[CALUG] trouble mounting usb cdrw

[Bernard Karmilowicz]

[Russ wrote] Does support exist for IDE CDRW drives (i.e., should I just 
install an internal cdrw and be done with it)?

I'd go with an internal ATA DVD/CD RW drive since doing so is cheaper 
($30) than spending hours downloading patches, reading README.build, 
README.install, README.configure, ... files, building, installing, 
configuring, and possibly debugging/tuning the SCSI/USB subsystem for 
your particular USB-interfaced CD-R drive. Also, burning CDs over a USB 
interface is painfully slow. USB was designed for human (rather than 
machine) data input rates.

A quick search turned up many budget drives, such as:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=BROWSE&N=200765&Ns=display%5Fprice%7C0&product_code=333658
http://www.mdmm.com/spec.php?productid=151

[Russ wrote] This particular machine (PII 166MHZ 64M RAM) was my first 
attempt at using/installing Linux. I would like to copy a couple gigs of 
files off of this system, and install Linux and the couple gigs of files 
on a newer system.

Out of curiosity only; Why did you decide to burn the data to optical 
media instead of using a network-aware file copy utility (such as rdist 
or cpio) to transfer the files from the PII Linux box to your newer 
machine? Off-site backup?

Sincerely,

- Bernie

-- 
+---------+---------+---------+---------+
  IntEn Corporation
    Integrated Engineering Services
      http://www.intencorp.com
+---------+---------+---------+---------+