Also, make sure you match the master/slave settings of your old drive.

Bob, thank you. Yeah, the Month of May IS open season on those critters! It is the Annual Furball-hunt event!!

John? I don't understand? Now you've got me worried: "Also, make sure you match the master/slave settings of your old drive."

What I will say is that this is the self-same replacement that my PC-NLE constructor is also supplying as replacements. It is IDE (?) which it is supposed to be.

When there's two devices on the IDE bus they have to have a way of knowing which device is being spoken to. So one becomes Master and the other Slave. Which device is which can be done either by two wires being swapped in the cable (that's Cable Select) or else by the jumpers on the back.

Check the position of the jumper(s) on the old drive. Usually a label on the drive will tell you whcih position the jumper is in. Match the same functional position on the new drive. That's it.

Bob.

EXCELLENT! Thanks Bob. I shall diligently note anything, take notes and be onto the phone to my NLE constructor too.

That I understand. Sorry John, but when it comes to taking the side panel off, my knees go weak and I kinda get clammy?

G

Oops, forgot to mention, unplug the damn thing. PCs these days can still have power on some bits even when they're off.
Not enough volts to zap you but enough to cook something expensive.

Bob.

Grazie, if you get stuck you can call me. I think you have my office number.

Thanks Alan . .. but .. . me big boy now . . me did it!

Ah-hah!!!

So is THAT how a burner should work properly?!???

1 - Opened PC

2 - Spring cleaned the dust out - oh yes!

3 - Unclipped the IDE and the power plug - that power plug was a bugger!

4 - Removed old "boiler" thru front - it is a caddie type

5 - Swapped caddie runners to NEW Pioneer

6 - Slid Pioneer back into PC

7 - Re-connected the IDE and PP

8 - Reconnected all the peripherals

9 - Switched on . .. . eh? Switched on . . . eh? EH?????

Moment of panic and terror. Remembered that my PC does NOT like having all peripherals plugged back on in one chunk. Added perifs one by one. Back in business.

SO!

Burnt 2 DVDs at 16x ! BOSH!

DVDA4 asked if I wanted to burn another? I THINK SO! BOSH! Dunnit!

OK. The old burner would kinda burn in sections or bursts, this one .. . ziiippp smoooth burn all through the burn.

I now have a "spare" lump. I could use it as a player or CD burner? Any ideas?

Thanks guys!!

G

It'll probably keep going for years as a CD player, that's if something had died which in this case it hadn't. Personally I'm still a bit old fashioned and use a Plextor dedicated CD burner.

But more importantly, congratulations, you did it!


Now if only figuring out this creative stuff was easy as learning how to fix hardware.

Bob.

And remember you are taking a step backwards as all new computers are eliminating the IDE slot and going with SATA.

JJK

Killjoy!

IMMMmmpossible!

How do I make it drag and drop files like with a another folder? It says it aint a CD? Yeah? So what?

True but the burners have yet to catchup.
In any case you can't you buy a SATA to IDE adaptor pretty cheaply?

Idea for the old burner:

(1) Take an old CD or DVD.

(2) put a teeny tiny crack right at the hub by flexing it a bit.

(3) Hook up your old burner, put in the disk, stand back and watch the fun!

This inadvertently happened to me last year. The "bang" was very impressive, and there were lots of little pieces of stuff inside the burner case when I took it apart.

I'm on my third DVD burner in three years. The previous two were installed at the top of the tower, with my secondary DVD reader (not burner) installed below (that also is the second one since I've owned this computer). Even for DVD/CD drives -- which are notoriously failure-prone -- this seemed like a very high failure rater. So, when I replaced my Pioneer with a Plextor a month ago, I took the opportunity to rearrange things in my huge tower. I have five bays in the front, only two of which are being used. The two DVD drives were in the top two. I ended up moving the top drive down from bay one to bay two, and then move the second drive down TWO bays. This puts lots of space above the first drive, and also puts space between the first and second drives.

My theory is that perhaps -- even with lots of fans in the case -- there just wasn't enough air circulation around the drives.

So, if things are still opened up, and if you have the space, move things around to give them a little more "breathing room."