Showing posts with label IDE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IDE. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Progress in DVD burners

After ten years of service, the DVD burner in Trusty Desktop stopped playing.  Something got jammed and the tray would no longer open.  Even after pulling the drive from Trusty Desktop and prying it open, I could not get to tray to move, at least not with the amount of force I dared apply. 
  So ho, for a new one.  A bit of internet research disclosed that the design of DVD burners changed a year after Trusty Desktop left the factory.  The DVD burner that came with him has an IDE connector, a parallel interface with 40 odd pins in the connector.  The new DVD burners have a serial interface (only four wires).  They haven't made the DVD burner that fit Trusty Desktop for the last ten years. 
  OK, so there is a salvation.  They now make USB DVD burners, USB is universal, Trusty Desktop has plenty of USB ports.  So I bought a Verbatim model down at Staples, only $50.  Very small, only 1/2 inch high, compared to old one and 1 1/2 inches high.  It's faster too.  Burns a 4.7 Gig DVD in about half the time the only one needed.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Trusty Desktop is getting old

He is at least ten years old, still running strong, still running XP.  I gave him a new power supply maybe five years ago.  Lately, the DVD drive stopped working, jammed solid, won't open.  I pulled the drive out and got the covers off, but couldn't get it to open.
   So I googled for a new one.   They are really cheap, $35.  There was a time you had to pay more than that for a 5 inch floppy drive.  I was about to click it into my cart and go thru the checkout business, when I noticed an acronym, SATA.   A vague memory of SATA as a high speed serial interface surfaced from all the sludge sloshing around in my memory. Trusty Desktop used the old flat cable IDE interface.
 Ayup.  Times have changed, all the new optical drives are SATA, nobody makes the old IDE drives anymore.  Maybe E-bay?   I'd hate to junk trusty desktop and suffer thru Windows 10 on a new one.