External DVD Drive

[Tanuki]

I was getting long freezes with HD activity and the DVD light blinking. Rebooted and the DVD failed to be reconized. Tried to scandisk but got quick BSOD and shutdown. BIOS showed DVD drive vender as some garbage entry and then the drive failed to reconize in XP. Reboot, scandisked, drive vendor now shows in BIOS, but still fails to be reconized. Pulled it out and system seems okay so far.

I figure I will run for a few days without it to see if problems crops up again. If not, I guess I will hook it back up and see if it comes back.

I am guessing(hoping) the DVD drive has retired itself. Seeing as how little I actually use it I think an external USB DVD drive would be best. I only use the drive for installing, making daemon isos, and movies. Mostly installing. I am envisioning this as something I only hook up when I am going to use it.

There are a lot of different external DVD types and two main speeds of 8x and 24x. What should I look out for? What do I need?

[Abram]

I've had a boatload of external DVD burners and I've ahd teh best luck with LG drives. the one have now, I've had for 3 years. Really, i don't know what the specs are, but the model is in my sig.

If you need portability, there are lots that run off of 2 (sometimes 1) USB ports, and Iv'e heard they work well. Of course, they never run as well as internal, but I liek my LG a lot.

[Paradigm Shifter]

I've got a Samsung SE-S084 "Super Writemaster" which runs off one USB port which I like quite a lot. It's quiet and fast, which isn't bad for a USB DVDRW.

[Wiz33]

I was getting long freezes with HD activity and the DVD light blinking. Rebooted and the DVD failed to be reconized. Tried to scandisk but got quick BSOD and shutdown. BIOS showed DVD drive vender as some garbage entry and then the drive failed to reconize in XP. Reboot, scandisked, drive vendor now shows in BIOS, but still fails to be reconized. Pulled it out and system seems okay so far.

I figure I will run for a few days without it to see if problems crops up again. If not, I guess I will hook it back up and see if it comes back.

I am guessing(hoping) the DVD drive has retired itself. Seeing as how little I actually use it I think an external USB DVD drive would be best. I only use the drive for installing, making daemon isos, and movies. Mostly installing. I am envisioning this as something I only hook up when I am going to use it.

There are a lot of different external DVD types and two main speeds of 8x and 24x. What should I look out for? What do I need?

I had the exact some problem, constant HDD activity freeze. Too bad I did not notice that my BD-ROM light was flashing. I ended up restoring the from the recovery partition before I notice that my BD-ROM was dead. That said. a replacement laptop DVD-R/W is about the same price as a external one so you won't save any money.

[Tanuki]

It is for a desktop. My only concern is getting a model that is unreliable or getting something I don't need.

I am leaning towards an 8x. I don't think install times will chaneg that much.

[Abram]

Almost certainly not.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Very few discs will spin faster than 10x anyway, unless they're really well balanced. Which is out of your control, and purely in the hands of the people manufacturing it.

[Abram]

Which is why I lvoe my internal Samsung, it rips at 10x-14x regularly. I keep expecting my discs to fly apart, sounds like a jet engine.

For the record, my external LG rips at 5x-8x. Easily the quickest external I've had.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Yeah, I've got one Asus external DVDRW that is Firewire only and rips CDs and DVDs at frankly astonishing speeds... I dunno how it does it, to be honest - it'll take a CD that no other drive I have will dare spin faster than 6x, and do it at 20x...