[ltp] External drive enclosure (IDE to USB converter)

[Smith, Robert A]

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-thinkpad-admin@linux-thinkpad.org
[mailto:linux-thinkpad-admin@linux-thinkpad.org]On Behalf Of M. Leo
Cooper
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 11:03 AM
To: linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Subject: [ltp] External drive enclosure (IDE to USB converter)

I just got a hold of a Rainbow Storage brand "3.5/5.25 External Drive
Enclosure." This is a case for installing desktop IDE devices, such as a CDR
drive or a hard drive into, and it contains a power supply and USB output.

What I'd like to do is put the CDR drive from my desktop computer into in,
and
use this with the USB port of my 770z TP. It's 1.1 USB, I believe.

Has anyone had any experience with using one of these enclosures with the
USB
port on a Linux Thinkpad? Success stories? What's the entry in /etc/fstab
for
a USB CDR drive?

Thanks.




I haven't used the exact setup that you propose, but I have used an external
CDRW drive that was marketed as a Polaroid drive. According to Linux, it's a
CDWRITER IDE2410, which I am assuming is the drive itself. It was not
detected under SuSE 9.0 Pro, but was seen under Red Hat 9, Fedora Core 1.0,
and Mandrake 9.2. It too is USB 1.1. All I can tell you is buy a drive that
is Linux compatible and put it in. CDRW drives are cheap enough these days.
To think, I paid several hundred bucks for a Backpack parallel port drive
four or so years ago.

Rob Smith
Senior Deployment Engineer
DecisionOne Corp.