T420 DVD eject button - terrible placement; driving me insane

[znom]

Same problem here, in my company we have aroung 50 T420s, we all have the same issue. Looking forward for the solution as it's really annoying (a key combination dvd tray deactivation method would be great)

[ozphoenix]

Lenovo support - come on guys, this has been going on too long   When can you issue a patch or utility for this?  The non-Lenovo patches out on the net are not reliable.

[JameZ]

ozphoenix,

issue has been sent to quality team. am waiting for an update from them too.

//JameZ

[dianahc]

Come on guys - this problem was reported six months ago - where is the software fix? I'm having the same issue with my W520. Duct tape is not a long-term solution!

[ThorsHammer]

An Ultrabay HDD adaptor is one way to "fix" the problem.

[dianahc]

Um, I am not that computer savvy, but I looked at a picture of what that is, and it looks like a way to take the **bleep** thing out and replace it with more hard drive storage? So I'm guessing that's a joke, because that is NOT what I should have to do with a brand new $3500 laptop that has more memory than I will ever need (unless I keep adding to the 40K messages in my Outlook inbox), right?

[todm]

Im surprised, Toddler Keys is working for me on T420 with Win 7

It needs to be added to your start menu. 

In the systray, right click on your toddler keys (TK) icon and make sure lock drive doors is enabled.

I can hit the drive door open button all day long now once the OS is loaded.  Picking up the PC before or OS loads with the power on is still a problem.

In order to open the door, you have to manually go into the systeray and uncheck loke drive doors in the TK systray.

Remember to recheck the lock drive door option afterwards.

[todm]

The problem is that there is no HW fix for this.  This is POOR mechanical design and it plagues ALL Thinkpads with the Sony Optiarc drive with the door button on the beleveled edge.

The only fix is to allow a SW mechanism to enable and disable the optical dive door button short of giving us a new redesigned optical drive.

[ira_gilbert]

I had the same problem and it drove me crazy until  I found 

CDRom-Lock, a freeware program at sourceforge.net. It is a small, lightweight program that really does the job.

Some notes: I am using Windows XP Pro, but I understand that it works fine under Windows 7 (32-bit at least). Also, I had to replace the version of msinet.ocx in System32 with a newer one. Probably not a problem for Win7 users.  Finally , the default language is German. It is easily changed to English on the options page ( Bearbeiten\Optionen).

[icantux]

Surprised Lenovo didn't stick with a normal 9.5mm ultrabay on this system.

As it stands and as I understand this, the current T420 12.7mm optical drive opens willy-nilly, there is no dedicated ultrabay hdd caddy of appropriate size, no travel bezel to cover up the gap if one opted to remove the optical drive, no capability of adding ultrabay battery because of the unconventional size and removal of connector in the bay.... not to mention other unmentionables (namely screen quality, etc).

Good grief, has Lenovo abandoned the tried, true and tested 14" platform of the past as the workhorse and flagship in favour of 15" barely-portable workstations and "thin and light" systems with insufficient cooling?