Thinkpads Forum

Justintoxicated wrote:How many did your purchase? Is it possible you just got a bad one? This is the first negative review I have read.

I bought 5 or 6 of them, have only tried 2 so far. both of them exhibited this flaky behavior, but again only after about 20-30 minutes. it could just be signal problems of the internal ribbon cable -- it appears cheaply soldered, and when assembling them I just could not find a good way to put the cable out of the way and had to end up bending it to fit in a way that may put undue stress on it.

this is the EX-BLK-02 model btw. looking at the shots of the previous(?) -01 model, it is just straight pcb all the way across and does not have the cable connecting the ide side to the usb side.
http://www.centrix-intl.com/descpic/ex-blk-01-2.jpg

hmm looks like they don't stock the -02 anymore, I can only find EX-BLK-01 on their site. may be a good reason for that...?

tarvoke wrote:

Justintoxicated wrote:How many did your purchase? Is it possible you just got a bad one? This is the first negative review I have read.

I bought 5 or 6 of them, have only tried 2 so far. both of them exhibited this flaky behavior, but again only after about 20-30 minutes. it could just be signal problems of the internal ribbon cable -- it appears cheaply soldered, and when assembling them I just could not find a good way to put the cable out of the way and had to end up bending it to fit in a way that may put undue stress on it.

this is the EX-BLK-02 model btw. looking at the shots of the previous(?) -01 model, it is just straight pcb all the way across and does not have the cable connecting the ide side to the usb side.
http://www.centrix-intl.com/descpic/ex-blk-01-2.jpg

hmm looks like they don't stock the -02 anymore, I can only find EX-BLK-01 on their site. may be a good reason for that...?

Interesting, is teh enclosure heavy? I'm torn between this and the LG Drive, however the LG drive will cost about 33% more @ $120 + 9% Tax, I do have a coupon though for 12% off.

Justintoxicated wrote:Interesting, is teh enclosure heavy? I'm torn between this and the LG Drive, however the LG drive will cost about 33% more @ $120 + 9% Tax, I do have a coupon though for 12% off.

no it's not heavy, basically two half-shells of plastic and a pcb at the back. it's light but not flimsy, although the tolerances are somewhat questionable (re: my recommendation to only put a slot drive in it)

if you get the pre-assembled pioneer k05 from centrix, I'd say that has much better over all function/performance guarantee than building one yourself.

and as I mentioned, the -01 enclosure (which is the only one they seem to sell now) has what appears to be better guts which may be worth the extra 5 bucks in price:
http://www.centrix-intl.com/details.asp?productid=433
if you want to roll your own, that is.
hm this medion one also looks a bit more solid
http://www.centrix-intl.com/details.asp?productid=5208

tarvoke wrote:

Justintoxicated wrote:

Trying to decide which one to get Centrix /w slot load pioneer or BB LG drive (I think it's $120 but I have 12% off coupon). I might just get the LG drive, but trying to save some cash, I got my laptop today and it need a new install of Vista basic 64 bit so I can utilize all 4Gb of memory...Also want to create backup disks but I can probably do that through the network.

Is the 12% coupon you speak of an online coupon? I am still trying to come to terms with paying $130 for my LG DVD writer! Care to share?

rhema83 wrote:Is the 12% coupon you speak of an online coupon? I am still trying to come to terms with paying $130 for my LG DVD writer! Care to share?

Coupon expired, doh, but they do have them like once a month, sometimes more. I just orderd the Centrix pioneer slot load, I read some complants on the LG as well. Seems all these drives have complaints somewhere, I guess that is the problem with USB powered drives, some computers just don't put out enough juice for USB or something?...

One user here said he uses his centrix pioneer to burn 100 CD's off one USB on his thinkpad, sounds promising

I paid $129 for the LG unit when I purchased it. It has performed flawlessly the last few months and I'm pleased with the purchase. It was a little pricey, there is no doubt, but it just works and works well, so I don't regret it. It was onsale for a while at $99, maybe just watch out for another sale...

LG BenQ and Pioneer are known for their DVD Burners so the LG sounds promising. Is it Slot Load?

No, the LG is tray load. But that means you can use weird-shaped CDs and DVDs (which are rather common nowadays). My experience with slot-load has been mixed.

The LG drive is now available on newegg for $99! Returned the Best Buy one yesterday because there is a 10% coupon. I guess that coupon's useless now.

Thanks for all suggestions on external DVD burners. I'm planning to get one just so that I can create recover disks for my X61 in order to reinstall it when I upgrade the drive (it's a 1.5yrs old machine and I'm worried that there will be a HDD failure around the corner). Are there restrictions to what drives can be used for creating recovery disks, or will any external USB optical do?

For the information of newcomers; an external USB HDD will not work. Lenovo will only create recovery disks to optical media, which I guess is on purpose. Maybe there is a HDD enclosure out there that can disguise as being an optical drive?!?

The whole thing of not getting proper installation media (DVDs/CDs) for the system you have paid for is really annoying, adds to the overall worries, and lower the consumer value of an otherwise great product. I know Lenovo is not the only one, and this misbehavior has been around forever, but please stop this [big male animal with four legs][four letter word starting with an X and ending with an X when censored]!

Cheers

Henrik

henrikb wrote:Thanks for all suggestions on external DVD burners. I'm planning to get one just so that I can create recover disks for my X61 in order to reinstall it when I upgrade the drive (it's a 1.5yrs old machine and I'm worried that there will be a HDD failure around the corner). Are there restrictions to what drives can be used for creating recovery disks, or will any external USB optical do?

For the information of newcomers; an external USB HDD will not work. Lenovo will only create recovery disks to optical media, which I guess is on purpose. Maybe there is a HDD enclosure out there that can disguise as being an optical drive?!?

The whole thing of not getting proper installation media (DVDs/CDs) for the system you have paid for is really annoying, adds to the overall worries, and lower the consumer value of an otherwise great product. I know Lenovo is not the only one, and this misbehavior has been around forever, but please stop this [big male animal with four legs][four letter word starting with an X and ending with an X when censored]!

Cheers

Henrik

Most external optical drives will work. Use good quality DVD media. I personally use Verbatim.

After I returned the LG drive, I came across a few choices which I am trying to decide on again. (Oh, how fickle-minded I am when it comes to computers!)

• LG GSA-E50L ($99 + shipping from Newegg)
• Toshiba TSST TS-L632D ($65 + shipping from Centrix)
• LaCie Portable DVD+-R with Lightscribe ($90 + tax from local store)

Anyone with experience with the last one?

tarvoke wrote:fair enough, apologies for the transgression.

as for not tolerating it again, please try using the search function to edit the times you have tolerated it in the past. additionally, please tell a certain forum member that you will not tolerate his username. just to be fair and consistent in the application of policy, y'know.

we don't have arms like nets..
we can't catch EVERY single transgression..

it seems to me that if someone needs to use a nasty word and they can not paraphrase or substitute "!%^%#)(&%!" for "that" word then they have a mighty poor command of the english language..

we are NOT the PC Police here but we DO run as tight a ship as we can..

thanks for pointing out the other instances of that bad word..

i will clean them up as i have time..

I got the LG drive as well and am very happy with it. There's a 10% Best Buy coupon floating around.

wolfman wrote:I've got an LG external DVD burner for use with my X61. It's 12.8 ounces. It can burn DVD's by being powered only by the USB port on the Thinkpad, so no external AC adapter is required (in fact, it doesn't even ship with one).

It's available at best buy and other places. Comes with Nero software. I've been very impressed with it and happy with the purchase. Here is a link to it at Best buy:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 6003682462

Steve

I am considering getting a Lightscribe Drive for the Nice looking DVDs it can produce. I am wondering when that media will get REALLY cheap.

Hi, i am also looking for an external slimline CD/DVD drive which powers over the USB 2.0 Port. Which drive would you recommend? so far i saw:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ode=172485

and

http://www.centrix-intl.com/list.asp?CategoryID=101#4


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