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Looking for an external CD burner
Mike Danger
"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered User regular
"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered User regular
So, here's the scoop:
A while back, I accidentally smashed my two hard drives by knocking them off my desk. I recently replaced them, and started the process of ripping my CDs. (I have quite a few CDs that are not on the streaming services, so this is the way I get them on my phone.) Put in the first CD, and the laptop just spit it back out. I've tried a few different CDs and just get the same result. I don't want to take it out of the machine (it's an old Macbook that I don't feel like taking apart) to try and fix it, so I've been looking for an external one.
The problem I have (I think) is that my MacBook has two USB ports, and most burners (that I've seen) require 2 USB ports for power -- and I want to copy the files to the external drive, not to the computer's hard drive, which requires another USB port free.
I've heard that powered USB hubs can provide enough power for stuff like this, but I was just wondering -- is it possible to get an external burner that only needs one port (or one port + an AC adapter maybe?)
A while back, I accidentally smashed my two hard drives by knocking them off my desk. I recently replaced them, and started the process of ripping my CDs. (I have quite a few CDs that are not on the streaming services, so this is the way I get them on my phone.) Put in the first CD, and the laptop just spit it back out. I've tried a few different CDs and just get the same result. I don't want to take it out of the machine (it's an old Macbook that I don't feel like taking apart) to try and fix it, so I've been looking for an external one.
The problem I have (I think) is that my MacBook has two USB ports, and most burners (that I've seen) require 2 USB ports for power -- and I want to copy the files to the external drive, not to the computer's hard drive, which requires another USB port free.
I've heard that powered USB hubs can provide enough power for stuff like this, but I was just wondering -- is it possible to get an external burner that only needs one port (or one port + an AC adapter maybe?)
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There's at least one reviewer that says they only needed to use one USB port to power this drive with their laptop.
I've got a cheap walmart purchased drive that I've used for the past 5 years or so, never needing to plug the extra USB in. In fact, I remember a while back reading that the USB standard makers were not pleased by these companies trying to draw extra power into their devices via USB for some reason or another.
As an aside, do you not have a spare 1.5 gigs on your internal hard drive to work with ripping CDs? If not, consider an upgrade there.
(I have a bit of extra space, but I'd rather just put it straight onto the external disc (which I think iTunes will do) rather than screw around with moving extra files around)