Cd-Rom drive just died, need suggestions.

[Valdner]

Hello everyone! A few days ago, my CD-ROM drive up and died. So, I need to get another. And, I figure
I might as well get one that can play DVDs.

After browsing CompUSA's website, I came across this one. (http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=315646&pfp=BROWSE) However, I have a few questions:

1) Will it work? I mean, will it be able to burn CDs and play DVDs. For reference, I'm using SuSE 9.1 Personal.
2) Right before I found out my drive wasn't working, I did a kernal rebuild. Well, now it only boots Windows. I can fix that, but in order for me to, I need a working drive. So, will it let me do that? I think it will, since it's a BIOS thing, but I just want to be sure.

Thank you very much for your time.

[Satanic Atheist]

No probs.

It's a standard IDE ATAPI interface DVD-ROM drive with a CD-Burner built into it. You should have no problem with it.

1) Yes, it will work and it will burn CDs and DVDs.
2) Yes, you can enable CD-ROM boot in the BIOS (check your MoBo supports it first, though, some older machines don't).

If that's all you want, you can pick up a cheap DVD-RW drive which also burns CDs and (obviously) reads stuff back for sod all, so I recommend you shop around a bit first. Check out eBay as well, I know people who've picked up DVD burners for £25 (about $50).

James

[Valdner]

Well, I don't need it to burn DVDs, I just figure I should be able to watch them.

Out of curiosity, does Linux support the dual layer DVD burning?

Thank you!

[Satanic Atheist]

As far as I know, yes, but I've never tried it. The K3b site will tell you more about it (or the cdrecord website). Sorry I can't look it up now, but I'm not on my own network and my friend is downloading a load of stuff (traffic control is disabled) and my connection is hideously slow.

Interesting to note that Linux does not currently support burning to mini-DVDs (with about a 1Gb of storage).

The only reason I mentioned the DVD-Burner is because it's the same price as the unit you were looking at.

James

[blobaugh]

Look for sales too. I got my DVD+- for $30US at staples in one of their best sales ever.