Make an internal DVD-R/RW drive external?

[asabour]

Question: If I were to get this: http://store.yahoo.com/cdrdvdrmedia/cdfirexkitne.html
could I put it on an internal dvd-r/rw drive and make it compatible with my laptop? My laptop has firewire/WinXP. Thanks!

asabour

 

[Bovinicus]

According to the claims made by that description, that is exactly what you should be able to do. I don't see what it does though... Does it somehow convert IDE signals into firewire signals?

 

[magomago]

That isn't a bad idea...

but you can tell that the price is really inflated and they are making a LOT of profit on that...

 

[Lord Evermore]

It uses a chip (probably made by Oxford Semiconductor) that converts ATA signals to firewire signals. It doesn't specify which chip though, it may use the older Oxford 900 chip which isn't as fast as the 911 chip.

Comp-geek has enclosures that do use the 911 and it's half the price.

In fact, I think I'll finally order one of the cases Comp-geek has for 3.5 inch drives that also has USB2.0 connections. I'm using a CompUSA enclosure that uses the 900 chip, I wanna see how much faster I can transfer stuff.

Crap, they don't have a 3.5 inch dual interface. Oh well, Firewire only works for me.

 

[IamDavid]

Check out Egay for external enclosures. I have bought HD ones that work excellent..

Edit: Right now there are some gong for $44, other times I have seen them for as little as $35..

 

[BarneyFife]

As a matter of fact, I have the same exact compugeeks enclosure for a cdr and it works fine. It should also work fine for the dvd-r.

 

[IamDavid]

One more thing though, some DVD burners are larger then conventional cd-rom's so check the specs before you buy anything..

 

[Lord Evermore]

They can't be larger. A 5.25 inch bay is 5.25 inches. Aside from very minor (like less than 1mm) differences that can't be helped, it'd be fraudulent to a sell a device as 5.25 inch if it wouldn't fit in a 5.25 inch bay.

Aside from that, the mounts are probably flexible.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: IamDavid
One more thing though, some DVD burners are larger then conventional cd-rom's so check the specs before you buy anything..

Put the pipe down.

They can't be larger. They still have to fit in a 5.25" drive bay.

 

[IamDavid]

They can't be larger. They still have to fit in a 5.25" drive bay.

Thats for the width and height.. But the length of the drives are sometimes different.. The first Pioneers where like that.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Some CDROMS are longer than others too. There's no "standard" for that. My Plextor 40X SCSI is a good third of an inch longer than my Yamaha CDRW. External cases would generally have plenty of space for any size drive, in order to account for the differences in length, otherwise they'd have to expect a lot of returns.

Your original post didn't mention the length specifically.

 

[Bulldog7000]

I have my Pioneer DVR-A04 DVD-RW in an external FW/USB2 case from Cooldrives. It has the Oxford 911 chipset and it works REALLY well. I just have the Koutech TI based firewire card from Newegg $25. I also have a second case with an 80GB Cuda IV in it. Used them both daisy chained for about 3 months now without any problems!

I highly recommend doing it.

The only drawback is that you have to plug most of the 5.25" bay cases in to the wall due to the fact that they have there own little switching PS.

BDOG

 

[Lord Evermore]

3.5 inch enclosures use external power as well. Only a laptop hard drive could run from the Firewire power. Oddly, the 2.5 inch drive enclosure that Comp-Geek has uses a PS/2 power tap. I guess they assume that anybody needing that small and portable a drive is using on a laptop, which won't have a powered Firewire port. It does say it's bus-powered, so one assumes that you can run it only on the Firewire power.

 

[WalkingDead]

Well, there's actually a cable-powered 3.5" Firewire case on the market. It costs $159...ouch...but it also supports up to 250gig hdd and includes USB2 interface (AC power needed for the USB2 connection).

I'm using this 2.5" case with a 40gig 5400rpm 16mb cache Toshiba laptop harddrive. My combo is as fast as any 3.5" firewire/USB2 case with desktop drive. The major difference between this case and other 2.5" cases currently on the market is that it has an internal battery. It can runs without any external power source for up to 10 hours. I tried with my 5400rpm drive for 5 hrs on a no power USB 1.1 connection with no problem. The battery charges though the firewire cable or the included AC adaptor. Not bad for $105.

 

[asabour]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
It uses a chip (probably made by Oxford Semiconductor) that converts ATA signals to firewire signals. It doesn't specify which chip though, it may use the older Oxford 900 chip which isn't as fast as the 911 chip.

Comp-geek has enclosures that do use the 911 and it's half the price.

In fact, I think I'll finally order one of the cases Comp-geek has for 3.5 inch drives that also has USB2.0 connections. I'm using a CompUSA enclosure that uses the 900 chip, I wanna see how much faster I can transfer stuff.

Crap, they don't have a 3.5 inch dual interface. Oh well, Firewire only works for me.

Do you need to buy a firewire cable for this? If so, what kind (6pin to 6pin, 6pin to 4pin, 4pin to 4pin)? And would this work well with a Pioneer DVR-A04 dvd burner? Would it keep the drive cool enough and what not? Thanks

-Alex

 

[WalkingDead]

This place has what you wanted with Firewire + USB2 interface for $59. It looks like a good deal to me. The 6pin-6pin cable that comes with it is fine for most setup unless you have a laptop that has the 4pin firewire port.

 

[asabour]

Originally posted by: WalkingDead
This place has what you wanted with Firewire + USB2 interface for $59. It looks like a good deal to me. The 6pin-6pin cable that comes with it is fine for most setup unless you have a laptop that has the 4pin firewire port.

Yea I have a laptop with a 4pin firewire port, so I guess I'll be needing to buy a 6pin to 4pin FireWire cable. Cheapest on ebay?

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
3.5 inch enclosures use external power as well. Only a laptop hard drive could run from the Firewire power. Oddly, the 2.5 inch drive enclosure that Comp-Geek has uses a PS/2 power tap. I guess they assume that anybody needing that small and portable a drive is using on a laptop, which won't have a powered Firewire port. It does say it's bus-powered, so one assumes that you can run it only on the Firewire power.

All Mac laptops have powered Firewire. The PC laptop makers should really get on the ball and design the laptops properly. One of the reasons I won't buy a PC laptop is because of the lack of powered Firewire.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I think PC laptops use a lot more power for the CPU even with mobile processors (it's becoming more difficult these days to track down specific information like that). The makers have to forego some features in order to avoid causing battery drains.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
I think PC laptops use a lot more power for the CPU even with mobile processors (it's becoming more difficult these days to track down specific information like that). The makers have to forego some features in order to avoid causing battery drains.

True, but even newer G4 Titanium laptops with 1 GHz CPUs and 15" screens have powered Firewire, whereas PC laptops with 13" screens and older slower CPUs never have powered Firewire. Part of it is just due to less-than-ideal designs.

Anyways, I think I'm gonna buy one of those 2.5" Firewire/USB 2 enclosures from Compgeeks. Can't argue with $45.

I have 3 noname brand enclosures from many places (for 5.25" drives) and they all work fine with Mac OS X and Windows XP, with both optical drives and hard drives.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I ordered two of the 3.5 inch enclosures. 47 bucks for the first one, then a discount on the second one to 43 dollars.

 

[Eug]

Hmmm... After doing a little digging, it looks like the Firewire-only 2.5" enclosure that Compgeeks is selling has two Firewire ports, which would be useful for daisy chaining (ie. built-in hub), but the Firewire/USB 2 combo one has only one Firewire port. Hmmm... What to get....

EDIT:

The Compgeeks Firewire-only one only has one port. So I guess the only one to get then is the combo USB 2/Firewire case. Ordered already.