trying to add a old cd-rom to xp

[bazedtorres]

i have only 1 cd drive and its a burner. but very slow afriend gave me an old acer cd-rom but i dont know if i can add it to my system i thought if i could it would save me some time . 2 drives are faster than 1 . not sure but i thought i could burn disc to disc instead of disc to memory and then to disc.i'm using xp os and the old cd-rom is an 1996 acer cd-912e. could some one please help?

[hudsonsmith]

Welcome to WinDrivers bazedtorres. Drivers for cd-rom drives are native to windows, so you should be able to hook it up and have it work. That said, cd-rom drives are dirt cheap, and you could get a new 52x drive for $20 vs. 12x on the acer.

[eboyjones]

Also to keep in mind when copying directly from one CD to another, the source MUST be faster than the target, and must be error-free. If the source pauses or spins down to read a marginal area of the disc, the target may outrun the source, and the CD-R will only be useful as a frisbee.

Suggest you copy to hard drive and then burn instead of trying to get an old cd-rom and old cd-rw to be compatable.

And as hudsonsmith said new cd-rom's and burners are cheap. You've spent the dough on xp so get the best devices for it.

[Platypus]

I echo eboy's advice, unless the burner has burnproofing features, probably not if it is old and slow. If it does, then on-the-fly copying may be possible, and faster, as long as the two drives are not on the same IDE channel. This usually means having the CD-ROM drive as slave to the hard drive.

[bazedtorres]

thanks for the great info its much appreciated i am glad i didnt just open it up and stick it in there