Author Topic: The perfect CD ROM drive (CDU611) (Read 16972 times)

EverythingIBM · « **on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 00:54:24 »

Alright, I hooked up my old sony CD ROM drive (CDU611), and I absolutely love it after not using it for years. Forget LG drives.

This drive is interesting because:
A) it uses a gear-guided track to open/close the drive, really fast and makes an interesting gear noise. I don't recall seeing such "gear rails" on any recent drive trays. I have seen them before very seldom.
B) it's one of the quieter drives (10x to 24x), and plays games quietly with an audio track (specially adjusts to CD playing speeds, cheap drives don't) -- if I remember correctly, it doesn't "pause" games when a track reloads like some of the other stupid drives I've used. In other words, it doesn't spin audio discs as fast as it can when unnecessary. I love this because it makes ZERO noise. I for one hate the noise of a spinning CD.
C) it loads discs quickly and ejects them even faster; no other drives I've used have been able to do that, they're always so slow.

Okay, this thing has multiple labels...
FRU: 02K1113
IBM P/N: 02K1112
Serial: 206768
and of course, CDU611 as mentioned.

With a quick google search of its various names, I have been able to get websites that sell it:
http://www.pacificgeek.com/product.asp?id=28025
https://www.serversupply.com/products/part_search/pid_find.asp?pid=76138

As well, ebay has a whole slew under the CDU611 label: http://shop.ebay.ca/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=CDU611&_sacat=See-All-Categories

Anyone else use these drives? Or have them?
I'm definitely going to see if I can pick up a few extras when I get the chance.

Phaedrus2129 · « **Reply #1 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 10:39:49 »

This would be excellent, since I've just found that my DVD drive is borked, except...

Everything is on DVD now.

So IBM may have made a masterpiece of a drive, but it might as well be a 5 1/4" floppy drive or a zip drive for all the good it does me.

ch_123 · « **Reply #2 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 11:21:41 »

My drive cost me €20 and works with modern media. Can't remember who made it, don't want to either.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #3 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 14:00:54 »

Quote from: Phaedrus2129;198684

This would be excellent, since I've just found that my DVD drive is borked, except...

Everything is on DVD now.

So IBM may have made a masterpiece of a drive, but it might as well be a 5 1/4" floppy drive or a zip drive for all the good it does me.

It's great for CDs. Sure it can't run DVDs, but most of my stuff is on CDs anyhow. DVDs I think spin slower too.

Quote from: ripster;198703

Probably made by LiteOn.

I don't get this fascination with keyboards made by Chicony and drives made by who knows who.

And this is coming from somebody who likes IBM!

No it's made by sony, not liteon.

The KB8923 chicony IBM branded keyboards are VERY good. See, IBM picks good parts. They don't have to make it, as long as it's good. A branded IBM logo is a plus.

kishy · « **Reply #4 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 14:02:33 »

For pure CD-ROM drives, LG had a really good thing going on with the 40x and faster ones. Excellent reliability, acceptable noise level, decent eject button (yeah, nitpicking, but a lot of drives have a small button that doesn't protrude very far from the faceplate...not good).

They actually OPEN when you tell them to, regardless of age. Gear-driven drives have a tendency to become one or two (or more) 'cogs' out of alignment which will cause them to jam when opening or closing, but I haven't had this happen with the LG drives (tbh not sure if they have a belt and pulleys or not, but I consider it a better design because it self-corrects for coming out of alignment)

DVD+/-RAM drive on my desktop is a Sony DRU-820A. Love that drive. Burns just about every pre-HD format there is quickly and reliably. Quietly...not so much, and I had to do some case modifications on my last case for the vent holes on it, but yeah. I like it quite a bit.

As far as old drives go, my favourite is an old 8x GoldStar (now LG) with the eject and stop buttons. Wish I had one handy to grab the model off of.

Also opens every time, very reliable. OS installs tend to go a bit slower because it's 8x, but I like it for reliability.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #5 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 14:07:47 »

Quote from: kishy;198729

For pure CD-ROM drives, LG had a really good thing going on with the 40x and faster ones. Excellent reliability, acceptable noise level, decent eject button (yeah, nitpicking, but a lot of drives have a small button that doesn't protrude very far from the faceplate...not good).

They actually OPEN when you tell them to, regardless of age. Gear-driven drives have a tendency to become one or two (or more) 'cogs' out of alignment which will cause them to jam when opening or closing, but I haven't had this happen with the LG drives (tbh not sure if they have a belt and pulleys or not, but I consider it a better design because it self-corrects for coming out of alignment)

DVD+/-RAM drive on my desktop is a Sony DRU-820A. Love that drive. Burns just about every pre-HD format there is quickly and reliably. Quietly...not so much, and I had to do some case modifications on my last case for the vent holes on it, but yeah. I like it quite a bit.

As far as old drives go, my favourite is an old 8x GoldStar (now LG) with the eject and stop buttons. Wish I had one handy to grab the model off of.

Also opens every time, very reliable. OS installs tend to go a bit slower because it's 8x, but I like it for reliability.

I might see about a sony DVD drive then if it's quiet. If it's anything like their CD drives, then I'm all for it (people seem to have mistaken that I'm saying this is the perfect CD ROM drive, I know it's not DVD -- but combo DVD/CD drives don't perform well with CDs imo).

No, I've never had THIS drive come out of alignment from the cogs -- the cogs are so big that I think it's impossible. It's not a cheap drive mind you, and after years of abuse still runs the same.

The other gear drive I seen WAS suffering and had trouble with the cogs, but that's cause it was cheap.

Rajagra · « **Reply #6 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 14:57:38 »

The main reason cogs get out of alignment is eejits forcing the tray closed instead of pressing the button.

And that isn't the perfect CD drive. It doesn't even use a caddy!

itlnstln · « **Reply #7 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 15:01:25 »

The caddy-based drives were the ****. You could run those things upside-down if you wanted to. Sure, they were a little cumbersome, but they were damn-near bulletproof. They also helped keep your discs from getting scratched, too.

kishy · « **Reply #8 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 15:34:54 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;198730

I might see about a sony DVD drive then if it's quiet. If it's anything like their CD drives, then I'm all for it (people seem to have mistaken that I'm saying this is the perfect CD ROM drive, I know it's not DVD -- but combo DVD/CD drives don't perform well with CDs imo).

No, I've never had THIS drive come out of alignment from the cogs -- the cogs are so big that I think it's impossible. It's not a cheap drive mind you, and after years of abuse still runs the same.

The other gear drive I seen WAS suffering and had trouble with the cogs, but that's cause it was cheap.

The Sony I have isn't really quiet, that's what I tried to say there. It's on par with the LG drives I'd say.

Quote from: Rajagra;198764

The main reason cogs get out of alignment is eejits forcing the tray closed instead of pressing the button.

And that isn't the perfect CD drive. It doesn't even use a caddy!

True, but look at modern OEM cases (even some "DIY" cases). There's no way to press the button while the drive is open (as the button is pushed by a push-in section of the faceplate which flips open when the drive opens). They're essentially encouraging you to do it the stupid way.

I close my drives with the button, but I do have one somewhere that only opens with the button, doesn't close. Could easily be a little sensor out of alignment somewhere though. The older ones are unnecessarily complex with sensors to identify when it's open, closed, or in between among other things.

Quote from: itlnstln;198768

The caddy-based drives were the ****. You could run those things upside-down if you wanted to. Sure, they were a little cumbersome, but they were damn-near bulletproof. They also helped keep your discs from getting scratched, too.

It seems to me the caddy design (wherein you insert disk into caddy, then caddy into drive) adds an additional level of potential damage to the disk...but whatever.

I've wanted a caddy drive with caddies for a while but it's not a cheap investment considering age, lack of speed and lack of media compatibility.

itlnstln · « **Reply #9 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 15:45:55 »

Quote from: kishy;198790

It seems to me the caddy design (wherein you insert disk into caddy, then caddy into drive) adds an additional level of potential damage to the disk...but whatever.

I've wanted a caddy drive with caddies for a while but it's not a cheap investment considering age, lack of speed and lack of media compatibility.

The idea back then was to own a bunch of the caddies and keep your discs in them. Once they were in the caddy, you no longer had to handle the physical disc.

ricercar · « **Reply #10 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 15:55:50 »

You received Office 97 trial on a netbook you just bought? not 2000, not 2010, but 97?

itlnstln · « **Reply #11 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 15:58:53 »

Did you buy your netbook from MW?

kishy · « **Reply #12 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 16:06:49 »

Dear god I hope he meant 07...

Morning Song · « **Reply #13 on:** Fri, 02 July 2010, 22:00:01 »

My favorite optical drive ever was my Pioneer DVD-106S. I never had one with caddies, but I love slot-loaders. It's just a shame they don't exist in non-slim form nowadays.

Brodie337 · « **Reply #14 on:** Sat, 03 July 2010, 03:20:12 »

I can't remember what it was called, but we had some crazy external slot loader at work that would throw your discs at least 2 feet.

Thats my kind of disk drive.

Computer-Lab in Basement · « **Reply #15 on:** Sat, 03 July 2010, 10:36:52 »

Quote from: itlnstln;198808

Did you buy your netbook from MW?

Ha! If he did it would be some old Pocket PC with Windows CE 2.11.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #16 on:** Sat, 03 July 2010, 13:13:11 »

Quote from: itlnstln;198768

The caddy-based drives were the ****. You could run those things upside-down if you wanted to. Sure, they were a little cumbersome, but they were damn-near bulletproof. They also helped keep your discs from getting scratched, too.

The tray has little tabs that you spin around to hold the disc in place... you CAN use tray CD drives sideways, upsidedown, or whatever. Well that one anyways.

Quote from: ripster;198799

The perfect CD ROM drive is the one that you don't have. Office 97 trial preinstalled meant I have yet to find a piece of software I need a CD/DVD drive for my HP Netbook.

Yeah... I'm not sure where you're going with the office 97... I'm pretty sure you don't need a DVD drive for that.
As a joke my friend and I DID install office 97 in windows 7, but it actually screwed a lot of things up. So I wouldn't reccomend it ripster. And the fact you have a trial version is just weak. You can get it for free so easily.

Quote from: kishy;198813

Dear god I hope he meant 07...

I think he's going to the MW dark side. Either that or Ripster broke into some mental insanity when I told him to get a ThinkPad X series over his HP thing.

InSanCen · « **Reply #17 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 02:09:21 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;199016

Either that or Ripster broke into some mental insanity when I told him to get a ThinkPad X series over his HP thing.

Not from reading your posts in general?

Just throwing it out there...

microsoft windows · « **Reply #18 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 09:23:02 »

I don't really care about my CD drives as long as they work most of the time.

kishy · « **Reply #19 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 11:08:12 »

Quote from: microsoft windows;199303

I don't really care about my CD drives as long as they work most of the time.

You're content with only 'most of the time'?

microsoft windows · « **Reply #20 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:07:53 »

Unless you're working with floppies, it's pretty hard to get a drive to work all the time (This includes booting on old computers).

ch_123 · « **Reply #21 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:19:56 »

My DVD drive works all the time...

I hate optical drives. The sooner they die out, the better.

microsoft windows · « **Reply #22 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:23:17 »

But it won't be fun booting from your DVD drive if it's plugged into a 15-year-old computer.

Computer-Lab in Basement · « **Reply #23 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:24:39 »

That 15 year old computer most likely has no support for DVD drives anyways.

ch_123 · « **Reply #24 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:26:47 »

Sure it can. DVD drives use the same interface as a CD drive.

Just don't try watching a movie on it...

microsoft windows · « **Reply #25 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:29:18 »

You don't seem to have too much experience trying to get an old computer boot from CD's.

kishy · « **Reply #26 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:42:29 »

The discussion is about functionality, not booting. If you're going to troll at least troll consistently.

microsoft windows · « **Reply #27 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:45:57 »

Booting is part of functionality.

kishy · « **Reply #28 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:47:17 »

Booting is exclusively a function of the computer. Standards-compliant drive will have no issues if paired with a computer that knows how to do it.

ch_123 · « **Reply #29 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:48:46 »

Unless someone knows otherwise, a computer that can boot from a CD drive can also boot from a DVD drive, given that they're basically the same thing...

kishy · « **Reply #30 on:** Sun, 04 July 2010, 18:51:39 »

Quote from: ch_123;199512

Unless someone knows otherwise, a computer that can boot from a CD drive can also boot from a DVD drive, given that they're basically the same thing...

I assumed in the past it wouldn't work, but I've successfully (if you wanna call it that) booted a Win7 install disk in a Pentium 1 system.

Complained about ACPI something or other and refused to actually do anything, but in order to get that message it had to have booted from the disk to run the necessary checks to generate the error.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #31 on:** Mon, 05 July 2010, 15:49:31 »

Quote from: kishy;199516

I assumed in the past it wouldn't work, but I've successfully (if you wanna call it that) booted a Win7 install disk in a Pentium 1 system.

Complained about ACPI something or other and refused to actually do anything, but in order to get that message it had to have booted from the disk to run the necessary checks to generate the error.

Yeah people kept telling me you couldn't use DVDs on older computers -- I was certain you could; as long as it's an IDE drive.
I was going to try that myself ... guess you can't run windows 7 on an old beater... oh well. There goes my fun.

Quote from: microsoft windows;199303

I don't really care about my CD drives as long as they work most of the time.

It's VERY important to have good CD drives. First of all, a lot of my games are collectibles, and very hard to buy, or even discontinued. A bad CD drive or one that spins the CDs too fast could shatter them. I could always backup my discs (which I do), but I enjoy using authentic discs.

Secondly, running them from the disc is a real pain when it's noisy. I can't concentrate or enjoy the awesome soundtracks on games if I hear a loud CD noise. And it's pointless on having more speed than necessary. A 52x for a game only 60 MB? yeah right.

Thirdly, it's really not that hard to find a quality CD drive -- most people throw them out.

kishy · « **Reply #32 on:** Mon, 05 July 2010, 16:22:04 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;199731

Yeah people kept telling me you couldn't use DVDs on older computers -- I was certain you could; as long as it's an IDE drive.
I was going to try that myself ... guess you can't run windows 7 on an old beater... oh well. There goes my fun.

Not totally impossible. If there's a way to defeat the specs check, it may work.

The ACPI complaint was because I was attempting it on an AT system, not ATX.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #33 on:** Mon, 05 July 2010, 21:50:46 »

Quote from: ripster;199791

GameJackal from SlySoft. Never have to touch those old fashioned DVDs/CDs again to play a game.

I just had to load it on my Netbook to play Chessmaster 10. Works like a charm.

I have chessmaster 9000, I enjoy the historical chess replays you can watch. My favourite chess player is Alexander Alekhine. He beat Capablanca.

keyb_gr · « **Reply #34 on:** Wed, 07 July 2010, 08:23:19 »

Speaking of older CD drives, I'm glad I still have my old Ricoh MP7040A around. While CD-Rs suitable for 4x burning are pretty much gone, it does the best job reading critical CDs among all of my drives. It's quite a bit more immune to pressing errors and deteriorating CD-Rs than even my LG GSA-H42N, which isn't exactly a slouch to begin with.

That did come in handy a few times. Imagine the poor LG takes ages to rip an audio CD with EAC in secure mode and still can't get all the tracks bit-perfect, and then the old Ricoh comes along and reads it all without much fuss (even in "burst mode", though it seems they implemented their own version of "secure mode" starting from firmware 1.30 or so as burst only gives about 1/3 the expected reading speed).

ricercar · « **Reply #35 on:** Wed, 07 July 2010, 14:42:53 »

Quote from: keyb_gr;200218

Speaking of older CD drives, I'm glad I still have my old Ricoh MP7040A around. While CD-Rs suitable for 4x burning are pretty much gone, it does the best job reading critical CDs among all of my drives. It's quite a bit more immune to pressing errors and deteriorating CD-Rs

I keep a sleeve of 650 MB CD blanks (not cdrw) only for my old 4x Ricoh SCSI caddy burner that has never burned a coaster.

kishy · « **Reply #36 on:** Wed, 07 July 2010, 14:49:40 »

I never really got into CD-RWs...more expensive, at what benefit? Limited number of rewrites?

I prefer to use a CD-R and make it multisession so I can add more to it later. Deleting just makes the file appear to go away, space is still used, but the type of thing I'd burn to CD wouldn't need to be deleted anyway (games, drivers to get older machines' USB working to use flash drives, etc)

ch_123 · « **Reply #37 on:** Wed, 07 July 2010, 14:54:54 »

I wouldn't call 1,000+ rewrites "limited"

kishy · « **Reply #38 on:** Wed, 07 July 2010, 14:57:30 »

Quote from: ch_123;200419

I wouldn't call 1,000+ rewrites "limited"

Oops, always thought it was substantially lower than that...like 20...

ch_123 · « **Reply #39 on:** Wed, 07 July 2010, 15:01:08 »

Dear God no...

When my Dad left his old job, he did some stationary pillaging, which included what seems like an infinite supply of CD-RWs...

microsoft windows · « **Reply #40 on:** Wed, 07 July 2010, 15:09:55 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;199731

Yeah people kept telling me you couldn't use DVDs on older computers -- I was certain you could; as long as it's an IDE drive.
I was going to try that myself ... guess you can't run windows 7 on an old beater... oh well. There goes my fun.

It's VERY important to have good CD drives. First of all, a lot of my games are collectibles, and very hard to buy, or even discontinued. A bad CD drive or one that spins the CDs too fast could shatter them. I could always backup my discs (which I do), but I enjoy using authentic discs.

Secondly, running them from the disc is a real pain when it's noisy. I can't concentrate or enjoy the awesome soundtracks on games if I hear a loud CD noise. And it's pointless on having more speed than necessary. A 52x for a game only 60 MB? yeah right.

Thirdly, it's really not that hard to find a quality CD drive -- most people throw them out.

I don't really use CD's too much though. If I did then I would definitely be more picky when I pick CD drives out of the garbage to make sure I get a nice one.

Most of my old software is on floppy disks anyway and floppy drives are basically universal. There aren't really any that are better or worse as long as they work. They're all slow and they're all noisy.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #41 on:** Wed, 07 July 2010, 22:32:34 »

Quote from: microsoft windows;200439

I don't really use CD's too much though. If I did then I would definitely be more picky when I pick CD drives out of the garbage to make sure I get a nice one.

Most of my old software is on floppy disks anyway and floppy drives are basically universal. There aren't really any that are better or worse as long as they work. They're all slow and they're all noisy.

Floppies can be fast at certain things... saving bmp files from paint went surprisingly fast...
I don't find them that noisy, depends what drive you have though. I enjoy the floppy drive noises in my 300PL, sounds like some buzzing robot thing, especially when you boot the bastard on. Then it makes ticking just before loading into windows.

One weird thing though, this "new" 300PL I got doesn't beep during posting... but the opposite is true for my intellistations, my old intellistation doesn't beep after posting, but the new one does. A mystery indeed. Maybe it's a secret IBM code which gives directions to a hidden stash of 6562 300PLs... okay now I'm dreaming.

And I did an experiment, I damaged the film inside one floppy, and even though some of it was ripped and torn, you were still able to write files on it and all. So, they're more resilient than one would first imagine.

mike · « **Reply #42 on:** Thu, 08 July 2010, 13:54:48 »

Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;199479

That 15 year old computer most likely has no support for DVD drives anyways.

You could be surprised. Work still has a few old Sun E450s (up to 13 years old) floating around (not used for anything serious) which not only can boot from DVD after a firmware update, but indeed if still on maintenance will replace a faulty CD drive in one with a new DVD drive.

And my Sun E4000 could if it was still up and running boot from an internal DVD (as it happens a Plextor ... my own favourite choice of CD or DVD drives).

Computer-Lab in Basement · « **Reply #43 on:** Thu, 08 July 2010, 14:56:45 »

I realized this the other day when I tried running Windows 7 setup on my Windows 95 machine. I threw the DVD drive in there, and it booted from the DVD but couldn't load because of insufficient physical memory (apparently you need more than 80mb of RAM to run Windows 7 setup.)

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #44 on:** Thu, 08 July 2010, 15:47:58 »

Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;200772

I realized this the other day when I tried running Windows 7 setup on my Windows 95 machine. I threw the DVD drive in there, and it booted from the DVD but couldn't load because of insufficient physical memory (apparently you need more than 80mb of RAM to run Windows 7 setup.)

I ordered eight sticks of 128MB of EDO RAM (which total to 1 GB). I wonder if that's enough to run windows 7... now... to find a computer with eight EDO RAM slots... all my windows 98 computers only have three. I guess that's better than two and worse than four. Dual-channel didn't exist back then I presume.

Edo Japan... yuck... only grease suckers go there.

kriminal · « **Reply #45 on:** Fri, 09 July 2010, 20:10:37 »

*facepalm*

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #46 on:** Fri, 09 July 2010, 21:53:10 »

Quote from: kriminal;201132

*facepalm*

A face-palm? Hmmm... Didn't know palm trees had faces.

ch_123 · « **Reply #47 on:** Sat, 10 July 2010, 05:50:16 »

I recommend reading the minimum requirements for Windows 7, and bearing in mind that you always need twice what they say for the computer to be usable...

kishy · « **Reply #48 on:** Sat, 10 July 2010, 10:59:35 »

Quote from: ch_123;201257

I recommend reading the minimum requirements for Windows 7, and bearing in mind that you always need twice what they say for the computer to be usable...

Win7's a bit of an oddball example though because supposedly it'll survive quite happily on a P3 (which by the nature of what a P3 is will typically max at 384 or 512MB of RAM and will almost certainly not take an Aero-supporting graphics card).

I'm not entirely sure why it surprised me, but it surprised me that it ran as well as it did on my laptop. The lack of Aero probably explains that, but still...it was equally as zippy if not more zippy than XP.

ch_123 · « **Reply #49 on:** Sat, 10 July 2010, 11:58:15 »

The CPU is no surprise, as long as the CPU is of the right architecture and supports the correct instruction set (i.e. if the thing is i486 optimized, it obviously won't run with on a 386) then the software will run, albeit slowly. I read about a guy who underclocked a P2 or P3 to 4.77MHz and booted XP on it, even if it took something like an hour.

RAM is a far more serious performance bottleneck than the CPU - and there is definitely going to be a minimum amount below which it simply will not work.

News:

Author Topic: The perfect CD ROM drive (CDU611) (Read 16972 times)