Slim Slot Load CD/DVD drive

**ws6vert** · 10-17-2008, 02:43 PM

Looking to incorporate one of these small drives into my project. It will need the usb 2.0 enclosure, as I intend to mount it separate from the MB. I'm wondering what success people have had with these and the IDE to USB adapter supplied with the enclosure.

**Dougw133** · 11-08-2008, 03:42 AM

Personally I got one from Mobile Computing Solutions in Philly that was packaged with the drive...It worked for about 30 seconds. I am still looking for an enclosure to replace it. I have not yet seen on here any one state they have a 100% working fail safe wonderfully awesome enclosure...

**rodweb** · 11-08-2008, 05:44 AM

Doug, Sounds like my experience. Killed the DVD on second use. I am planning on buying a commercial enclosure and drive now.

**Dougw133** · 11-08-2008, 01:28 PM

What are you looking at? Could you point me to a link if you see something? I have seen some nice Aluminum Fire Wire Enclosures which I heard had good results. I saw an instance of one user just having it plugged in via firewire with no extra power and it working perfectly. He didn't say how long the firewire cable was though.

**rodweb** · 11-08-2008, 03:17 PM

Doug

This is Australia, and it is hard to find much in the slim DVD's over here but I was going to look at one of the units on this page:
http://www.ht.com.au/N/Storage-Optic...rives/list.hts

This drive (which is linked to from the page above) has both Firewire and USB:
http://www.ht.com.au/N/Storage-Optic...ibe/detail.hts

I was going to get the cheaper Buffalo unit but from what I've heard about the USB headaches some are having maybe it'll be the Sony.

I have got a Firewire port on the laptop I am using. I did some benchmarks of USB v's Firewire on this page here:

Aussie Offroad Carputers

Because of the complexity of getting a robust connection to the Laptop (I thought the soldering was beyond my skills) I have stuck with USB for the second HDD.

As regards maximum length of Firewire, it is 4.5m, see here:
http://www.astronomycamerasblog.com/...-cable-length/
There is also a Firewire repeater metioned on this page.

IDE extension is not an option fo me due to laptop and the 18 inch max cable length in the IDE specs.

There is a command line tool that you can download from Microsoft called devcon.exe that allows you to remove USB devices and rescan for them that some say has fixed USB problems for them. I have downloaded it but have not played with it yet. Do a search for it on this site or Google, you should find a bit about how to use it.

Hope this helps

**Dougw133** · 11-08-2008, 07:40 PM

This is the one I am looking at.

http://www.meritline.com/usb-firewir...vd-cd-r-w.html

It's fire wire and usb 2.0 capable. Figure if one doesn't work maybe the other will.

USB 3.0 is on the horizon, maybe we can get some more luck with that!

**dMand** · 11-08-2008, 08:03 PM

ws6vert, where do you plan on mounting the slim drive?

**rodweb** · 11-09-2008, 02:42 AM

Doug,
I purchased a Buffalo slim line (USB only) today, 3 year warranty. Wasn't planning to, but saw it in a department store for xeact same price as the online price. Said it is made by Uniden which is quite a reputable phone and CB radio manufacturere out of Japan. It came with a 5 volt power supply and I have confirmed that it needs to be powered to work reliably, but will be a couple of weeks before I mount it somewhere in the car.

I did have some USB troubles again today. I found that I was mssing a hub. I shut down and powered off the OPUS power supply and rebooted, it found everything again minus the DVD! Just doing a reboot did not do the job. So I will be playing with Devcon.exe. Won't hurt, I have plugged a lot of gear in and out using random Ports while getting a working system, so a bit of a clean up might help now everything is starting to become stable.

**Dougw133** · 11-09-2008, 04:40 PM

Cool...

Good luck and let me know how it works out.!

**rodweb** · 11-09-2008, 06:54 PM

Will do Doug,

I removed all USB devices with devcon this morning which required a reboot. I then did a devcon rescan. Some stuff not detected. Rebooted agains, still did not fix it. I waited until the Opus power supply powered off, then powered it on again and rebooted. Everything was detected again and the GPS receiver changed com port from Com 4 to Com 3 so I know it did something..

I am sure now that you must wait until the power supply powers off and then rebooot to force a rescan of devices. The laptop must keep some circuits hot while on mains power.

I think I will wait until I have put the wiring in for the DVD player so that I can dedicate a fixed USB port for the device rather than chop and change USB ports while I am playing with it.