Mini Drives for Mini-CDs?

fist_187 asks: "i'm working on a semi-portable MP3 player project, and would like to include a CD-ROM drive in my setup, but a full size drive is a little bigger than I'd like. so, I thought about using a drive designed for mini-CDs...but I can't find any! I know that there are several MP3 portables that use mini-CDs, but does someone know where to find the drives themselves (preferably in a USB or IDE variety)? The only thing I've been able to find, after some searching, is the Imation RipGO!, but that's already a player... defeating the purpose of building from scratch in the first place. Does anyone have advice on where to look?"

Comments

And the problem is...

[Brento]

Lemme see if I got this right.

You want to build a product from scratch. While looking for components, you found a inexpensive complete product that meets your needs, available off the shelf, that has too many features for too low of a price.

And the problem is...?

1. 2. 3.

[adolf]

1. Buy said mini-CD player from Best Buy.

2. Disassemble; make note of component manufacturers and part numbers. Call said manufacturer(s) for sample(s).

3. Reassemble. Return unit to Best Buy for a refund.

Re:1. 2. 3.

[DonFinch]

4. Break.
5. hop around and cuss.

Dear Slashdot ...

[Glonoinha]

I'm working on a human transporter capable of carrying 4-6 people and keep them protected from the weather, move them around at speeds up to 70mph. The design is centered around my hopes to use a internal combustion engine - it would use gasoline and have things that go up and down and make a spark and go 'vroom' when you stepped on a pedal inside the passenger compartment, but I can't find any! I know that there are several person 'porters that use engines, but does anybody know where to get engines directly? The only thing I have been able to find is cars by Ford, Chevy, VW, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, etc... but those engines are already in a person mover... defeating the purpose of building from scratch in the first place. Does anyone have advice on where to look?

I am sure that with my new invention and some simple mass production techniques I will be able to sell these new people movers at a slight profit for less than $200,000 apiece.

(Ok Dean Kamen if you are reading this - we are laughing with you, not at you. :)

-:-

Honestly though, if you want to build it just to build it because that is what you want to do, just buy a single one one of the ones off the shelf by Imation, reverse engineer it via destructive analysis (take it apart), use the parts and ideas from that one that you like, like someone else mentioned track down the OEM part maker for the drive and look into a bulk purchase of that part, then re-evaluate the viability of the project. But if it is in your heart, build it - that is for sure, and we stand behind you on building your prototype 100%.

If you can't build it in mass quantity cheap enough to sell it at the price point of the Imation less 10% (because between now and then prices are coming down on hardware) then it isn't a viable commercial product. If you can build it for a third the cost of the Imation unit, go for it.

But follow your dreams. Old men laying in their death beds never look back and say 'damn I am glad I played it safe back when I was young.'

I've been looking for these, too.

[Skapare]

I've filled out the full size bays in quite a number of machines I have, and most still have floppy size bays available. I could put a floppy or zip drive in there, but a floppy is way too tight to build the rescue disk system I need to have (because it has more software than can ever fit on a floppy ... it's about 32MB in size). I've tried Zip drives, but all three I've used turn out to be regularly unreliable (I can coax them to work, but this isn't the kind of thing I want to put in customer locations). Maybe it's the media, but either way, the Zip drive option isn't where I want to go.

A small mini-CD drive that fits in the floppy drive bay would be ideal. Such a product would also let us start downsizing computer cases in a lot of new ways for the special purposes that don't need large amounts of CD data (such as firewalls and specialized mini-servers).

Re:I've been looking for these, too.

[ag144]

You should try this Google search, particularly the Phillips link:

+small +"form factor" +"optical drive"

--
Allen Gray

Re:I've been looking for these, too.

[cgenman]

There are two problems with drive-bay Compact Flash readers.

1. They are a real pain to convince to boot. I've heard it done, and there are distros that boot from Compact Flash, but I'll be damned if I can do it.

2. They are incredibly "fussy." Not only do the cards have to stay in at all times (without removing them), but sometimes you just can't boot with them in, or will get strange, somewhat random errors (under XP) which can be rectified by removing the card. Of course, removing the card will often crash the computer, but sometimes it won't (And no, unmounting under linux doesn't help). Quite often, if I'm having an unexplained propogation of errors on a running system, it is because I accidently left a CF in the drive.

With Compact Flash you also have the problem of 1,000 Read / Write cycles per cell, or 3 read / write cycles per day for one year. Obviously caching data is essential, but you still have that low, low media life to contend with.

I'd personally take a mini CDRW any day of the week. But neither of these solves the other problem, which would be a lack of IDE connections. If no IDE connectors are available, neither solution will do you any good. If there are available IDE connectors, why not open the side of the case and plug in a vanilla CD drive?