Frankly, it is just not worth doing this. The firmware on the drive will be so old that it probably will not recognise dvds from some manufacturers, or it will default to writing at a low speed e.g. 4x. Just buy a cheap new external usb drive.
Hi All,
Thanks again for all your helpfull advice. Okay I accept that I may be flogging a dead horse but nothing ventured ,nothing gained, I have ordered the caddy suggested by S1W2 and bobkn. Most of my blank CD/DVD's are ancient by computer time scales so hopefully will work with the unit's firmware., It does seem to be okay for W7 on. I'll keep this thread open till I have tried the unit and will report back on the result. Thanks again
Hi All, I've received the dvd caddy box now. It was fairly easy to fit the burner into it and bingo it works! I've only tried it with audio cd's so far and it powered up as soon as I connected the usb cable. I connected the power cable to a spare usb charger but that did not appear to be necessary for play back it may be required for burning, I've not tried to do that yet but the main thing was to play audio cd's. So thanks again everyone for your help
Ace! Good work. I have two USB CD drives, they both have two cables. One of them works fine with one USB connected. The other needs both, it uses one for the CD mech and the other for the data. Older machines didn't have the power on one port and used both of the cables as it helps spread the electrical load over the ports but newer machines have more combined USB ports, with more power, so I don't think it matters, as long as it works. I use mine all the time using one of the two, no problems anywhere, read or write.
Edit,oops, the drive that "needed" two cables works on one. Just checked, I think it's a bit damaged.
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