Okay, so here's my idea. I'm curious if anyone's tried/thought of it before, and if there are any pitfalls I should be concerned about. I'm in the process of designing a new case based on an old NeXT cube I got my hands on a few weeks back. I've seen Cool Dog's work, etc., but I'm going a different route.

Anyway, I'm wondering if it would be possible to use a different push-switch to open/close a CD-R(OM) drive. Basically, I want to re-route the button, as well as the activity LED, into a switch located elsewhere on the case (not too far away). Basically, the LED will go inside the button, if I can find such a switch. I know this will reduce greatly the ability for me to remove the CD-R(Om) - I've already accounted for that (using Dean's Ultra Micro gold plugs to connect things of this nature).

If you're wondering why, let's just say I'm designing a faceplate much like those on the Apple towers, where there's a door that hinges out of the way to allow the CD-R(OM) tray to come out/in.

Thanks in advance for all help. I expect I'll be lurking around here quite a bit in the coming months, while I carry out this project.

yeah no problem..
people make stealth drives and put switches on the side of there cases to open the doors..
what you are going to want to do.. is basicly remove the swtich thats on there.. now.. and get some wire.. and wire it in to the switch.. and then just put ur new switch on their.. and it will work just fine.. as for the led.. you do the same thing..

it was something i thought about doing for a while, although i never went though with it. like psy said you should be able to just de-solder the switches and move them.

i have screwed up once trying to do a window mod on my cd drive. Yeah u can definetely reroute the the push button and led, but your goin to have to solder the led and switch off.

As for the cd rom window mod DO NOT cut off the odd looking center section portion of the cd drive. It holds the cd in place while spinning. LOL i remember finishing my cd rom mod with the center portion removed. When I plugged it into my computer and placed a cd inside the drive, the CD was spinning hysterically out of place.

Ha. Nope, I didn't plan on making that mistake - I've had CD-R(OM)s that have gotten dusty enough inside that the holder you're referring to did nothing to 'grip' the disk, and they just sat there and spun anyway... Stupid Gateway case-design...

I once had a cd spinning out of control. It shattered in 1000 little pieces. luckely it were drivers which could be downloaded and not an expencive game of something like that.