Can an internal CD/DVD burner work via a USB port?

[mm]

Alas, one more question: Can an internal CD/DVD burner work via a USB
port, when using an internal drive held in a Rosewill caddy?

I googled and burners designed to be external are used all the time.

So there are 3 possibilities for me.

1) Both burners I've tried are bad.

2) Using the Rosewill SATA/IDE/CD/DVD USB adapter is the problem.

3) Or it's because my mobo is so old. It's so old, it came only with
v1.1 USB, though I have put in a version 2 USB card, and used both
kinds of port.


I have no trouble taking an internal-style CD drive and connecting it
via a Rosewill caddy to either speed USB port and reading a USB.

But when I try to burn an image to an empty CD, neither Nero or ImgBrn
even finds the USB CD Burner, not with v1.1 or v2 USB, not with either
of the drives. They only list the CD burner that is mounted
internally.

Is this normal?

I feel guilty about asking so many questions lately, so all you have
to do is tell me if this should work or not.

Maybe the drive is bad. I've never used it to burn anything.
The previous drive I tried weeks ago and it had never been used to
burn anything, and the other I just bought (CD/DVD burner) and have
never burned anything with it either (though it will read a CD).

Thanks again.

 

[Paul]

Alas, one more question: Can an internal CD/DVD burner work via a USB
port, when using an internal drive held in a Rosewill caddy?

I googled and burners designed to be external are used all the time.

So there are 3 possibilities for me.

1) Both burners I've tried are bad.

2) Using the Rosewill SATA/IDE/CD/DVD USB adapter is the problem.

3) Or it's because my mobo is so old. It's so old, it came only with
v1.1 USB, though I have put in a version 2 USB card, and used both
kinds of port.


I have no trouble taking an internal-style CD drive and connecting it
via a Rosewill caddy to either speed USB port and reading a USB.

But when I try to burn an image to an empty CD, neither Nero or ImgBrn
even finds the USB CD Burner, not with v1.1 or v2 USB, not with either
of the drives. They only list the CD burner that is mounted
internally.

Is this normal?

I feel guilty about asking so many questions lately, so all you have
to do is tell me if this should work or not.

Maybe the drive is bad. I've never used it to burn anything.
The previous drive I tried weeks ago and it had never been used to
burn anything, and the other I just bought (CD/DVD burner) and have
never burned anything with it either (though it will read a CD).

Thanks again.

I have run a CD/DVD drive in a USB enclosure, at USB 1.1 speeds.
It was working, but the burner software I was using at the
time, was warning me it would take hours to finish burning the
DVD. I was doing a dual sided 9GB DVD at the time (7GB movie).
It turned out, somehow the "Enhanced" entry in Device Manager
had gone missing. Now, under those conditions, the optical drive
was using "Burnproof", and was operating in start-stop mode.
The flashing of the LED showed the drive could not work continuously,
due to the lack of sufficient cable data rate. But it would
have eventually finished the burn, if I'd let it.

Yes, optical drives in USB enclosures work. Reading or writing.

If you use old enough software, perhaps Nero 5 or so, it doesn't
know what a USB optical drive is. But anything newer than that
should be OK. Back when I had a copy of Nero 5, I think I had to
upgrade to the next version to get burning on an external to work
(that was on a new computer).

When you connect the optical drive, you should be seeing some
response from Device Manager. Are any new entries showing up ?
If you look at those entries, do they properly represent the
device ? Also, the setupapi.log file, may contain one or more
entries at the end of the file, which signify the response to
the newly detected hardware.

An alternative is to use UVCView to view the configuration data.
That is "closer to the hardware", and in this case, all you're
looking for is that the hardware is visible. There probably
isn't that much of interest in the details. Just that a new
device shows up. It's possible to get a new entry in UVCView,
but not in Device Manager. This posting has details in the
second half, on UVCView. I would not bother reading this,
unless the UpperFilter fix at the end of this post isn't helping.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt/msg/b593322ee1f42f59?dmode=source

Occasionally, a controller chip inside a USB enclosure will
"forget who it is". Some Cypress chip was doing that. But
if you connected a hard drive instead of an optical drive,
it would still be broken in the same way. Have you tested
the enclosure with a hard drive, and did that work ? I've tested
my enclosure with both hard drive and optical drive, so it
does many different jobs for me. It's a wonder the screws
aren't worn out.

You should check, whether you're using any "Virtual CD" software.
Sometimes, a software that accepts an ISO9660 file and mounts
it as a file system, can interfere with burning software. The
burner software tries to burn to the virtual drive, and gets
confused.

The other alternative, is the UpperFilter/Lowerfilter problem.
Some programs that include their own burner software,
add their own UpperFilter (like iTunes adds the GearSoftware
burner package). There is a Fixit for that. No guarantees
on what program(s) will be working 100% afterwards. Removing
an UpperFilter, obviously has to affect something.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116

http://support.microsoft.com/mats/cd_dvd_drive_problems/en-us

Paul

 

[mm]

I have run a CD/DVD drive in a USB enclosure, at USB 1.1 speeds.
It was working, but the burner software I was using at the
time, was warning me it would take hours to finish burning the
DVD. I was doing a dual sided 9GB DVD at the time (7GB movie).
It turned out, somehow the "Enhanced" entry in Device Manager
had gone missing. Now, under those conditions, the optical drive
was using "Burnproof", and was operating in start-stop mode.
The flashing of the LED showed the drive could not work continuously,
due to the lack of sufficient cable data rate. But it would
have eventually finished the burn, if I'd let it.

Yes, optical drives in USB enclosures work. Reading or writing.

If you use old enough software, perhaps Nero 5 or so, it doesn't
know what a USB optical drive is. But anything newer than that

Nero's so weird, I can't find the About screen, but I did find the
info command and it found the USB drive, which it correctly identified
as Lite-on LTN486S 48X Max USB Device, autorun on**. But it also
lists the internal DVD reader/no burner and it doesn't have either of
them in the dropdown list of possible burners.

I think this is was an OEM CD. The Nero files are from 2003 and 2004,
and a pdf file is entitled Nero 6!

Plus imgburn is free and only about 6 months old. Since you tell me
this should work, I guess I will dl the new version that it mentions
every time I start my current version.


**BTW, I just bought this drive new a month ago but tonight I noticed
it was made in December of 2003. So it's New Old Stock. But that's
okay, right? and I guess that's why it was only 25 dollars. It's a
CD/DVD burner. I don't care how fast it is. I rarely burn anything,
and I'm happy to do other things while it runs, if necessary. And
it's LightScribe, which I thought would be fun to have.

should be OK. Back when I had a copy of Nero 5, I think I had to
upgrade to the next version to get burning on an external to work
(that was on a new computer).

When you connect the optical drive, you should be seeing some
response from Device Manager. Are any new entries showing up ?

It's there too, but I haven't seen anything that calls it a burner.
That would account for why it's not on the list. But how can it be
LightScribe if it's not a burner?

Well.... This would account for that. Googling the model I see that
the specs make no mention of it being a burner, nor of LightScribe.
They either didn't send me what I ordered or the webpage mislabeled
what I then ordered. Or conceivably I made a mistake. Dang. It's
been a couple months, and it will take me days to find the paper work.
Oh, well. Maybe when I find the vendor name, they'll have everything
on line for me, and maybe they'll believe me or they'll know that they
sent the wrong thing, that I meant to order something else. Would
anyone still spend 25 dollar for something that only reads?

It's very rare that a store has made a mistake when selling me
something, or even second-hand like at a hamfest, almost everything
has worked fine. Or that I have bought the wrong thing. So if I do
lose money this time, it's okay.

However, for my friend, the retiring public school psychologist, who
has to back up her psych records in the next 2 weeks, or maybe 10 days
now, it doesn't have to burn DVDs, only CDs, so let me go find the one
that didn't work the last time (but which had a twin, bought at the
same hamfest, which does work.) Plus I have a CD burner that is only
slightly installed in the Dell 4700 I'm working on. Something out of
these 3 should work!!

Well, after all this the HP CD-writer 9100 seems to work fine with
Nero. Its fastest speed is 8X but I just said I didn't care. I have
two of them, so maybe it's the other one that didn't work last time,
or maybe I made a mistake and they both do. 6.5 minutes to write it
-- that's fine --, though it didn't verify it like imgburn does. I
guess that's cause it's oem.

Imgburn finds the drive too.


I'll save what follows for when I actually buy the right thing!

Thanks again!

 

[Paul]

Well.... This would account for that. Googling the model I see that
the specs make no mention of it being a burner, nor of LightScribe.
They either didn't send me what I ordered or the webpage mislabeled
what I then ordered. Or conceivably I made a mistake. Dang. It's
been a couple months, and it will take me days to find the paper work.
Oh, well. Maybe when I find the vendor name, they'll have everything
on line for me, and maybe they'll believe me or they'll know that they
sent the wrong thing, that I meant to order something else. Would
anyone still spend 25 dollar for something that only reads?

You realize, you can get new CD/DVD burners for around $20 USD. There
is no point fooling around with older stock, unless it was some
Liteon known to be good for scanning burned discs for errors.

A SATA for $22. Bare drive, no screws, no software.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

An IDE for $22. Just the drive, in a plastic bag.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136221

Modern drives can be hit and miss, and quality has dropped this
year. Figure out what kind of enclosure you've got, and start
shopping.

Nero Infotool is available for download, and it would have
given you a dialog with tick boxes indicating whether it
reads, writes, or both, the various kinds of media. There
are various versions floating around. I kinda like the
look of some of the older ones. And there should be one
in your Nero Tools folder anyway.

http://ftp6.nero.com/tools/InfoTool.zip

http://majorgeeks.com/Nero_InfoTool_d120.html

Paul

 

[mm]

You realize, you can get new CD/DVD burners for around $20 USD. There
is no point fooling around with older stock, unless it was some

I was unclear. I didn't know it was going to be old stock. I thought
it was going to be brand new or last year's. (Of course I also thought
it would be a burner. I'll see what they say about that.) When I
said what I did, I was just trying to make myself feel better after I
failed to promptly check what they sent me.

Okay, I found an email about the order. Time flies. The drive came
about Feb. 24. However, the LightScribe DVD writer I bought was not
Lite-on. It was Samsung. So I must have installed it after all, and
this is the drive I took out of a Dell from the 2003 time period. If
I did install it, I'm sure I tested it, and may well have fully tested
it.

I am still confused, but at least no two black drives I have are made
by the same company, and I have notes on where each of them came from,
so I should be able to sort this out.

And no one overcharged me or even made a mistake, except me, tonight.

So I feel better, but "stupid". I've made a lot of mistakes like
this since I turned 60. I'm 64 now. But maybe I'm just distracted.
My mother had a crystal clear mind until she died at 88. (not
counting the same mistakes she used to make when she was 40.)

I still think I can remember all kinds of details without making
notes. Maybe I never could. I probably can't keep track of which
drive is which by which step on the stairs it is sitting on.

Liteon known to be good for scanning burned discs for errors.

A SATA for $22. Bare drive, no screws, no software.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

An IDE for $22. Just the drive, in a plastic bag.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136221

Modern drives can be hit and miss, and quality has dropped this
year. Figure out what kind of enclosure you've got, and start
shopping.

The Rosewill has no enclosure at all, it's just cords and a
transformer, but this drive (that is, what I thought was this) was
bought to go in a standard desktop case. I haven't installed it yet,
so tonight was meant to kill two birds, test it and have a USB CD
burner to take to my friend's.

Nero Infotool is available for download, and it would have
given you a dialog with tick boxes indicating whether it
reads, writes, or both, the various kinds of media. There

are various versions floating around. I kinda like the
look of some of the older ones. And there should be one
in your Nero Tools folder anyway.

http://ftp6.nero.com/tools/InfoTool.zip

http://majorgeeks.com/Nero_InfoTool_d120.html

Paul

Thanks a lot. These sound good.