Which CD-R/RW drive?

September 12, 2006 10:49 AM

Which CD-R / CD-RW drive is best to replace the one that's just died in my PC?

I have a 6 year-old Gateway PC running Win98SE. Up until recently the (OE) CD-R / CD-RW drive worked really well. But the drive just died. Can I get a more modern (ie: higher speed) CD-R/CD-RW drive and just swap it? I want to continue using the same software (Adaptec Easy CD v.4.02a and CD Creator v.3.01a). The original drive was a Philips "8x4x32x CD-RW Drive". I used 1x-4x CD-RWs and 1x-40x compatible CD-R discs. Any info appreciated. Thanks.

posted by JtJ to computers & internet (7 comments total)

You will want to search Roxio's site to find hardware compatibility with your version of Adaptec (now Roxio) software, unless you upgrade the software as well. Newegg is one inexpensive hardware vendor, and you might find an OEM replacement for your Philips drive here. An OEM replacement will definitely work.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:57 AM on September 12, 2006

Drives are so cheap these days, you may as well replace it with a DVD RW drive, assuming everything's nice and compatible as Blazecock notes.
posted by utsutsu at 10:59 AM on September 12, 2006

What utsutsu said. I put one of these into the last machine I built, and it seems to be chugging along nicely. Lite-On isn't as well known a brand name as Philips or Sony, but the last drive I bought from them, a DVD/CD-RW combo dating from the late 90's when those things were still fairly uncommon, worked fine for six years before I decided to drop the $30 for a DVD+/-R drive.

I can't speak for compatability with your software, however. You should definitely double checlk.
posted by Mayor West at 11:12 AM on September 12, 2006

Yeah, just get an all purpose drive, 30 bones. I recently put in an NEC ND-3550A. Its a great drive, and it does everything.
posted by bradn at 1:01 PM on September 12, 2006

Pretty much all optical drives for consumer desktops use the EIDE interface (ribbon cable, long thin connector): it's one of the few pluggable things that hasn't changed since you bought your PC.

You'd be paying a premium now not to have DVD-R/W/etc in a desktop optical drive.) NEC's line is bulletproof and cheap: order online, because they're not generally sold in stores.
posted by holgate at 1:15 PM on September 12, 2006

You can put pretty much any drive in the computer and Windows 98 SE will work fine with it.

However, it is possible you may have an OEM version of Easy CD Creator, which means it was bundled with that specific hardware, and will not work with any other hardware.

You can buy any off-the-shelf hardware and Windows 98 will work with it. However, you may want to budget extra for Roxio upgrades or a license of Nero, etc.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:22 PM on September 12, 2006

I second the NEC ND-3550A drive. Lots of firmware support, unnofficial and official.
posted by Memo at 3:32 PM on September 12, 2006