Mn Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Now days we have ultra-thin laptops that pretty much force you to buy external optical drives (CDDVD-RW ROM drives) so i am wondering if anyone has a site with instructions on how to build one your self out of old computer parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snakey Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 ide to usb cable turns a normal cd drive into a usb cd drive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natural_orange Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 im sure if you poke around you can find a slim optical or full sized optical usb drives. It would be interesting to tryout a Blu-Ray drive in external enclosure, im not sure if USB has the Bandwidth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trc202 Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 For most external drives (useing IDE) you can just take out the HDD and replace it with a CD drive (but be warned moveing it constantly from place to place with out a case will cause the external case to malfunction) however if you just leave the CD drive in then it should last longer than mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Now days we have ultra-thin laptops that pretty much force you to buy external optical drives (CDDVD-RW ROM drives) so i am wondering if anyone has a site with instructions on how to build one your self out of old computer parts. Installing Ubuntu on my eeePC required me to coble together a working USB CD drive. I found a 28 speed drive and used a USB to IDE adapter that did the job. Strangely, the drive got incredibly hot while the CD was spinning. Never relised how hot optical drives can get. May be it was just that particular drive, after all 28 speed... must be five years old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicatronTg Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Would USBs have enough power to run a CD-RW writer? Or would you need two usb slots, 1 for power and the other for data? I have an old laptop, and I would like to try to get Ubuntu on it, but it has no optical drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Would USBs have enough power to run a CD-RW writer? Or would you need two usb slots, 1 for power and the other for data? I have an old laptop, and I would like to try to get Ubuntu on it, but it has no optical drive. No amount of USB ports would have enough power for a CD drive, they are 12v. The IDE to USB adapter has a power supply. The BIOS on the older laptop might not support USB drives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 No amount of USB ports would have enough power for a CD drive, they are 12v. The IDE to USB adapter has a power supply. The BIOS on the older laptop might not support USB drives. They're not all 12v and the ones that are usually require both 12v and 5v. Slimline/laptop drives generally can run from USB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uber_tom Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 Would USBs have enough power to run a CD-RW writer? Or would you need two usb slots, 1 for power and the other for data? I have an old laptop, and I would like to try to get Ubuntu on it, but it has no optical drive. a root usb port usually has about 500mWs (thats milli.... not mega) of power. most cd writers use about 300mWs of power. so theoretically there is enough power, but as discussed there are voltage issues. you could wire in a transformer, if you were in an uber hack kinda mood, but that would up the power requered and i doubt the end result would be all that portable. (also high power devices are not all that good for your laptop battery life) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 a root usb port usually has about 500mWs (thats milli.... not mega) of power. most cd writers use about 300mWs of power. so theoretically there is enough power, but as discussed there are voltage issues. you could wire in a transformer, if you were in an uber hack kinda mood, but that would up the power requered and i doubt the end result would be all that portable. (also high power devices are not all that good for your laptop battery life) That'll be 500mA (MilliAmps) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uber_tom Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 That'll be 500mA (MilliAmps) Smartarse! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 Allot of motherboards, even laptop motherboards, will allow devices to draw more than the specified 500mA maximum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sablefoxx Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 The Easy Way Out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16812270111 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicatronTg Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 Hmmmmm..... I didn't know that an IDE to USB connector had the included power supply. Anyways, if an older bios doesn't support booting off of a USB drive, then you can make a boot disk. I have seen some that will boot *anything*. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 Dell have a double USB thing that powers the external DVD drive on the smaller Latitudes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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