[rescue] E3K DVD drive or blanking plate

[Skeezics Boondoggle]

On Sun, 7 Dec 2025 10:04:14 -0600, Steve Hatle wrote:


> My E3000 has a gaping hole where the DVD drive used to live. It wasn't
> there when it came to me.
>
>
Hey, Steve!  Let me guess: the drive got yeeted when it developed the weird
eject/retract/eject/retract symptom that practically all of my ancient Sun
CD and DVD ROM drives have picked up over the years? :-(

I vaguely recall a discussion of this from waaaaay back, but CBA to go look
it up.  Did anyone ever solve that or discover why it happens?  Could a
firmware update fix it?  Or do we just go chuck those drives in the river?
My lovely old L1000 tape library is full of DLT drives that died the mung
fade too, despite attempts to keep up the proper cleaning and maintenance
-- one by one they dropped off the SCSI bus or lost their little minds.
Sigh.

Getting older is waking up to find a new thing that hurts, and will for the
rest of your life.  Applies to old computers, too.



> If anyone has the grey DVD drive or just the blanking plate I could use it.
>
> If the drive were working that would be a bonus, but even a bad one
> would be OK to fill the hole.
>
>
*Just last night* before this digest arrived I'd fired up my E3500, and a
bunch of other systems, to check on NVRAM status and do my sort-of-monthly
inventory "wellness checks."  The DVD drive decided to say "bleaaaaah" to
me several times, and two of my FC-AL drives dropped.  Sigh.  Otherwise, it
passed full diags with flying colors.

I don't know if this drive still works if a disc is inserted, but I suspect
not.  It might be more annoying to have one that malfunctions and randomly
spits out its tray than to put up with the hole. :-)  But I suppose you
could leave it unplugged.  Or I could pull one from the pile of 220R/420Rs
that I'll be trying to get rid of, soon, once I can haul their heavy
carcasses out of the racks.  I might have one in the right livery that
still works.



> Let me know what you would like in cash or prizes,
>
>
Well, on topic, I've got a SunBlade 2000 with an unsightly gap around its
floppy drive.  Haven't gone looking for a replacement bezel for it, but if
you just happened to have one... :-)

I currently have two other Sun wish-list items:

  1. A replacement power supply for my 4/670MP (would trade some VME bits
for it?)

I don't have the chops to attempt a diagnosis and repair, and even just
opening it up to sniff around was an infuriating experience given the
horrible internal mechanical design. :-(  Would gladly swap it for a
functioning one if someone cared to re-cap/repair it properly.

  2. I'd like to swap two 1GB memory banks for 2GB to fill out my
aforementioned E3500.

It irks me that I've got 8 CPUs and 14GB of RAM, instead of the full 16GB.
Seriously hampering my savoir faire and messing with my interleaving,
that.  I mean, I can live with it for as much use as this machine gets, but
it offends my sensibilities more than the cosmetics of the SB2000.

Obviously these aren't terribly realistic or high priority, but ya never
know.


>
> PS - I could 3d print a blanking plate, but that whole color match thing
> would probably bug me about as much as having the hole :-)
>
>
Maybe a paint match is easier to achieve?  I know they used to make "NeXT
Black", but did anyone make "Sun Purple"?  Or, since it's hanging right
there, "Midnight Sun" would be the perfect color name, for that dusky
purpley-gray shade.

Cheers,
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