Hi everyone! I have followed through on this thread because I was expecting to face the same problem.
I bought a Sony CRX830E CDRW/DVD drive to replace a Teac CD Rom in my Toshiba Satellite 1410,which frequently refused to start unless reinstalled.
I tried all the software work arounds suggested to no avail- swapping drives in mid boot worked for the session but failed on restart.
So it was break the seal, open the CRX830 and look for pins 45 and 47 on the connector which was OK but much too small for my old eyes and hands to solder! I managed to push back the pins and wrap a small strip of aluminum foil round them, reseated them and replaced the drive cover. Plugged in the drive. booted the laptop and it works fine !(I reckon my solution can handle 5 volts. but time will tell if its permanent.)
The Sony CRX830E now shows as Secondary Master as it should, but I dont know whether it was Cable Select or Slave before.
I thought my experience might be of interest, but I do want to thank you all for your suggestions, explanations, thumbnails and links which gave me the confidence to attempt this operation.


Kind regards to you all. (Junior Senior)