Why are slim optical drive form factors and slim ide not standardized?

[acesea]

I bought a sony crx880a assuming most optical drives have the same dimensions and one type of slim ide connection.

The crx880a does not fit in my norco rpc4020 due to the cases' slim slots four perpendicular protrusions preventing install and placement. Also, I bought the pictured IDE ATAPI DVD CDROM Slim Laptop Adapter from ebay and it does not fit into the crx880a.

What drive and/or adapter will install in the case and convert into an ide cable a motherboard will accept?

 

[engiNURD]

pics of case and drive?

 

[acesea]

pics of case and drive?

My sony slim cd/dvdr crx880a won't fit due to the cases vertical protrusions not aligning.







The slim ide to ide connector I bought on ebay is also not compatible. I wrongly assumed there were a few standard male / female slim to normal ide connections. How are these connections identified so that I can find and purchase the correct one needed?





Any advice?

 

[engiNURD]

From those images, it looks like the actual drive is enclosed in another enclosure with an IDE to Slim SATA adapter already connected.

edit; yah, it definitely looks like there's a laptop bay-bezel already attached. Unscrew the outer shell and extract the adapter, then it should fit fine into the norco case. this is what the drive should look like: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827131046

 

[acesea]

Yes, there was another adapter enclosing the drive. Thank you!

 

[engiNURD]

nice. you'd probably want to use the sata adapter, btw, since a sata cable is smaller than an ide cable.