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portable bootable DVD/CDRW drive?
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portable bootable DVD/CDRW drive? Lou Lipnickey 12-16-2004
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Posted by Lou Lipnickey on December 16, 2004, 2:20 pm
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 I'm looking to buy a portable bootable DVD/CDRW drive for use with my
IBM X31. Overall, my needs are:
- small
- bus powered
- DVD read
- CDRW
Does anyone have a suggestion? If you have a drive which works with an
X31 that would be great to know also.
Thanks - Lou



Posted by Quaoar on December 16, 2004, 8:45 am
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 Lou Lipnickey wrote:
> I'm looking to buy a portable bootable DVD/CDRW drive for use with my
> IBM X31. Overall, my needs are:
> - small
> - bus powered
> - DVD read
> - CDRW
> Does anyone have a suggestion? If you have a drive which works with an
> X31 that would be great to know also.
> Thanks - Lou

"Bootable" is a function of the BIOS. If the BIOS permits booting from
USB/Firewire/Parallel/Serial then you should be able to use any drive
using the bootable port for the purpose.

External drives should be externally powered unless the computer clearly
has enough power available to do the job; many laptops do not have
sufficient amperage in either USB or Firewire (the 4-pin mini Firewire
jack, or Sony i-Link, is not powered). Even the PCMCIA slot is
problematical for power to Firewire and USB2 cards. Some USB-powered HD
enclosures have USB power supplied via a second power-only USB plug, but
I've had spotty performance with this on larger external HDs that
consume less power than does an optical drive.

I have seen at one of newegg or zipzoomfly a very thin external CD/DVD
drive that *might* be based on the ultra slim Panasonic/Matshita drive
used in the IBM Ultrabay which *might* suit your purposes if its power
requirement is low enough for pure bus power - these OEM drives do not
specify the components so the vendor would have to be consulted. The
type and power requirement of the drive is moot if the BIOS has no
support for booting from an external device.

Q





Posted by Lou Lipnickey on December 16, 2004, 5:12 pm
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I'm not sure that all external CDs are bootable. For instances the
Addonics DVD/cdrw (AEPDVRWII824 ) is not bootable.

The PCI card is more than problematic as the spec does not provide for
power to the outbound pins.

I'll check into the Panasonic/Matshita drive.
Thanks
Lou


Quaoar wrote:

> Lou Lipnickey wrote:
>
>>I'm looking to buy a portable bootable DVD/CDRW drive for use with my
>>IBM X31. Overall, my needs are:
>>- small
>>- bus powered
>>- DVD read
>>- CDRW
>>Does anyone have a suggestion? If you have a drive which works with an
>>X31 that would be great to know also.
>>Thanks - Lou
>
>
> "Bootable" is a function of the BIOS. If the BIOS permits booting from
> USB/Firewire/Parallel/Serial then you should be able to use any drive
> using the bootable port for the purpose.
>
> External drives should be externally powered unless the computer clearly
> has enough power available to do the job; many laptops do not have
> sufficient amperage in either USB or Firewire (the 4-pin mini Firewire
> jack, or Sony i-Link, is not powered). Even the PCMCIA slot is
> problematical for power to Firewire and USB2 cards. Some USB-powered HD
> enclosures have USB power supplied via a second power-only USB plug, but
> I've had spotty performance with this on larger external HDs that
> consume less power than does an optical drive.
>
> I have seen at one of newegg or zipzoomfly a very thin external CD/DVD
> drive that *might* be based on the ultra slim Panasonic/Matshita drive
> used in the IBM Ultrabay which *might* suit your purposes if its power
> requirement is low enough for pure bus power - these OEM drives do not
> specify the components so the vendor would have to be consulted. The
> type and power requirement of the drive is moot if the BIOS has no
> support for booting from an external device.
>
> Q
>
>
>


Posted by projectle on December 16, 2004, 1:18 pm
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First off, a self powered DVD Anything drive does not exist at this
time, other than through hardware manufacturers using custom
interfaces.

IBM has one of these that plugs into the external Multibay.
Then, you can use a wide variety of drives (from IBM) and they would
pull power directly through their special interface connection.

I had one of their X series quite a while back and used it with an
external DVD/CDRW drive and it worked just fine, although it was too
awkward to use. It was not portable at all (with the exception that
you could take it with you.)

You could not use it on an airplane, it needed to be sitting perfectly
flat, and all those other problems that make it non-ideal for anyone
who needs to access a CD when they do not have their notebook sitting
square on their desks.

What I got in its place and has worked FANTASTICALLY is the Fujitsu
Lifebook S6000. It is another ultra-portable laptop, with 8 hours of
battery life and an integrated, modular slot-loading
DVD-R/W/+R/W/-RAM/CD-R/W

I got it for around $1800 or so which is really nice for an
Ultraportable, nonetheless for the features that this thing has.



Posted by Lou Lipnickey on December 16, 2004, 6:30 pm
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what actually got me interested in this (vs the multibay) was the
Addonics DVD/cdrw (AEPDVRWII824 ) which newegg.com sells for about $129.
The problem with this is its not bootable although it is usb powered.

projectle wrote:
> First off, a self powered DVD Anything drive does not exist at this
> time, other than through hardware manufacturers using custom
> interfaces.
>
> IBM has one of these that plugs into the external Multibay.
> Then, you can use a wide variety of drives (from IBM) and they would
> pull power directly through their special interface connection.
>
> I had one of their X series quite a while back and used it with an
> external DVD/CDRW drive and it worked just fine, although it was too
> awkward to use. It was not portable at all (with the exception that
> you could take it with you.)
>
> You could not use it on an airplane, it needed to be sitting perfectly
> flat, and all those other problems that make it non-ideal for anyone
> who needs to access a CD when they do not have their notebook sitting
> square on their desks.
>
> What I got in its place and has worked FANTASTICALLY is the Fujitsu
> Lifebook S6000. It is another ultra-portable laptop, with 8 hours of
> battery life and an integrated, modular slot-loading
> DVD-R/W/+R/W/-RAM/CD-R/W
>
> I got it for around $1800 or so which is really nice for an
> Ultraportable, nonetheless for the features that this thing has.
>


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