Customer Reviews

24x USB External Slim CD-ROM Drive (Black)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

It could be used to add CD-reading capabilities to a netbook or maybe as an additional USB-connected CD drive.

This must be emphasized because, these days, we tend to assume that what we used to call the 'CD drive' would allow us to watch movies on our computers. It is not the case with this device which is solely a CD-ROM drive. It will play music off your CDs and it will read any files stored on CDs but it will NOT recognize the DVD format.

As a CD drive, it performed flawlessly when connected through the USB port on my Vista machine.

You will find the following in the box:

- the CD drive itself

- USB cable to connect to computer

- cable to connect to external power supply (not needed and external power supply is not provided)

- mini CD disk with drivers (not needed in my case)

- 3-paragraph 'manual'

Worth mentioning:

- drive is very slim - 1/4"

- on my Vista laptop installation was automatic and the drive was recognized immediately

- a USB 2.0 port appears to provide all the power the drive may need

- a second 'power cable' is provided for just in case your USB interface can't provide sufficient power but there is no power supply

This item arrived quickly, but I had a problem with it and posted this feedback, (which I'm altering now.) The seller contacted me within maybe an hour of posting feedback and worked to make me happy with my purchase, which I now am. I would rate Matt at Westronics a 5 out of 5--he's a good guy.

It's small and compact, moreso than I expected, which was nice. it comes with two cables, an A to B USB, and an odd little USB to power port cable that I've never seen. This seems odd because it draws power from the A to B cable enough to run the CD rom, and with the USB to power port cable, there is no data transfer...so what good is it? (weird)

The instructions consist of a small card, half of it is in English, and basically says "plug it in, and it should work, if not, load the disk (how, if it doesn't work?) and run the program." I'm paraphrasing, but it's minimal info. Not a problem because the unit is plug and play--you won't need much info.

The problem I was having with it was when I tried to eject the cd--there is a small button and a light (neither of which seem to work on my unit.) The unit does not have the slide out tray, as most laptops have, or is depicted in the picture above, but the disk slides in through the opening much like on a car's cd player. I put the disk in and said a prayer it wouldn't get stuck in there, with me having to return the stupid $24 drive with my Acrobat PDF writer program in it!!! (or break apart this $24 drive in order to salvage my dang disk!) It didn't get stuck, but I do have to eject from the "my computer" menu, right clicking on the "eject" option...this works fine, so it doesn't bother me.

This problem would probably bug me, if, say, I were using it every day, but for the infrequency of use I have planned (loading Word and PDF writer on my netbook) it did the trick. I would rate it a 4.5 (but amazon won't let me change the 3 star rating I originally gave it) because of the customer service I received from Matt at Westronics, who worked quickly and without qualms to right the wrong.

I would recommend this unit to anyone looking for an inexpensive way to get stuff onto a netbook, for sure.

I hope this helps :)

Worked perfectly right out of the box. Plugged it in and my computer instantly "saw" it. No software needed. Just plug and play. I bought this to replace a finicky drive on my CPU and this solution is DRAMATICALLY cheaper.

It works out of the box and it uses USB power - no transformer. A cheap solution to keep the old notebook that has a broken CD-ROM drive working.

I bought this to install programs onto my new netbook. The product I received looked good enough, wasn't expecting a lot for the price. Came with two USB cables: one to connect to the computer and one to connect to external power. It also comes with instructions that consist of just a few sentences, most which concern Windows 98. If you're not using Windows 98, the instructions boil down to, "Plug it in and it should work."

Plugged it in, didn't work. I tried it with an without the external power and in all three of my computer's USB ports. After trying to automatically install the device, Windows tells me it wasn't able to. I worried at first that my netbook was to blame (it uses Windows 7 Starter), so I tried it in three different computers in my home (two use Vista and one uses XP). In each of those computers the drivers installed but the computer wouldn't recognize the device.

I contacted Amazon customer service. They gave me the name and number for the manufacturer, but when I called the number I was told that I had the wrong number. I double checked re-dial on my phone with the number Amazon gave me, and I had dialed it correctly, so I'm not sure what to make of that. Today I returned it to Amazon for a refund and ordered a different drive. Fingers crossed.

This device doesn't work and is being returned to Amazon today. I installed it on my notebook computer with Windows XP without a problem (in spite of the manual), but the device won't recognize that there IS a disk in there. The green light on the device goes on briefly, then goes off. I can't get past the "Insert disk" message so, of course, nothing is copied. When I open the device, the disk is spinning, but it just won't recognize that anything is there, or that it's supposed to actually do something. Too bad! I'll try to find another brand/manufacturer because I really need device.

I have two laptop computers and this drive did not work with either one.

My Dell just would not recognize it despite trying all the tricks recommended by other reviewers. The instruction which came was 3-line long and not useful at all.

The single USB port in my Vaio does not have enough power to drive the player. There is no AC power adaptor that came with. I tried using a 5V adaptor, it did nothing. A 12 V just sent the machine crazy.

The worst of all is that DB Roth refuses to accept a return because the item has been opened. So don't buy it, good chance it may not work and you'd be stuck with it.

You would have thought that the CD ROM was perfected by now, but you were wrong about this item. It does not work with Windows and I have trouble on Linux too. It just spins and spins and never does anything. DO NOT BUY. Just spend the extra $20 and get a decent external dvd-rom instead.

I bought this to use with a small netbook I bought that has no internal cd drive. After buying this I tried loading a game onto the netbook. Nothing would happen. This came with no instructions. I tried and tried with no luck. I tried it on my home computer and nothing worked and tried it on a different laptop I had and nothing. I found out from the seller it will not work with Windows 7. Nothing on the site indicates that. All of my computers are running Windows 7. I ended up returning it and got a complete refund from Amazon. Looking at it today, still no mention it won't run with Windows 7. If it worked, it would have been great as the price is cheap and it isn't something I need often. I ended up buying one thru ebay for a little more money and is a better quality and worked with Windows 7. Nice try, but no good for current operation systems.

We bought a mini computer that did not have a CD Rom drive so we picked up this inexpensive Drive. Works very well and is at an amzaing price. We needed it to mainly install Ani-virus software and the once-in-a-while music CD so this works perfect for our needs.