Hardware Need advice

[jrogers1965]

The CD Burner on my pc apparently went belly-up on me. Drive opens & closes, but won't do anything when a disc is inserted. Can I keep it in the bay & get an external burner? If so, can I get reccomendations for an inexpensive, but good model? Would it create a problem with the internal burner & would FAB still function even though it's a different drive?

I should have figured something was wrong when the Lightscribe started screwing up & some of my burns looked goofy (Had a thread on that previously)

External drive would be my first choice as I'm not comfortable doing an internal change out.


Thanks for any help

[90312]

The only thing I would recommend to you is to get a full sized drive in an enclosure with an external power supply. I just don't care for the slim drives (laptop type) that gets all the power for the drive motor and laser off of one USB port.

[CBR929]

Hi jrogers1965
Have you tried cleaning the drive with a shot of air, or a drive cleaning disc?

Is this drive in a desktop or laptop?

If in desktop I would go with an Internal, they are fairly simple to change.

If in a laptop, I agree with my friend 90312 on his recommendations.

CBR929

[jrogers1965]

Hi jrogers1965
Have you tried cleaning the drive with a shot of air, or a drive cleaning disc?

Is this drive in a desktop or laptop?

If in desktop I would go with an Internal, they are fairly simple to change.

If in a laptop, I agree with my friend 90312 on his recommendations.

CBR929

Have used cleaning disks & air before. It's an HP Slimline PC, and no warranty anymore

[jrogers1965]

Hey CB,

I did a little digging and with help from Part Surfer, I was able to find the exact same drive at Big Blue. I might give installing it a shot. Luckily my Father can help & he has a friend that does it for a living..


Thanks for the help

[CBR929]

Hi jrogers1965
You can get drives fairly cheap, a good place to start also is Newegg or Tiger Direct

Just make sure you get the right interface, either IDE or Sata

You won't believe how simple the swap will be.
Good luck
CBR929

[jrogers1965]

happy again!

Thanks CB!

I ordered one from Big Blue, but somehow got the wrong model cause it wouldn't fit into the housing. So I dug around on HP's site & found the right one! A little bit of a pain getting the cables connected right & getting it locked in, but I'm back in business!

Haven't tried FAB on it yet, but I have my lappy for that. Just mainly wanted my Lightscribe to work right


Thanks so much for your assistance

[CBR929]

Hi jrogers1965
Let us know how it goes.
CBR929

[Tybarius]

Mad Dog

I've been using mine now 4 years very sturdy and reliable I remember when I read the lifetime guarantee thinking yeah right, and the company'll go bankrupt tomorrow and what good would that be? But they're still around internal are EZ to replace however if I were to decide on one or the other I'd go with the internal. all you need to know from jump is the interface the old IDE is currently PATA and SCSI is SATA so whether IDE, PATA, SCSI or SATA look it up under your device manager but first I'd run a search on DVD drives not being recognized by windows, etc... Does the drive show up when you open Explorer? I haven't heard of it happening recently but awhile back a drive not even showing up was very common and searches usually led to a registry fix that all you needed to do was click on it and your drive would be back.

[Tybarius]

BTW adding an external drive would present no problem DVDFab would recognize it I have two internals and a Mad Dog external all of which I burn with at any given time with as I said no problems at all.

changing an internal drive is really simple the worst you'll run into is removing the front that can be a pain, but once you've got that clear the drive will either be mounted with 4 screws (old) or with swiveled latches (new) then two cables that's it the data cable for IDE/PATA has a forty pin connector on a ribbon cable, SCSI has a fifty pin connector and SATA's have 7 connectors. The other cable is the power source IDE, PATA & SCSI all use the old 4 pin and SATA uses one with 15 connectors.

As I said getting the old drive out is the only problem you'll encounter and if it's broke anyway you might as well use it to practice.

[CBR929]

BTW adding an external drive would present no problem DVDFab would recognize it I have two internals and a Mad Dog external all of which I burn with at any given time with as I said no problems at all.

changing an internal drive is really simple the worst you'll run into is removing the front that can be a pain, but once you've got that clear the drive will either be mounted with 4 screws (old) or with swiveled latches (new) then two cables that's it the data cable for IDE/PATA has a forty pin connector on a ribbon cable, SCSI has a fifty pin connector and SATA's have 7 connectors. The other cable is the power source IDE, PATA & SCSI all use the old 4 pin and SATA uses one with 15 connectors.

As I said getting the old drive out is the only problem you'll encounter and if it's broke anyway you might as well use it to practice.

You will also want the forty pin 80 wire ribbon cable instead of the old 40 wire.
CBR929