usb dvd writer on CF-29

My CF-29 has an internal drive that will write CD's but not DVD's. I have a USB external drive which is meant to be able to write DVD's, but it appears to not work properly and I haven't figured out if it's the drive itself, or the driver Win Xp is attempting to use.

The drive is showing up in the device properties as a Matsua (aka Panasonic) UJ-880-AS.

WHen I connect the device to the computer (I'm using a PCMCIA two-port card to plug it into) without any media in the drive and the tray not pushed in, the device shows up as drive E and is listed as a DVD-RAM drive.

If I insert a blank disk, as soon as I close the drive up I get a continual sequence of Windows 'link' and 'unlink' beeps and the device listing in My Computer disappears (and sometimes quickly appears then goes again) until I push the button on the front of the drive to make it pop out.

I am attempting to burn a Solaris 10 DVD image, and this machine has Nero installed so it's defaulting to using that. I manually select the UJ-880-AS as the target device, and as soon as push in the drawer of the external drive I get the same series of beeps as Windows mucks around, and Nero just sits there waiting for the blank media (which is in the drive) to be 'detected' so it can start the burn process.

Has anyone come across behaviour like this when using a common USB DVD writer? The drive was bought new some time ago off Ebay and my wife has had no problem with a similar unit connected to a Twinhead PC.

Craig.

 

This one is caused by not enough power supplied by the USB port. Some external drives come with a USB cable with 3 connectors. Two of the TYPE A (low flat ones) and another to connect to the drive. This is usually a mini-B type. Depending on the MK CF-29 you have you may have two USB ports. Try the other port. If you have the three-headed cable use all connectors. If you only have one USB port, explore getting an external power adapter for the drive. If you really want to get couragous, you might trying swapping the drive in the CD caddy with the one in the USB case. There are numerous threads here on how to do it.

 

Ok well what I will try a bit later on is using the two USB ports on the system itself rather than the two AKE board ports. The AKE card does have a power connector between the two USB ports but I've misplaced the cable for that. Somewhere around here I think I still have an Opentec external CD enclosure with the right cables and might try out the DVD writer drive itself inside that housing.

Craig.

 

Oh you're connecting the USB writer via a USB PCMCIA card? Then definitely it's the power issue, a PCMCIA slot doesn't output too much current, and then add the overhead of the PCMCIA card itself...

 

Yes well I tried it with the drive plugged into the system USB port last night and it worked fine with Nero. I know that USB ports are supposed to supply up to half an amp of current but perhaps the limitations of the PCMCIA bus spec prevent the PCMCIA USB card from being able to supply that much.

Craig.

 

hmmmmm... instructions come in handy sometimes!