Hi,
trying to replace it with a standard modern ATAPI drive doesn't work...nor did trying to fit an IDE harddrive to the 40 pin connector
God no, its not an IDE interface, you could kill it :-o
The drive uses an MKE interface (As found on some old 16 bit ISA SoundBlaster cards amongst other things), although I have been told that some MKE drives dont work with the CDTV, dont know why...
(There are double speed MKE drives around if you need that extra speed ;-)
PS: Vesalia have cheap CDTV motherboards and CD32 CD-Roms but no CDTV CD-Roms :-(
The CDTV drive is very hard to get, but good luck on your bidding.