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Change The Front Panel On The DVD RW
Some retail DVD RW optical drive may come with an alternate bezel (front panel). For example, the retail box version of the Sony DRU-840A comes with a beige front panel installed, but with an alternate black bezel included in the box. If you are using a computer case which is black, you may want to change out the front panel of the optical drive to match the color of the computer case.
Here is the black bezel that comes with the Sony DRU-840A DVD RW drive. This can be used to replace the beige front panel that comes attached the drive, giving it a black front panel instead. You can make out clear tape on the bezel, which actually goes all the way around the bezel. It's there to hold the two pieces of the bezel together, as well as keep the ejection pin with the bezel.
Turning the black bezel over and looking at the underside, you can see the metal ejection pin securely taped to it. The ejection pin is used to open the DVD RW drive tray manually when there is no power or it's stuck.
After removing the tape, the pieces that make of the bezel are separated. At the top is the front panel. At the bottom is the tray cover. In between is the ejection pin.
Insert the ejection pin into the small whole on the front of the DVD RW drive.
Turning the DVD RW drive on its back to make it easier to work with, push the ejection pin in and the tray will slide out.
Remove the ejection pin, leaving the DVD RW drive turned upside down.
Here are the clips for the front panel and tray cover. The two clips circled in red in the right of the picture hold the tray cover in place. The clips circled in yellow on the left - three are circled and there is one more not visible on the far side of the drive - secure the front panel to the drive.
The tray cover gets removed first, before the front panel. With the drive upside down as shown, the tray cover would slide straight down, except that it is kept from sliding by the two clips shown circled in red in the previous picture. Pull the tray cover away from the optical drive, in the direction that the tray slides open, bowing it enough so that the locking clips are pulled away from the black tab of the tray. When the clips are fully pulled away from the black tab of the tray, just slide the tray cover down to remove it. Both hands will be fairly involved for this operation. One will be holding the black drive tray and pulling in the opposite direction. The other will be on the beige tray cover pulling it to bow it enough to get the clips away from the tab, and then, when bowed sufficiently, applying downward pressure to get it to slide down.
Something like as shown in this picture. Especially when you click on the picture to see it enlarged, you can see that the beige tray cover is bowed by being pulled to the right by my right hand. And if you look close at the two clips then you'll see they are clear of the black tab enough that the tray cover can now be slid down to be removed.
The drive looks like this with the tray cover removed.
Now remove the beige front panel. The front panel is held by four clips as mentioned above - the ones circled in yellow in a previous picture. Push the clips in with something, like the blunt end of the ejection key, and the front panel comes right off. With the front panel removed, the DVD RW drive now looks as shown in this picture.
Slide the black front panel over the ejected tray and fit it onto the front of the DVD RW drive until all four clips snap in. Make sure the edges of the front panel all the way around the front of the DVD RW drive are snuggly on the drive. The front of the DVD RW drive now looks as shown in this picture.
Turn the DVD RW drive right-side up again. Slide the black tray cover into position until it clicks into place.
Gently push the tray back in with your hand. The DVD RW drive with the beige bezel replaced by the black bezel looks like this.
I purchased my Sony DRU-840A DVD RW drive from Amazon.
