Combo drive dead? Now what?
Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 10:37 am
Recently I awoke to a combo drive that wouldn't burn or read discs any longer. It's a Samsung SM-348B Combo. The day before I had successfully burned two audio discs. Windows tells me the drive is connected and working properly. Explorer shows it as the proper drive letter. However, when I put any kind of CD or DVD or CD-R in it, all I get is some clicking noise. No spinning sound or anything. I tried to use a lense cleaner, thinking there was dust involved, but that hasn't worked. I tried removing the hardware and letting XP pick it up upon reboot. I tried rolling the system back to a previous restore point. Still nada. I think it's dead, but I'll know it when someone who has faced this issue before says to me "it's dead."
So while I'm saddened that I'm losing a piece of my machine, I'm pysched for a shopping trip to newegg. I've narrowed down my choices to the Pioneer DVR-108 OEM version and the Lite-On SOHW-1213S. The Pioneer doesn't appear to offer software and speed is not a big concern to me, since my players like to use things burned at slower speeds anyway. On the other hand, the Lite-On SOHW-1213S doesn't burn as fast, nor does it have dual-layer capability (what's that for?), but it includes software and is significantly cheaper.
I've always had good luck with Lite-On CD-RW drives. Are there any quality concerns with the DVD burners?
As you can tell, I'm a newb when it comes to these issues. I mainly want a DVD burner to archive my files more efficiently and to burn home videos of the kids. (If you're feeling really kind, you could suggest a nice program to organize information on a DVD...)
BigSammy
So while I'm saddened that I'm losing a piece of my machine, I'm pysched for a shopping trip to newegg. I've narrowed down my choices to the Pioneer DVR-108 OEM version and the Lite-On SOHW-1213S. The Pioneer doesn't appear to offer software and speed is not a big concern to me, since my players like to use things burned at slower speeds anyway. On the other hand, the Lite-On SOHW-1213S doesn't burn as fast, nor does it have dual-layer capability (what's that for?), but it includes software and is significantly cheaper.
I've always had good luck with Lite-On CD-RW drives. Are there any quality concerns with the DVD burners?
As you can tell, I'm a newb when it comes to these issues. I mainly want a DVD burner to archive my files more efficiently and to burn home videos of the kids. (If you're feeling really kind, you could suggest a nice program to organize information on a DVD...)
BigSammy