A burner for an older computer?

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers
#1

I have an old slow computer running windows 98 and wonder if anybody can recommend a Dvd Burner that would work with it. I wouldn’t even care if it was obsolete, I’m sure someone somwhere may be selling it lol. I unfortunatly can’t afford a new computer any time soon. And i want a burner so bad.

Heres my computer specs via Belarc.

Processor a
1000 megahertz AMD Duron
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
64 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Main Circuit Board b
Bus Clock: 66 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 062710 07/15/97

Memory Modules c,d
248 Megabytes Installed Memory

Drives
60.00 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
44.16 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

Thanks

#2

Welcome to the forum!
First of all, I wouldnt recomment buying a used burner no matter what. What u need to check is the drives’ specs. Every one of them has minimum system requirements, which normally look like P3 800Mhz, 128 RAM and so on. What also important is whether your mobo supports UDMA2 and maybe 4 transfer rate or not. Do u have 80 wire IDE cables? What is UDMA on your harddrives?
Cheers

#3

That machine is capable enough to use any DVD burner on the market. Depending on your IDE controller and hard drive throughput, you can probably even burn 16x.

You’ll be fine with whatever you choose :wink:

#4

The instruction Manual for my Motherboard says:

Udma/66 IDE Cable

and the side of my Maxtor Hard Drive box says:

Buffer size: 2mb

Average Access Time: <8.7 MS

Data Transfer Rate: 133 Mbytes / Sec (Ultra ATA/133)

Spin Rate: 7200 RPM

I unfortunatly am not sure about anything else or what it all means.

And about the System Requirments. I never seem to find a Burner that both, My computer meets the requiremnets or supports Windows 98. It’s either one or the other. I have found a few that my computer may handle but they say you need Windows 2000 or XP. And alot of them say you need Pentium 3 or 4. I am also not sure how my AMD processor compares.
Thats another of my problems.

Thanks

#5

UDMA 66 is UDMA4 which is great. This means u can use any drive around. I would suggest pioneer111 or Benq1650 (didnt work for me). Make sure your IDE cable has 80 wires as opposed to 40. And I believe Win98 should work as long as u got the latest service pack.
Cheers.

#6

Cool Thanks,

How do i find out if my IDE Cable has 80 wires?
Is it listed somewhere?

#7

I also noticed in my users manual it says it has support for Ultra DMA 33/66/100.
But i still don’t know about the 80 wires yet.

#8

Try www.newegg.com. and get a NEC 3550 it is good for most.

#9

Ok after doing some research I found my answer on the 80 wire. For some reason i was thinking it was a Motherboard compatabily issue.

So your just saying make sure the cable that comes with the Burner is 80 wire and if it isn’t buy one. That should be standard anyway right?

Or am i lost again? lol

#10

Well i just ordered the Pioneer 111D for 34.95 from Newegg.com

I guess i’ll see in a few days if it works.

It should come with 80 wire cable right? Or do i have to buy it seperate?

#11

Not likely. U gotta simply take the cable out of the PC and (dont laugh) count wires. Only this will give u a definitive answer :iagree:
Cheers
P.S. great choice BTW

#12

ANY were not correct before we got the info that the ide controller supported UDMA4… :wink:

RETAIL drives usually come with cables and so on, BULK and OEM not.

#13

Well i got my Burner today and it works perfectly and i made my first successful back up.

Thanks to all that helped me.