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I have a Toshiba XM-1702B with a cable going to a 25-pin serial port. I can get an adapter to then go to USB. The question is, what software do I need for Windows XP to see and use the drive?
Note: this will end up being used on a HP 2140 mini-laptop. Any additional issues?
hhp
Welcome to Windrivers hpapazian
The xm 1702b is an optical ide drive for a laptop... so what is this cable you have connected to it? Is the drive in some sort of caddy?
Thank you for the quick reply.
This drive is internal (removable) to an ancient (1998) but working laptop (Win98), but this laptop also has an external floppy drive* that can either be plugged in instead of the CD-ROM drive or used externally with a special serial cable. This same cable fits on the CD-ROM drive when you pull it out of the chassis (no caddy - it just dangles) and I'm assuming (I'll try to check) that it still works that way.
* Actually I might like to plug the floppy drive into WinXP as well!
So to recap, I'd like to hook a 25-pin female serial to USB cable (~$5) at the end of the special serial cable, use the [powered] USB port on my HP 2140, and with the right driver(s) and some luck get it to work. The point? Save money not getting an HP external CD drive. I hear saving money is fashionable these days...
hhp
CORRECTION:
The "special cable" ends in a parallel (DB25), not serial, connector. Anyway, there are DB25 to USB cables out there, so it's probably a moot point.
hhp
Whether it would work is a whole can of worms... you can try it. I would look at seeing if the cable can be replaced entirely with laptop ide to usb cable... but it means pulling it to pieces....
I thought of trying to simplify the connection, although I would not pull it apart - I just need to figure out what the drive's "native" output connector really is. It's probably not proprietary, although I don't recognize it. Is there a website that helps you visually identify a connection type?
OK, so it turns out the CD-ROM's connector is "slim ATAPI", and there are adapters that take it to USB. Plus I'm having doubts about a DB25 being able to carry the necessary signals to make an ATAPI device work.
The question is, should I assume that with the right cable this will be a simple plug-and-play situation?
hhp
Now, about that floppy drive... :-)
It also has a slim-ATAPI native connector (after all it does fit in the same place on that old laptop) but the DB25 (parallel port) cable I know works... So could *that* be a simple plug-and-play situation if I adapt the DB25 to USB?
hhp
Matching the pins and trying to use a USB to Serial or Parallel adapter won't work becasue the Slim ATAPI is an IDE (or PATA) interface. You need a bridge board to convert the Slim ATAPI to USB (or SATA). You can buy them from Addonics and other companies for around $25.
OK, great info. But I guess there's no point in doing that because you can get an external CD-ROM drive (USB) for about that price! However, an external DVD recorder is close to $100, and now I've started wondering if I can use my Dell laptop's removable DVD recorder on the HP 2140... Except I looked at its connector and I have no idea what it is - I have a bad feeling it's proprietary. How would I go about finding a bridge board for that? I can put up a close-up shot of the connector if that would help.
Less important: I'm curious, what about the floppy drive? That I know *does* work on that old laptop (Windows98) using a special parallel cable - so I assume it would just be a matter of copying drivers over. If so, where would I look and what would the filenames look like?
hhp
The connector depends on the computer. If you posted the model for the Dell laptop, I bet one of us could tell you what connector it uses for the DVD burner. Anyway, most likely, you can find an adapter around $20 bucks or so. On the other hand you can get a new 20x external DVD burner from newegg.com from around $40. If you want to use the Dell, post the model information and we can go from there.
It's C3284-A00
I looked around using Google, eBay, etc. but could only find the bare internal drive for sale.
BTW, the connector is a male "board-type" (as opposed to pin outs) with ~35 contact points on each face (and the top and bottom points are staggered, not vertically aligned).
Ideally it would be great to find an affordable enclosure you could slide the drive into and get a USB coming out. Still adequate would be a cable (or bridge board) that takes the drive's connector to USB (thus using the drive open-air).
(Fingers crossed...)
hhp
this enclosure (or similar) should do the job. Might want to check before buying that it's the ide version and not the sata version - you need ide for the drive you have stated
That looks quite promising (and priced right). I'll try to find out the connector type(s). Thanks!
hhp
My pleasure :)