DescentBB

The optical DVD burner on my 4 year old Dell just took the deep six, in the middle of a backup disk run. Any recommendations for a good, fast, reliable replacement?

SATA or IDE Drives


im assuming that its 4 years old they are IDE drives. in that case i have had no problems what so ever out of Asus DVD Drives.

Pioneer makes some pretty nice drives in both flavors, and they are fairly inexpensive. (Pay no more than $40 for any DVD burner these days, and many can be purchased for $25-30.) I personally have a Pioneer DVR-115D drive (IDE) that I am quite happy with. Although I have seen some mixed issues with the SATA variant of this same drive, but odds are a 4 year old system is using an IDE optical drive.

You should take your broken DVD burner apart and make a burning laser

and what if its the laser thats broken? no more fun with that

They aren't that bright... But at least you should be able to SEE a DVD laser (CD lasers are infrared).

AceCombat wrote:and what if its the laser thats broken? no more fun with that

That's rarely the problem. (most LEDs, given that they are properly used with the right kind of driver circuit, last around 200,000 hrs don't they?) Usually it's a mechanism error, broken sensor, or a fried component on the controller circuit board. The moving parts are always the most vulnerable to wearing out.

Krom wrote:They aren't that bright... Razz But at least you should be able to SEE a DVD laser (CD lasers are infrared).

DVD burning lasers are more than just visible- they can light matches, pop balloons, burn holes in paper, cut electric tape, light fireworks, and more. Most standard laser pointers are about 5mW; a DVD laser is about 200-250mW. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/871540/ho ... lashlight/

I can post more instructions on how to make one if ur interested.

might have to try that

i advise to NOT do such experimenting. once your eyesight is lost, it cannot be restored. it's not just direct exposure, but also reflections that can damage your retina. in the worst case, you hit your visual nerve and you're blind.

edit: or other people.

AceCombat wrote:SATA or IDE Drives


im assuming that its 4 years old they are IDE drives. in that case i have had no problems what so ever out of Asus DVD Drives.

Parallel ATA, I think??? It has a flat ribbon cable as best as I remember. I'll have to open up the case to check. It's been awhile since I looked. Needs a cleaning anyway.

I've salvaged the laser out of an old copier. It'd be fun to run it somehow, with eye protection of course.

Floyd wrote:i advise to NOT do such experimenting. once your eyesight is lost, it cannot be restored. it's not just direct exposure, but also reflections that can damage your retina. in the worst case, you hit your visual nerve and you're blind.

edit: or other people.

i know about lasers and eye exposure

Floyd wrote:i advise to NOT do such experimenting. once your eyesight is lost, it cannot be restored. it's not just direct exposure, but also reflections that can damage your retina. in the worst case, you hit your visual nerve and you're blind.

edit: or other people.

~worry wart~

You can either spend you life worrying about everything that could go wrong and accomplish nothing, or you can choose to take risks and accomplish much.

You won't fry your eyes unless ur a ch00b and shine the laser in your eye or look at it in with a mirror. If you have poor aim or are unsure of what's reflective in a room or not, practice with a standard laser pointer. Generally, as long as you have the laser facing a light colored wall ur safe. If the wall is a dark color or is unsafe for any other reason to point at, use a concave lens to diffuse the beam. If ur really, really, really, really, really worried, get a pair of these laser safety goggles. Nevermind you won't be able to see what ur aiming at while wearing them...

i work with lasers. from experience, random people who \"just try things out by ripping a dvd burner apart\" don't know of the dangers. sorry for warning you then. though i wonder what there is to accomplish, it's not like you'd conduct scientific research, heh. but that's another story.

i'm not just warning you, but also the kids who read this, think lasers can't hurt - hey, they've seen it on tv! - and play around till they are blind. it's not just mirrors, but any metal surfaces that reflect lasers, like coins.

who am i telling this, you are not listening anyway ...

OK. It's an ATAPI, NEC brand optical DVD drive. Dell probably put in the cheapest quality optical drive they could. I only use the thing for writing disks anyway. My main use drive is a Sony ROM drive for playing games. etc. It's not original either. A few years ago the original no-name brand DVD ROM drive crapped out too.

How about Plextor's quality? Maybe get someone's Lite-Scribe version? Those make really cool disk labels. I've got one on our HP laptop.

Plextor drives are overpriced and always have been. Granted they are indeed high quality drives, but for the most part these days the same holds true for all the bigger brands.

Take your pick, any of them should work.

My own preference is Pioneer, NEC, Lite-on and then others. Also just for added burn quality, I always recommend burning no faster than the media rating (I highly recommend a quality brand like Verbatim) or faster than 16x to DVDs. It isn't that much faster since 16x was really the point of diminishing returns anyway, and the burn quality on various media types suffers more than you might want as a result.

I like my BenQ DVD/RW drive with LightScribe.

http://benq.com/products/Storage/?product=979

Asus has been my preference for alittle while now.

Thanks. I'm going to look around next week for a new one. Maybe look at Asus, Pioneer, Lit-on or BenQ. I'm leaning towards a Light-Scribe too. I'll probably pass on Plextor, unless I can get one for a good price.

Also, I'm going to get new burner software. The slimmed down Sonic package that came with the Dell is OLD and creaky! Any recs here?

tunnelcat wrote:Also, I'm going to get new burner software. The slimmed down Sonic package that came with the Dell is OLD and creaky! Any recs here?

Out of the commercial ones Nero is probably the most powerful and versatile, but it has been getting increasingly bloated since version 5 much to my annoyance. Doing a custom install and unchecking everything but the tools and main burning rom itself still does a pretty good job of getting it back to what it is best at.

So actually I would suggest the free alternative found here: http://www.cdburnerxp.se/

Thanks for the Nero heads up Krom. That freebie software looks like a good alternative. KISS simple.

Krom wrote:Out of the commercial ones Nero is probably the most powerful and versatile, but it has been getting increasingly bloated since version 5 much to my annoyance. Doing a custom install and unchecking everything but the tools and main burning rom itself still does a pretty good job of getting it back to what it is best at.

So actually I would suggest the free alternative found here: http://www.cdburnerxp.se/

Yeah- CDburnerXP is the best free cd/dvd burning software.

Back to the laser thing: duh- if the beam goes in your eye, either directly or reflected, ur blind. Stare at the pinpoint too long too and ur eyes are screwed. But as with anything dangerously cool, as long as you take the necessary precautions, it can be a cool learning experience.

If you can burn paper with it, it'll probably fry your retina in a flash. Just a warning.

WTF is Nero doing bozoing on Nero Scount when you install Nero? I bought a drive that came with a copy Nero Essentials and followed Krom's advise to not install anything but the basic program. There wasn't even an option to NOT install this little 'Scout' item, it just showed up and started sucking CPU cycles doing it's little indexing business. It even failed to shut down when I turned off the computer. Idiots. After a Google search, I found out how to disable the thing, finally. Then the next day, I get a 'gearsec.exe' error upon booting the rig. I can't get rid of it because I think it was originally installed by Drive Image and it's probably needed to run it. Is this damn gearsec going to plague me more?

x2 to dump Nero. CDBurnerXP will do the job at a lot less cost.