I'm getting $120 for my birthday tomorrow and I really need to replace parts of my computer. as you can see from the sig, everything is pretty old. I wanna upgrade, but I don't know if I'll be having any more spending money for a while, so saving is an option but it'll burn a hole in my pocket also, my cd burner died on me not too long ago, and i was planning on getting a dvd burner eventually anyway. my monitor is starting to go on me as well, although it'll probably still work for at least another year, maybe longer. so to total $120, I've made a list of options. help me choose what I should get. thanks in advance!

edit: btw, the above monitors are being sold as refurbished

If your going to spend the money I would go with the burner.

Well just think about it. Do you often think to yourself, "Man i wish i could burn a cd/dvd right now but i cant since i dont have a burner." or "Dude my monitor is just way to freakin small. I need something like a 19inch that can have a nice high resolution." It really just depends on what you need

well i'm content with my 17", but 19" would be nice. and yes, not having a burner is killing me. my old burner must've lasted me nearly 300 cd-r's (i've had 6 spindles of 50 since i got it), so it was bound to die anyway. past cd burners i've had only lasted about 200 or so. i've been wanting a dvd burner for a while too, not only for movies, but so i could burn loads more data onto a single disc. now that i think of it more, i think i'm gonna go with the dvd burner, then hope my monitor doesn't crap out on me. more input would be helpful though

Well if you are going to get a cd burner get a combo drive. One that has a CD Burner and a DVD burner all in one. There not that expensive anymore. My Lite-On cost me about 70 bucks.

yeah, I found an LG dual-layer 16x DVD+/-RW for only a hundred bucks canadian. by the time I add tax, I'll only have enough for a couple discs. oh well, its all good

I will go for the burner.

Can't have a computer without a burner.....

DVD Burner

Yeh def Burner mate!

If the moniters are refurbished you neva know whats gone wrong with them and if its likely to go again!! Burner!!!

MartMoz

just got home. i picked up the DVD burner i even had enough money for a few DVD+R's, which is always nice. what good is a DVD burner without any blank DVD's. thanks for the input guys.

one problem though... ever since I installed it, I have trouble booting up. once the Windows startup screen shows, it hangs for a minute, then reboots. it takes 8 or 9 boots to finally get into Windows. it's pretty annoying. any tips?

You've made a good purchase!!

Im not to sure about your problem though, ive never had that myself!, what version of windows you got installed?
*Sorry just saw your sig* lol
and i know it sounds stupid but make sure you got your IDE cable in the right way around lol

MartMoz

i'll try that and hope for the best. it was fine with any other cd-rom or cd burner i had in there. i pretty much just unplugged my dead cd burner, took it out, put in and plugged in the dvd burner. nothing was plugged or unplugged from the motherboard, so i don't really know whats wrong. the BIOS detects it as a DVD-ROM, and Windows has no problem recognizing it as a DVD burner. I've tested a few DVD's and so far so good. I'm also pretty much due for a format. I was thinking maybe tomorrow, so maybe that'll clear things up.

id get the dvd burner and charge for compies

nope, no dice. i did have the cable in the wrong way though, which isnt too surprising because i was pretty tired when i switched all my parts to my new case. so i put it in the right way, and it still gives me problems at startup. i've been in my BIOS and everything is set correctly (in the CMOS, i even hit F3 to detect all drives. doesnt make a difference). since it's at the Windows loading screen where it reboots, do you think this could be a Windows problem itself due to my new hardware, or is it something with my computer? would formatting help? i don't really wanna take the risk without knowing, 'cause I could end up not being able to finish installation when it does its reboots.

JUMPERS!!!! lol check em

I would suggest that too. Also, could it be that the program you used for your old burner still be installed? Maybe it could be casuing problems cause the program doesn't like the new burner? Just a guess.

Mabye a software/firmware update might do the trick?

checked the jumpers already. that was actually the first thing i did before putting it in. its secondary master. i have my 2 hard drives as primary master & slave, and no other cd drives are present. technically there's no problem there. also, i use Nero, which is fully compatible with this drive.

i haven't yet checked the firmware, but the manufacture date is Jan 2005, so it should be pretty much up to date.

Edit: just checked the firmware. i'm one version behind so i'll update that and hope for the best.

well that didnt work. after rebooting, it took over an hour to get back into windows. it just wouldnt boot. this is extremely annoying!

Edit: did some googling, found a couple things that might work, but I'm just gonna go ahead with a format first and see what happens there. wish me luck. If I don't return, you know I'm F'ed

I would try a format and reinstall windows bloodflame like you said, i dont think you should have any problems, if you do just wack out the burner and put your old 1 back in!, it doesnt sound like a hardware problem to me though!

MartMoz

yep, tried a format. successful? nope after the first reboot during windows setup, i was brought to a BSOD. tried rebooting a few times, got it every time. here's a rundown of what it told me.


UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

yadda yadda, stuff about new hardware or software....
told me to disable BIOS caching and shaddowing. (no luck)

*** STOP: 0x000000ED (0x82791C48, 0xC0000185, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)


this is really frustrating me. thankfully i had a copy of SuSE sitting here so I just got done installing it as a temporary OS until I could figure out what's wrong. I've tried everything I could think of. I'm starting to get a feeling it's a problem with my motherboard. i know for a fact that this is a picky mobo (PCChips M810), especially with AGP cards, which also took me a while to finally get working. if and when I was actually able to boot into windows, the drive worked perfectly. fully tested it. plays music cd's, data cd's, burns cd's, plays dvd's, burns dvd's... all flawlessly. it's just the booting itself that's giving all the trouble. I'm gonna try looking up more information on the bsod/stop error and see if there's anyway i could solve the problem. might be due to the fact i'm using a hacked BIOS (hehe, for OC'ing), so if i have to, I'll flash an original BIOS.

(the above i actually just copied & pasted from the support forum where i bought the burner. better than typing it all twice )

urmm ur comp needs some serious help, like the pieces of $hit i work on on Computer info, bt any way id take the dvd burner out, reinstall windows, then put it back in

i finally reinstalled windows. it was hell, and still nearly impossible to boot. i've tried putting a regular cd-rom in and it doesn't seem to make a difference, both now and when i was trying to install windows. i'd really like to know whats up because it's really getting on my nerves! but now that i'm in windows, i'm afraid to reboot because i'm not sure how long it would take to get back. this has gotta be one of the biggest problems i've ever experienced. i really don't know what i should do

You did a fresh(format) install and its still that slow to boot?

nah, it usually only takes about a minute but the system itself keeps rebooting at the windows startup screen, therefore it takes forever before I can actually get into Windows because of it always rebooting itself.

I actually have a feeling that you have 5h][77y DVD burner. One time my firend brought me a DVD DL burner for me to install casue he wasn't sure if he installed it right becasue he couldn't see it in Windows. As a matter of fact, he did installed it right, so I installed it on my system and didn't worked. I told him it to get a replacement and when he brought it, it worked. His system had an old Celeron (~700MHz I think) so don't think it's your system. Go get a replacement to see if that will do the trick.

Hmm.. You mentioned that you put it in a new case. I have a feeling..

Could it be possible you missed one of the motherboard risers? If so, that can cause really odd IDE errors.

Check and make SURE it's not touching the metal on the case.

@JBbons:
it's the Hitachi-LG GSA-4163B. i read reviews for my burner, and i'm actually quite impressed with it. if you mean it might be RMA, i'm not too sure. whenever I can get into Windows, it works great. I've watched a couple movies already make backups of a them, and I made a data dvd to clear some hdd space. I've also burned a couple CD-R's without problems, and reading anything couldn't be any better. I don't think there's anything wrong with the drive, just my computer doesn't appear to like it i've had pretty good luck with LG optical drives in the past. my motherboard is just picky with certain hardware though.

@legojerry:
yeah, i switched cases a few weeks ago with no probs. the mobo isn't touching the metal. i used 5 spacers, 1 near the middle, and the other 4 around the board closest the corners that i could do it.

I was able to reboot once today because I had no choice (installed .NET framework which forces a reboot). luckily, it booted on the first try. the problem may have fixed itself, but I wont know till my next reboot, which hopefully isn't for a few days at least. I'll keep posted.