I tried a few more hours. I think the hdd is connected correctly in the cd-rom slot. i even heard it running, bios detect no hdd, but detect a hardware in selectbay. the hdd has a boot with ontrack manager overlay, i verified with another laptop very often and it works correctly, but in the tecra 500cdt, it always show no system disk, press F1 to retry. i think bios cant boot a hdd in the selectbay (2nd slot) even if the manual say that you can put a 2nd hdd in the selectbay. Thanks for help

The hdd is in the selectbay. The bios find this secondary ide (170H/IRQ15)

but dont want to boot with it. boot files are correctly installed with ontrack manager overlay, i tested with another laptop. Thanks for help

if nobody answer, i will try to cut the cd-rom adapter to make it compatible with the hdd adapter to put it in the 1st hdd slot. If it doesnt work i will solder the 44 pins or put this laptop in storage until i find a hdd adapter on ebay or market place. the adapter is included in the hdd caddy.

Maybe try a smaller size HDD?

No, there is a bullshit proprietary connector jobbie that Toshiba used that is unobtanium.

This thread is all about that.
The elusive Toshiba laptop HDD connector

A poster in that thread mentions a 3M part on Mouser that can be cut to fit, and cobbled into an adapter to manufacture an hdd caddy.

I'd try that route first, before destroying another unobtanium part, for the cdrom.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-08-25, 12:44:

No, there is a bullshit proprietary connector jobbie that Toshiba used that is unobtanium. […]
Show full quote

No, there is a bullshit proprietary connector jobbie that Toshiba used that is unobtanium.

This thread is all about that.
The elusive Toshiba laptop HDD connector

A poster in that thread mentions a 3M part on Mouser that can be cut to fit, and cobbled into an adapter to manufacture an hdd caddy.

I'd try that route first, before destroying another unobtanium part, for the cdrom.

Because it's a receptacle that's inside the laptop and the 'pins' are on the mezzanine connector, we could alternatively just make a PCB to fit the same thickness and jam that into the hard drive connector slot on the laptop. The actual plastic outer shell that does the keying / guidance of the connector into the slot could be remade with a 3d printed replacement. It wouldn't work for every connector but since the pins on the HDD caddy connector are flat and the spring contacts are on the laptop, it could work

It's cool that we were able to figure out which connector is the right one but sourcing them looks hard unless you're good with alibaba or happen to be in shenzhen.

i decided to cut the cd-rom adapter to make a hdd adapter for the original hdd slot 1.
i have 39 cables to solder, on the 50 pins 11 of them are no connector. i uploaded picture of the new hdd adapter. I dont think i will make the 39 solders today.
enjoy the pictures. i included a picture of the new hdd adapter but also the female to female 44 pins cable i will use to solder it to the adapter, i will cut one side. i have other cables like that one. the cable is tested good i used it for several backup. ( my smaller ide hdd has 30gb, i didnt try another hdd in selectbay, and i dont have a ide to cf, but i will receive one soon, i waiting for it to arrive and anyway i prefer real ide hdd)

i included pictures of the hdd adapter and hdd pinout.
i have to post again maximum 5 pictures by post

renejr902 wrote on 2024-08-25, 16:13:

i decided to cut the cd-rom adapter to make a hdd adapter for the original hdd slot 1.
i have 39 cables to solder, on the 50 pins 11 of them are no connector. i uploaded picture of the new hdd adapter. I dont think i will make the 39 solders today.
enjoy the pictures. i included a picture of the new hdd adapter but also the female to female 44 pins cable i will use to solder it to the adapter, i will cut one side. i have other cables like that one. the cable is tested good i used it for several backup. ( my smaller ide hdd has 30gb, i didnt try another hdd in selectbay, and i dont have a ide to cf, but i will receive one soon, i waiting for it to arrive and anyway i prefer real ide hdd)

Aww was that the big old style drive like the XM-1202B's caddy that got sacrificed? That drive's pretty rare, it was the one with the manual push button eject, right?

It looks good though and your pinout references are correct as far as I'm aware. Good luck with the modification 😀

Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-08-25, 19:07:

renejr902 wrote on 2024-08-25, 16:13:

i decided to cut the cd-rom adapter to make a hdd adapter for the original hdd slot 1.
i have 39 cables to solder, on the 50 pins 11 of them are no connector. i uploaded picture of the new hdd adapter. I dont think i will make the 39 solders today.
enjoy the pictures. i included a picture of the new hdd adapter but also the female to female 44 pins cable i will use to solder it to the adapter, i will cut one side. i have other cables like that one. the cable is tested good i used it for several backup. ( my smaller ide hdd has 30gb, i didnt try another hdd in selectbay, and i dont have a ide to cf, but i will receive one soon, i waiting for it to arrive and anyway i prefer real ide hdd)

Aww was that the big old style drive like the XM-1202B's caddy that got sacrificed? That drive's pretty rare, it was the one with the manual push button eject, right?

It looks good though and your pinout references are correct as far as I'm aware. Good luck with the modification 😀

i will let you know if the cd-rom is the one with the manual push button eject. i will make the solders this week and let you know if its work. if i still cant read the hdd i will try a ide to cf adapter or a smaller ide hdd. have a nice evening guys 😀

If you spent more than one day to fix this, isn't easier to just buy another 500CDT and take hdd caddy from there? It is not crazy expensive today.

Breaking original parts in an attempt to make something homemade is not a good idea.

I'm busy this week i will do the solder this week-end.

( By the way its a project for fun too, i want to repair it myself, i dont want to buy another one and i dont need the cd-rom anyway )

it doesnt work. All contact are good and verified after the job done. my father and me we tried the socket in both side to be sure. we checked both side of hdd too. we tried several ide hdd. even a 1300mb 100% working. we dont know what trying next. we even use the gerber files that a the guy use for made a pcb, its 100% made like toshiba diagram pj50pins in the pdf. if you have any
ideas thanks.

( we find strange something. in the 50 pins hdd socket in the computer, some pins give us 5v. i dont think 5 or 6 pins should be 5v, its strange)
we found it strange )

THANKS FOR ADVICE AND HELP ! its really appreciated !

We found the problem, we made a error with hhd side vs pc side with the gerber files. we soldered half the connection again, we will finish it tommorow or in a few days, i will let you know if it works. thanks

We succeed. We soldered everything again. That work perfectly well with the cd-rom adapter. I'm very happy. I will show you pictures tomorrow or in 2 or 3 days. I will do a more polished work. I tried keen4 and opl3 works great. Keen4 detected a soundblaster without any setting or drivers. this laptop has a integrated authentic yamaha opl3 and cs4232 for digital sound and music

Maybe I'm late to the reply... but here is my work of creating an adapter PCB for the HDD caddy (no need to sacrifice a cd-rom caddy):

https://github.com/pymo/tecra-500-hdd-adapter

chen_xin_ming wrote on 2024-09-09, 07:34:

Maybe I'm late to the reply... but here is my work of creating an adapter PCB for the HDD caddy (no need to sacrifice a cd-rom caddy):

https://github.com/pymo/tecra-500-hdd-adapter

its nice really, but its already finished. see my post below

We just finished the job it works perfect. I did all this work because i want to play dos games with it with a authentic opl3. see the pictures. But i will rebuild the laptop to be more beautiful soon 😉

others pictures. on the screen its just dust. i will clean it later. on the pictures we see my father