Booting from external DVD drive attached to PCMCIA through USB, Firewire or SATA

[lev]

Hi Elmar,

Back in April I posted here about USB-stick booting problems and you solved them. Thanks again for that.

In the course of that thread, I had noticed that I couldn't boot from a Live DVD in my laptop's internal DVD drive (http://forum.plop.at/index.php/topic,191.msg1642.html#msg1642). I finally found why: the drive dates back to when DVD+/-R(W) didn't exist, and it can read DVD-ROM only. Good reason not to boot from DVD-R 

For a few months I've been looking for an internal DVD+/-RW burner to replace my DVD-ROM reader. But new ones are really expensive (over 100 $), and used ones compatible to my laptop are rare (and expensive also, around 50 €).

So, now I consider buying an external burner and attaching it through a PCMCIA port card (my builtin USB ports are 1.1, which I find too slow for DVD operation). There are three kinds of such PCMCIA cards providing either: USB 2.0, firewire, or SATA.

I thought "maybe one of these kinds will be 'transparent' to the BIOS and let me boot from the BIOS menu. Who could know this?". And immediately I answered "Elmar of course!"    (Then I went here and saw you were just developping USB-through-PCMCIA, curious coincidence!)

Now, sorry for all the verbiage and here are my questions:
- is there a chance that an external SATA DVD drive connected through PCMCIA will be operated transparently by my old BIOS?
- same for firewire? USB?
- if not, is there a chance that in the next few months you'll make Plop Bootmanager handle optical drives connected to PCMCIA via USB/firewire/SATA? (I saw in the status blog that you began working on USB CD drives in november and had some success.)

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Lucas

[Elmar]

hi,

- is there a chance that an external SATA DVD drive connected through PCMCIA will be operated transparently by my old BIOS?
- same for firewire? USB?

i don't think that your old bios will provide booting from any device connected through pcmcia. but i don't know it 100%.

- if not, is there a chance that in the next few months you'll make Plop Bootmanager handle optical drives connected to PCMCIA via USB/firewire/SATA? (I saw in the status blog that you began working on USB CD drives in november and had some success.)

yes, the chances are good that i finish/restart the optical usb device stuff. maybe i press it into the 5.0.11 release. but its not fix. it depends on the troubles with the usb cdrom driver

however, in your case, i would buy an usb pccard and no firewire or sata. i think, with the usb pccard you are more flexible. the usb pccard will also speed up booting from the usb thumb drive or usb hard disk. i am using the PCMCIA Controller DELOCK 4 port USB, ArtNr. 61234. but any other usb pccard should work too.

best regards
elmar

[lev]

Thanks for the ultra-fast answer!

yes, the chances are good that i finish/restart the optical usb device stuff. maybe i press it into the 5.0.11 release. but its not fix. it depends on the troubles with the usb cdrom driver

Good news! Excellent news!

however, in your case, i would buy an usb pccard and no firewire or sata. i think, with the usb pccard you are more flexible. the usb pccard will also speed up booting from the usb thumb drive or usb hard disk.

You make good points here. After all, since I will seldom boot from DVD (I do need it badly, but not frequently), speed is not a primer; and when burning, slower is said to yield more reliable media (deeper/wider pits or in whatever way "better").

Gruß,
Lucas