Optical Disc Drive owners club

[Deleted member 185158]

On top of the 6 DVD's I managed to snatch up I had 2 already. It makes a beautiful sound when all 8 are ripping at once and my wife is like "Do you have to do that right now?"

Lol, I bet. Gotta sound cool. Mine doesn't like the Intake fans 1.6a 120mm Deltas.

 

[mplayerMuPDF]

I personally like audio CDs. I've all but embraced digital media at this point when it comes to games and for the most part, movies, but I have a very soft spot for high-resolution audio, and nothing beats optical media mastered from source at it. I order some audio CDs and SACDs from Japan every now and then, it's a very big thing there to this day, and I'm glad it is.



I made the offer for the Optiarc drives, just waiting on the seller's answer now. I'll let you know if there's a deal, and if they're alright when they arrive. It's a risk worth taking

So, a little update: the seller accepted and I've purchased the drives. Will bring some results on ripping and burning once I have them in hand.

To build some hype:
https://myce.wiki/reviews/optiarc-ad-7240s-dvd-burner-review-15981/
https://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/sony-optiarc-ad-7240s-24x-dvdrwram/all-pages.html
Review of the almost identical successor AD-7260S with professional disc scanning equipment

I like audio CDs too and even have one SACD (I will post a photo of it in this new thread today). Unfortunately, I don't have the space to buy everything that I want to own on physical CD and sometimes downloads are also significantly cheaper (including international shipping) or even the only option for some of the music I listen to, so I only buy what is not available as a (FLAC) download or what is significantly cheaper used on CD.

Have two BR units in this one I'm posting with, one is a CD/DVD/BR burner (LG M-disc), the other a more standard CD/DVD burner unit (Also LG) but it too can read BR.

Have several out at the shack including an Asus CD/DVD "Lightscribe" IDE and a few others for good measure I've accumilated over the years.

You're referring to "Master" and Slave" drives on the same IDE ribbon cable.

You can have two IDE devices on the same cable and you have a jumper on these drives to set them as such according to how you have them plugged into the cable, this goes for both, disc drives and HDD's.
Yes, you can have one of each on the same cable as long as you have the jumpers set correctly. There is a little diagram on the end of the drive that tells you how to set these jumpers.
For an HDD, alot of the time it's on the drive's label but for disc drives it's always stamped into the metal at the end where the jumper is.

For those that don't know, It goes like this:
Each IDE cable have three plugs total, what I call the "Long" and "Short" ends of the cable is based on how close to the middle plug each end is.

The board end plug is the "Long" end of the cable and is on one end of it, that always goes to the board itself and is further away from the middle plug.

The drive plugs are always towards the "Short" end of the cable.

The master drive plug on it is always at the very end of the ribbon cable too like the board end is and the master end is always closer to the middle (Slave) plug than the board end is.
Once you look at an IDE cable, you can lay it out and easily see this layout for yourself.

Usually there are labels saying what each plug is for is but that's how you can tell if there are no labels for these plugs on the cable.

Thanks for the explanation! I wasn't yet doing any DIY computer stuff during the IDE era. I am of the SATA generation Those old ASUS drives may very well be old rebadged Pioneer DVD drives, which are very well respected burners.

 

[68Olds]

I got to looking around the house & I have about 20 ODDs. The oldest is a Creative Quad Speed drive in my 486 box. It dates to the mid-90s or so & has its own controller/sound card.
For interesting units, I have an LG M-Disc Multi drive, an LG Bluray/HD DVD drive, and an LG Bluray drive. Most of the other drives I have were dumpster rescue pulls.

 

[mplayerMuPDF]

I got to looking around the house & I have about 20 ODDs. The oldest is a Creative Quad Speed drive in my 486 box. It dates to the mid-90s or so & has its own controller/sound card.
For interesting units, I have an LG M-Disc Multi drive, an LG Bluray/HD DVD drive, and an LG Bluray drive. Most of the other drives I have were dumpster rescue pulls.

I like how you call the LG M-Disc DVD drive and Bluray drive the "interesting" ones, when I would say those are the most "boring" and common ones (My WH16NS40 or rather NS50 has the "M DISC" badge too) The HD DVD combo drive is interesting though, not to speak of the Creative drive! I am sure that there are some great drives among those dumpster rescue pulls and would love to know more about them.

 

[mechtech]

Nope.

View attachment 263140

From far away I thought it was a box of VHS tapes

 

[Dr. Dro]

My father bought a Playstation 3 with modded firmware used to rip SA-CDs. It's the latest fat model, and I assume that's because you need the media card interface on the front to transfer the music to store the ripped CDs. I haven't tried ripping any SA-CDs, but I do have a Johnny Cash SA-CD I can try it with.

Only the earliest PS3s (models CECHA through CECHE) have the super audio CD processing chip in them. Those are the same that can play PS2 games, later models have had the functionality removed, and thus cannot rip SACDs.

You'll know easily enough if yours is compatible if it has the super audio CD symbol on the side, though another giveaway it's not compatible is only having 2 USB ports on the front.

 

[mplayerMuPDF]

Only the earliest PS3s (models CECHA through CECHE) have the super audio CD processing chip in them. Those are the same that can play PS2 games, later models have had the functionality removed, and thus cannot rip SACDs.

You'll know easily enough if yours is compatible if it has the super audio CD symbol on the side, though another giveaway it's not compatible is only having 2 USB ports on the front.

That is also roughly what I have read. Please continue this discussion in this new thread though This thread is more focused on computer drives and recordable (and rewritable) media. (discussion of ripping audio CDs with 5.25", built-in laptop or USB external ODDs connected to a computer is fine here though)

 

[lexluthermiester]

Unfortunately I do not have any drive that takes in these DVD-RAM cartridges but it’s still a very neat thing to have.

You should frame it and turn it into a conversation piece.

 

[Bones]

Thanks for the explanation! I wasn't yet doing any DIY computer stuff during the IDE era. I am of the SATA generation Those old ASUS drives may very well be old rebadged Pioneer DVD drives, which are very well respected burners.

No problem.
I can add you can run a single drive per cable if you want, as long as the jumpers on your drives are set correctly to how you connect the cables to the drives it's fine.

 

[Selaya]

bd/dvd (fuck streaming) enjoyer reporting in.

protip: you can watch (most) of your bds w/ vlc. info here: http://fvonline-db.bplaced.net/

 

[sam_86314]

bd/dvd (fuck streaming) enjoyer reporting in.

protip: you can watch (most) of your bds w/ vlc. info here: http://fvonline-db.bplaced.net/

My ripping software of choice (MakeMKV) also has integration with media players.

If you have a drive that supports its "direct disc access" feature (like my downgraded WH16NS40), then in theory it can play any Blu-ray release. No menu support though; it just plays the largest file on the disc.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

I love that memorex drive. One of the fastest out there! Looks like the same one I gots!

Here's a shot of the label. I guess it's a DVD-RAM! Never even checked. It's ATAPI, as are the two Optiarcs and one Pioneer in there. Then one Toshiba/Samsung, two Lite-On and the rest are HLDS. The "odd" model numbers must be OEM parts. In addition to the three GH70N, there's one GH50N out of a Dell or HP system.

 

[arni-gx]

i am using dvd rw ODD, external.... and only optional..... just for instal dvd win 10 64bit home oem......

 

[Canned Noodles]

These are my 2 spare IDE optical drives. I don't know much about them; except they were both taken from dead PCs. The Lite-On one on the left weighs like 2 pounds. I would definitely use one if one of my computers needed an IDE CD drive. Tomorrow I'll find my two SATA drives and send pictures.

 

[Calenhad]

I got this pc for $20 off of Craigslist listed as non-working. I can’t figure out which specific part(s) are not working but it’s a windows 98/xp-era machine. Sometimes I wonder why the previous owner had 4 CD drives put in. They are all high speed according to front plates, and each one is connected to the same IDE cable.

Those are scsi drives, not pata. You can only connect two drives per pata ribbon cable. Old school scsi can have 7 per cable iirc. A scsi ribbon cable has more wires than a pata cable. And that cable in your computer is wider than a pata cable. I started out with some Plextor scsi cd-rom/rw drives back in the days. The I believe the first one was a cd-rom with 4x speed. The main reason to use scsi back then, was to do direct copy from one drive to another, pata did not have the capacity to handle it. I paired that Plextor cd-rom with a cd-rw soon enough to do just that. I believe scsi could even handle copying one drive to multiple drives, like that rig could do in theory. But I may have reached the end of my memory when it comes to scsi technicalities. I haven't messed around with that for at least 20 years.

For those that don't know, It goes like this:
Each IDE cable have three plugs total, what I call the "Long" and "Short" ends of the cable is based on how close to the middle plug each end is.

The board end plug is the "Long" end of the cable and is on one end of it, that always goes to the board itself and is further away from the middle plug.

The drive plugs are always towards the "Short" end of the cable.

The master drive plug on it is always at the very end of the ribbon cable too like the board end is and the master end is always closer to the middle (Slave) plug than the board end is.
Once you look at an IDE cable, you can lay it out and easily see this layout for yourself.

Usually there are labels saying what each plug is for is but that's how you can tell if there are no labels for these plugs on the cable.

Pata cabling can be painful. It is correct that if you want to run two devices on a cable it is recommended to have the master device at the end. This is also how the cable select jumper setting is supposed to work, but more often than not it didn't. Depending on the devices/pata controller they would also work with the master device in the middle and the slave at the end. But for that you had to use the master/slave jumper setting. The main cause for trouble was that controller/device firmware seemed to not follow one standard. Some pata controllers would have trouble with random devices, that would work perfectly fine with another controller. The second main issue was messed up jumper settings.

If you use just one device, you can use either plug. And if you don't need more cable than to the first plug you can cut off the second half. Just use the master setting on the device. Some devices even have separate single and master settings. Which can complicate things if you don't pay attention to the label, see messed up jumper settings above.

I checked a couple drawers and found a few oldies but goldies. I am sure I got more in storage as well. Probably some of those old scsi drives I mention above, and lots more. Never realised those old pata Plextor drives had a digital audio out, as well as the old analogue one. Now I wonder if it is possible to hook that up to a coaxial s/pdif input. Not sure I will ever bother finding out though
It is probably at least 12-15 years since the last time they were powered up.

 

[dorsetknob]

Does a LS120 fit the qualification ? after all its a MO drive

 

[qubit]

Optical discs: those were the good old days!

I have Plextor drives that can do advanced burning and monitoring. I used to be quite the enthusiast, aiming for burns with the lowest error rates: there are marked differences and both will play fine if the errors don't cross thresholds, but the worse disc will show problems sooner and on more drives, especially cheaper or marginal ones.

Alas, despite how expensive Plextors were and their unique featuresets, they weren't reliable. All but one of them failed after a relatively short time. I think the 712A still works. Would have to check.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Does a LS120 fit the qualification ? after all its a MO drive

The LS120 was a purely magnetic technology, similar to the IOMega Zip and SyQuest EZDrive. The MO(Magneto-Optical) technology was used in Sony's Minidisc and even though it was similar in capacity(140MB), the technology employed was very different.

 

[Bones]

Pata cabling can be painful. It is correct that if you want to run two devices on a cable it is recommended to have the master device at the end. This is also how the cable select jumper setting is supposed to work, but more often than not it didn't. Depending on the devices/pata controller they would also work with the master device in the middle and the slave at the end. But for that you had to use the master/slave jumper setting. The main cause for trouble was that controller/device firmware seemed to not follow one standard. Some pata controllers would have trouble with random devices, that would work perfectly fine with another controller. The second main issue was messed up jumper settings.

If you use just one device, you can use either plug. And if you don't need more cable than to the first plug you can cut off the second half. Just use the master setting on the device. Some devices even have separate single and master settings. Which can complicate things if you don't pay attention to the label, see messed up jumper settings above.

That's why I didn't mention "Cable Select", it never worked for me either.
I just said what I know works so anyone setting it up can get things working without all the headscratching over it.

Nope - Even if you could snip off the part of the cable you don't need that's something I personally won't do.
A good cable is a good cable and could be one day you'd want to add another drive and then you'd need another cable to do it with - Won't hurt a thing to just leave the extra plug unused.

I've never seen the master/slave order reversed but then again I've never tried it either, I always used these settings according to how the labels go and it always worked which is really all I can ask for.

 

[BSim500]

Here's a blast from the past - how many others here owned one of the earliest drives on the market, a 1x speed Mitsumi CRMC-LU005S CD-ROM "clamshell" top-loading design where the whole drive slid out and the interface was a proprietary one that plugged into an ISA controller / sound card. Happy memories playing The 7th Guest back in '93 on that.

 

[onemanhitsquad]

Kenwood 72X TrueX CD-ROM late 1999 "worlds fastest cd-rom drive" , super fast reading and loading game discs and software discs. It did have issues reading a lot of burned media but faired better with firmware update and you used 4 screws and some rubber dampening. Burning straight to a burning drive was the shizzle , error correcting was handled by the 7 beams so scratches didn't matter much. I still have a couple of them in retro machines.

*** some other drives in the "tub"

BlueRay/HD we still have 4 of these , from when the battle for hi-def movies was raging (had to be able to play both right?)

Pioneer tray less , have a couple of these left

 

[dorsetknob]

The LS120 was a purely magnetic technology,

Um they were equipped with a Laser to position the Read/write heads.
Both the drive's i own have Laser radiation warning stickers Very Promment on case.
Being a nit picking SOB i think that Qualifies As Magnetical Optical Drive.

"Of Course i will allow you to disagree "

 

[caroline!]

Finally a club I can be part of.

I have 3 regular LG OEM combo drives and two older HP units, a reader and a burner. No blu-ray, it was never a thing in my country and the few drives I've seen for sale were more expensive than a 1TB hard drive back in the day, choosing between them was a nobrainer.

Each disc was also expensive af and not every unit could burn them, that and the ridiculous DRM made me avoid it as a technology, so... HDD ftw.

That's why I didn't mention "Cable Select", it never worked for me either.
I just said what I know works so anyone setting it up can get things working without all the headscratching over it.

CS never worked for me,

PRI MASTER DRIVE - ATAPI INCOMPATIBLE
PRESS DEL TO RUN SETUP

 

[mplayerMuPDF]

Finally a club I can be part of.

I have 3 regular LG OEM combo drives and two older HP units, a reader and a burner. No blu-ray, it was never a thing in my country and the few drives I've seen for sale were more expensive than a 1TB hard drive back in the day, choosing between them was a nobrainer.

Each disc was also expensive af and not every unit could burn them, that and the ridiculous DRM made me avoid it as a technology, so... HDD ftw.

CS never worked for me,

PRI MASTER DRIVE - ATAPI INCOMPATIBLE
PRESS DEL TO RUN SETUP

There is no DRM (ACSS) on BD-Rs though and you cannot buy movies on HDDs, so not really a fair comparison, I would say. Still, I agree with you that DVD (and CD) are more attractive overall and I do have a 2 TB internal HDD for multimedia

These are my 2 spare IDE optical drives. I don't know much about them; except they were both taken from dead PCs. The Lite-On one on the left weighs like 2 pounds. I would definitely use one if one of my computers needed an IDE CD drive. Tomorrow I'll find my two SATA drives and send pictures.
View attachment 263393View attachment 263394
View attachment 263396

The HP drive is a very old (Hitachi-)LG judging by the model code (GCA-4166B). Those old LGs were beloved burners on the Myce (formerly cdrfreaks) forums. The Lite-On drive is a DVD reader/CD burner combo drive, so more of a budget minded OEM drive. Still, it should do the job for playback at least, so good to keep it around.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Being a nit picking SOB i think that Qualifies As Magnetical Optical Drive.

I can see your logic. Fair enough.