Need a new cd/dvd-rom drive, not sure what to get: Update, new one won't work.

[ZMan]

Some background on my computer: It was custom built 6 years ago, I remember nothing about the parts that are in it and I can't find the receipts. The dvd-rom thats currently in it is 10 years old. I'm wondering, will any new dvd driver hook up and work fine?

Sorry for my lack of info/knowledge here, if you need more information just tell me what you need to know and I'll try my best to answer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The current drive is a Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R1002 if that helps.

 

[martin]

The drive that you have is more than likely IDE. I had a quick look on line and could only find SATA drives. Your mother-board may have a SATA interface or not as I believe it's around the time that SATA was coming out.Best thing I could suggest is to look at the mother-board to see if it has a SATA interface. You could of course use an external drive that uses usb, they're available everywhere. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

[cody93]

yea, cd drives are pretty much plug in and go, just make sure you set the jumpers to the same way it was on the old one. if you dont got sata and cant find new ide drives, mabey look at a computer repair shop, you can get a working one for cheap there.

 

[ZMan]

alright, I found the box for my motherboard. its a asrock k8upgrade. The manual says it has two SATA ports. So I guess that answers it? I could buy a Sata drive?

 

[ZMan]

heres the info for my board..
http://asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=K8Upgrade-1689

 

[Loud Ranger]

yup it shows 2 sata ports on the bottom left corner of the pic. Near the gold heatsink. You could stick with a ide drive to keep them open for sata hdds if you plan on upgrading anytime soon.

 

[Jaymz9350]

yup it shows 2 sata ports on the bottom left corner of the pic. Near the gold heatsink. You could stick with a ide drive to keep them open for sata hdds if you plan on upgrading anytime soon.

I'd personally go SATA my self. I would not make new purchases of legacy devices unless absolutely needed (as in those 2 SATA ports are already in use). If the PC is 6 years old and still hasn't needed a hard drive upgrade I'd say it's safe until a new PC is needed (and for most even non power users 6 years is getting near needed or at least really wanted)

 

[ZMan]

ha, the hard drive itself is actually going on 7 or 8 years, hard to believe. To be honest I only use my computer for the internet. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[AllanD]

If your HDD is going on 6-7 years it's time to splurge and buy a new one NOW before it fails.

BTW, when your computer starts there is usually a "bios page" that pops up briefly that gives you the option to enter setup (by pushing F2, F8 or some other key.etc...)

If your SATA ports are currently unused you may need to go into setup
and "turn them on") if you REMOVE your IDE "legacy" optical drive you may need to turn that IDE channel OFF or the computer will complain at you.

If OTOH the optical drive is on the SAME IDE channel (and cable) as your HDD you may also need to reset the jumpers on the HDD (Master/slave/Cable-Select) to get the computer working after you rearrainge your pieces-parts...

AD

 

[ZMan]

Thanks for the advice Allan.

Believe it or not, I had two hard drives in this computer up until last February. One of them being the original hard drive to the case, which is a 12 year old Gateway case. Can you believe the original 8gb hard drive lasted 11 years? I was just using it to run Windows, while I had all my stuff stored on the 200gb HD I put in in high school.

 

[mjonesjr]

I would get a replacement IDE DVD burner. Look on www.tigerdirect.com or www.newegg.com , they have them all day long for about $25-$30.

I would use the 2 SATA ports for hard drives. You can get a 1TB hard drive for about $70 now. If you store anything on the computer that is important, I would get 2 identical hard drives and run them in a RAID1 config. RAID1 is a mirror config, that way if one hard drive fails, you have the second with the exact same info on it.

 

[ZMan]

I store nothing but pictures of my projects on my computer. And I have them backed up on a 16gb USB stick, like I said, I only use my computer to go on the internet! lol. Well I did get a ipod for christmas so now I'll be putting my cds on the computer, which is why I need a working CD drive, but even still.. I would never in a million years be able to use a TB! I ordered this when I got home from work today: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204 It ought to do exactly what I need it to do. Thanks again.

 

[kcm1582]

That's a solid drive. I have 2 in my computer with the same specs, only made by Sony and they they are really quick.

 

[Legend]

Just in case you happen to have a Wii and want to make any DVDs for it, there are a limited number of different makes / models that will burn DVDs that will be accepted by a Wii. Most of the Wii forums will have a list drives that will work.

 

[cody93]

IMO, ide is plenty sufficent for a CD/DVD drive, i have reused the same dvd burner i bought years ago in every pc i build new as its plenty fast for burning disk and reading them. if you are not using the sata ports, then go for it. if your just doing web browsing, then well you dont need a super computer to do that, a late model pentium 3 will work just as good as a modern pc for doing light task such as web browsing so you may not wana bother upgrading the rest your pc yet