Grrr - flaking hardware...

[jbsegal]

It seems the CD/DVD drive on my pismo's just decided to quit working. I had just ripped 4 disks and, when I put the next one in, it made noises like a very very small engine trying (and failing) to start.

I'm hoping that letting it be for a while will fix the issue. I'm not counting on it.

[Poll #272729]

Comments

[cz_unit]

Hm. probably not belt drive but perhaps a belt slipped?

CZ

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

It's a laptop drive. I'll bet a huge heap of money I don't have that it's not belt drive.

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the one that I've got in my tibook. cds make -fascinating- sounds, and sometimes read... sometimes burn... but dvds seem to be fine.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

<SIGH>
Yup. Played a DVD. Then recognized and mounted a CD, but failed to play/rip it.

And you failed the quiz. I don't need this.

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Going meta for a minute, I'd argue that you don't want this. You may need this.

*hugs*

[cz_unit]

Mmm... In this case then it sounds like junk hardware. Sorry about that...

CZ

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

It's possible it just didn't like that CD. Some CDs are heavier than others, and laptop drives are more finicky over that sort of thing. It could also have been very dirty, or scratched.

So I'd check it on other CDs.

Alternatively, with a FireWire cable, you can boot your Pismo into FireWire Target Disk mode (hold down the T key while starting up, until you get the swimming FireWire icon on a blue screen), and can then attach it to another Macintosh (with FireWire port) as an external hard drive. Do your ripping with that machine's CD drive, then move the files onto your hard drive.

Or, borrow someone else's Pismo drive for a while. (Perhaps someone has upgraded to a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, and has their old one lying about being all fallow-like.)

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

1st thing I did was switch back to the cd I'd just finished ripping..nope.

Yeah, there are other ways to get drives accessable...but really, I have more than a thousand discs to rip. I don't want to have to borrow gear for all of them. :/

(And, very fuck-uppedly, it recognized a dvd (see xeger's preceding comment), then recognized a CD, but failed to be able to play or rip it, and then failed to recognize it on reinsert.)

On ripping in general

[fixx.livejournal.com]

My last experience with ripping about 60 CD's (for a CDRW compatible car MP3 player) was favorable. I then gave my SO such a player and she ripped about as many disks in her collection for the same purpose using her sister's Gateway, but on playback they did not sound as good, sort of tinny.

She was using essentially the same software but something about the PC, and I'm assuming it was the cheesey generic DVD/CDRW combo drive within it, negatively affected the audio. Had she not heard the quality I attained with the same software, she might have assumed it was the price one pays to use MP3.

I'm telling you all this in the hope you don't find out 1000 disks later your drive does not even rip well. You might want to try using an external USB CDRW only drive for ripping and burning. I'm using a Yamaha.

[bruhinb.livejournal.com]

I notice you've skewed the survey to favor "yes" for some reason...

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

and you figure this how?

[fixx.livejournal.com]

I really don't know what a "Pismo" is, but I've seen CDRW drives fail to read in some name brand desktops (Gateway and E-machines among them) after burning 4 or more disks in sequence, and in these cases, temperature seemed to be responsible. Laptops typically run hot so my guess that letting the drive cool off between lengthy operations may be adviseable.

Other suggestions would be to buy a laptop cooler (I've seen these, but don't own one) or elevate the laptop on a couple of pencils for ventilation as I've been promoting for years.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Do you still need a CD ripping solution?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I do, yes. Why?

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Interested in an external firewire CD-RW drive, which works but is noisy, on at least a temporary basis?

If so, do you, by chance, have a 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I don't have the cable, but I suspect I can probably borrow one...

Yes, I'd be interested in that...

Thank you.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Peachy.

Something will be wending its way to you shortly, then. I'll attempt to scare up a firewire cable, but I'll let you scare up a power cable. At least around here, they breed like flies.