CD/DVD 1.31 firmware didn't help. Thanks PrEzi, as with the new hard drive on the system would abort installation of the firmware, I installed again the old hard drive (BIOS and Windows recognized the CD/DVD) and performed the upgrade, now I have v. 1.31 but unfortunately when I put back on the new hard drive there was no change at all...The CD/DVD still doesn't appear!!! What is going on??? I don't get it...btw the performance of the laptop with the new hard drive is amazing...almost 2 times as fast and as for the battery consumption???Well with the old hard drive I would get a little less than 5 hours (with the small battery on) guess what now...I get more than 6 hours!!!That's I 'm so anxious to get this thing to work, otherwise I would just sell the disc and return to the old configuration!!!PLEASE HELP!!! P.S. I found on line that there is a new firmware update for the SANDISK 1.8" 5000 UATA (the version is 2.13, I have v. 1.27) but I can't find anywhere a downloadable file (Sandisk told me that I can only gat frmware updates for the disk through the OEM manufacturers e.g. Dell, HP etc. but who is using this drive, that I can't find)
I think I got it...one more thing though Ok, I have identified (I think) what the problem is...My Sandisk is set as "slace" that's why the conflict with my CD/DVD drive. Now I only have to change either the hard drive's master/slave setting or my CD/DVD drive's both units are jumpeless so I would have to do it by software...Some guys out there have been doing it for CD/DVD drives...any suggestions for software???
Found it...In order to change a hard drive from master to slave is to connect pin 40 via a 10K resistor to a 3.3 v source (either pin 38 or 39)...Have to get the resistor