Use old laptop's hard drive?

[Snowhog]

It 'could be' just a simple cache issue.

[DoYouKubuntu]

That was it, @Snowhog. I had done various things (clearing cache, closing Dolphin), to no avail, so I rebooted and there they were!

[woodsmoke]

This has been an interesting thread.
Back in the day of donating computers and fiddling with hardware in general I used a couple of cigar boxes that I had been given as gifts to use to "put things in".
I put some pencils in the bottom and laid the drive on them for air flow.
I had to cut holes in one end for access for wiring but otherwise, aside from it being rather BIG... it worked.
woodsmoke

[DoYouKubuntu]

Very clever way to re-purpose things, @woodsmoke! Yeah, I can totally see making a drive enclosure out of a cigar box.

You're clever enough to even think of that. A lot of people would just toss it in the recycling bin and be done with it. Good for you!

Just a general FWIW, I asked System76 which size, 9 or 12.7mm, enclosure I'd need for my old laptop's DVD-RW drive. I'm glad I didn't order the size I thought it looked like! I would've been wrong. It needs a 9mm enclosure, which I've ordered; it was due today, but it's been delayed and is now supposed to be here tomorrow. It's all good, though, it's not like I have an urgent need to use the drive.

It will be nice once it's working. I have a ton of DVDs that I paid good money for, things like entire TV show series, and they've just been collecting dust. I have a DVD player in the living room, and one my helper put in my room, but they involve GETTING UP to put DVDs in them and take them out again. This will give me the option of watching on my laptop. I'm not a fan of watching TV on devices, like smartphones or tablets--or computers--but for a once-in-a-while thing, it'll be good.

So after I've harvested its DVD-RW drive, my old System76 laptop will still be good for a donation, right? I mean, places that refurbish computers and give them to needy students are probably used to replacing hard drives and such. It's a beautiful laptop--I really like its appearance and feel a lot more than the new one--and I'm sure someone can get a good deal of use out of it. I'm not going to harvest anything else from it.

[SpecialEd]

I plug an external drive into my DVD player and use the DVD remote to play all my videos right on the tv and through the tv's sound system. If you have the same brand of DVD player as you do tv, you usually only need one remote. All from the comfort of my bed.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Sounds good, @SpecialEd!

Do you, or anyone really, know of a way to watch YouTube on TV--when the TV's source is DirecTV?

At one time, DirecTV offered YouTube as one of its basic, normal features. It was GREAT!!! I loved being able to just use my regular, know-it-like-the-back-of-my-hand, DirecTV remote to watch YT videos on TV. And then they got into some kind of tiff, and YT yanked it from DTV.

All of my TVs are smart TVs, but I use DirecTV for all my viewing; on my DVRs, I record anything I might like, then watch them and zap through the commercials.

I do not directly stream anything, like Netflix, to my TVs. What I want is to be able to use one remote, not have to get up and physically plug/unplug anything, and watch YT on my bedroom TV. Right now we have a DVD player in my room, and it can get YT and all other sorts of streaming services--but I can't use it without PHYSICALLY switching things around and using its remote.

Ideas?