CD/DVD drive

[Hans L]

My wife has a Dell Dimension 4700, and her CD/DVD drive is clonking out. OS is Windows XP Home. What would be a suitable drive for her to buy? I have an NEC DVD_RW ND-4570A SCSI CdRom Device myself, and is very satisfied with it (got the advice to buy it from this list, but in late 2006, so better drives might be offered now).

Regards,

Hans L

[TheReaFireblade]

Do you particularly want/need to buy a replacement (internal) drive Hans, 'coz external drives are much faster (almost 3x!), and won't cost you much more?

For instance... this (retail) 22x Samsung SE-S224Q/RSMN costs just £33.26
If the wife takes the laptop on the road though, then obviously a replacement is the way to go, and Scan offer a decent enough range
Surprisingly... the very first drive on that page is a Pioneer, which are a very highly respected brand... yet it's the cheapest they sell

You'll just need to make sure you buy the right format drive - i.e. IDE or SATA.
It's most likely IDE, but double-check anyway

[Hans L]

Dell Dim 4700 is actually a desktop model. I am looking at LG GSA H54LI. Any experience with it?

Regards,

Hans L

[Webby]

Do you need IDE (PATA) or SATA?

Either way the Samsung drives are pretty good, not had a bad burn yet and they are quieter than some other models, the really is not a lot to pick between the different models now so you may as well get the cheapest you can find (made by a reliable manufacturer).

[Hans L]

Fireblade, the Samsung external looks great, but my wife has limited desk space and she would say, anyway, "I don't care about speed – I want one in my computer" :-) (I wonder, by the way, why the external are faster?)

Webby, I need IDE, and I will look at Samsung, since, as you say, it is a reliable brand.

Regards,

Hans L

[acro666]

Hello HansL

I always use Pioneer, at the moment 2 x Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-112Ds, they are very cheap these days, and I find them totally reliable.

regards

acro666

[Powderhound]

Do you particularly want/need to buy a replacement (internal) drive Hans, 'coz external drives are much faster (almost 3x!), and won't cost you much more?

For instance... this (retail) 22x Samsung SE-S224Q/RSMN costs just £33.26
If the wife takes the laptop on the road though, then obviously a replacement is the way to go, and Scan offer a decent enough range
Surprisingly... the very first drive on that page is a Pioneer, which are a very highly respected brand... yet it's the cheapest they sell

You'll just need to make sure you buy the right format drive - i.e. IDE or SATA.
It's most likely IDE, but double-check anyway

Are you sure about that?
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=819459

[Hans L]

No exactly sure about what you refer to, Powderhound, but if it is the interface, I see that the drive you refer to is SATA, but it is not the same as SSUNG/SE-S224Q, which is USB2.

Regards,

Hans L

[Hans L]

This field is starting to become a little confusing. In Dec 2006, when I built my computer, it was still easy, but I have not followed the development. What is the difference (in a nutshell) between

* DVD writer
* COMBO
* DVD-ROM ?

Hans L

[Webby]

DVD Writer as the name suggests writes DVDs
Combo will write DVD and CD (I would think every drive you can buy would have this capability)
DVD-ROM is read only so not a DVD Writer

You will find it hard to find a DVD-Rom drive.

All Writers will be combo drives with the ability to read/write CD and DVD, you will also have the different medias that can be written to.

The important ones are DVD-R, DVD+R. and their rewritable forms (RW) and DVD-RAM but again most if not all modern DVD drives will accept all these media types.

[dodgybob]

A combo drive writes to cds but is read only with dvds. A dvd-writer will read and write to both cds and dvds.

With the price of dvd-writers there is no point getting a rom or combo drive these days.

[Hans L]

Dodgybob, you must be kidding me - SH-W12A is $309 buckaroos (I have meant to tell you guys that I live in Cleveland, Ohio, USA – where we spend hundreds of million of dollars to select mediocre to really, really bad presidents, although I think Obama will be better than most – but I just love Hexus!).

Webby, thanks, but I don't think combos will write DVD:s!?

Regards,

Hans L

PS. 38 first years in Sweden.

[dodgybob]

These things need not cost the earth, e.g this one is pretty cheap.