Drive Stealthing

Drive Stealthing Made Simple You have by now probably seen many different drive stealthing guides on a lot of other mod sites with difficulty ranging from fairly easy to downright ludicrous. This guide is guaranteed easy and will show what I consider to be the hands down absolute best way to stealth a drive. The end result looks awesome, is entirely functional, completely removable and unlike a lot of other mods will not void your warranty. There must be some unwritten law that every case modding website is obligated to have a drive stealthing guide... having said that, here is ours.
	Tools and Materials - Nibbler - Wire Cutters - File - Scissors - Velcro Strip - Double Sided Tape
Below are a couple of cover blanks for 5.25" bays, the top two are standard beige plastic covers and the bottom one is from a Lian Li case. I am going to use the Lian bezel cover plate for this guide because it is the more difficult of the two to do, but the plastic covers would be done about the same way. Grab the nibbler and begin cutting off the side pieces, try to keep your line straight as you go. Once you get about half way through flip it over and start cutting in from the other side. If you have never nibbled before you need to know that it only cuts out a rice grain sized piece with every squeeze, but it sounds worse than it actually is. You could alternately use a dremel to remove the material, but it would probably take just as long to do. Notice the small pile of nibbler turds in the lower right of the picture below... Ok, I will admit now that I was just looking for an excuse to use the term "nibbler turds". When the bay cover looks like the one below you can carefully bend the side flap off and then repeat the process for the other side, use wire cutters to cut through if you are unsure of your ability to bend it off correctly. Ok, now that the sides are off proceed to remove the metal lip from the top and bottom. Use the nibbler to remove the edge material making sure to be careful not to remove too much. You just want it to be about flush and any fine tuning as far as shaping it will be done in the next step. The file, it is one of my most frequently used modding tools and is once again called into action to smooth up all the rough edges left by the nibbler. File, file, file then check your progress and then file some more, below is the finished filed product. Wipe off the tray door to your drive to remove any dirt, dust or oils from your hands, then take a strip of the double sided tape and stick it onto the door. Cut a length of Velcro and adhere that to the double sided tape as shown in the picture below. Your drive will have to be recessed a little further into the case to compensate for the added thickness of the tape and Velcro, just loosen the screws up and slide it back. Take the other half of the Velcro and line it up on the inside of the bay cover, it doesn't have to be perfect but the closer the better. Using the Velcro as a guide I approximated the position of the eject button and started layering the double sided tape until it was three layers thick. Since we don't want the cover sticking to the eject button I cut a small piece of paper to stick onto the top of the tape. If you don't have the tape positioned correctly so that it hits the eject button simply remove it, wipe it down with some Goo-Gone to remove any tape residue and try again. Take the cover plate and line it up with the drive, press it down good so that the Velcro sticks and you are basically done. Test it out by pressing the lower right corner to eject the drive tray, then reach under and push the eject button again to bring the tray back in. If the newly installed stealth cover doesn't close correctly simply remove it, reposition it and try it again. Below is a top down shot showing the tape, Velcro and bay cover attached to the drive tray door. And finally, a front shot of the open stealth drive. This mod is near fool proof, takes under an hour and costs next to nothing to do. If you get sick of reaching beneath to close the drive tray you can refer to our CD button re-routing guide for even more modding fun.