SEOMike - 3:29 am on Jul 19, 2005 (gmt 0)

I second Steve's recommendation for a USB caddy. They work really nice. I was able to use one to clone a failing laptop drive and start over. (drive started throwing bad sectors) You should be able to just plug it in and it should run. Listen to be sure that the drive spins up, but because you say that your laptop won't recognize your CD-ROM it's probably something else that's the trouble.

USB cases are relatively inexpensive and easy to come by. Heck, if this doesn't work for you, just return the case and get your money back.

Depending on the size of your laptop drive (and the power of your USB hub) you may require an external power source for the drive, so be sure to get one that has that capability if you have a large laptop drive (I believe it's 80 gig or over that requires external juice)

I bought a new laptop drive and now use my USB drive for keeping important files I might need for working on machines. (mostly diagnostic programs incase a network connection / FTP software is unavailable.) It's nice to have 40gig I can fit in my pocket.

Good luck. Let us know the result!