something helpful in the first link, but I'm afraid there wasn't. Like I said, it concerned issues with replacing a CD-RW drive with a blu-ray thing. "Do I need extra wires for the blu-ray?" "What kind of blu-ray do I need?" Etc. Can't say much more about that. Moving on.

It probably seems I'm making a big deal out of this, but it's likely I'll have to take a cab to the post office to return this wrong part, which will run me about $20, plus about $5 for postage I guess, and the $7 I paid for the postage for the one I bought that I won't be getting back. That's about $32 off of the $55 I paid. I'm sure that doesn't seem like an awful lot, but when you live on disability, it is. Particularly when you bought the product in question under the advisement of an "HP Expert" on HP's site, and 24 hours have passed and you've received neither an apology nor an explanation. Not that that part's an issue. It's not. But, it might have helped.