Panasonic Slimline Combo Drive

Dud3! · Posted: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 22:34:00 Post Subject:

CSEL is cable select in case anyone didn't know. What the drive is is determined by the position on the cable...

Nexxo · Posted: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 15:25:22 Post Subject:

Yup, we did. Wink

CSEL only works if:
1. the Motherboard supports it;
2. you use a cable that supports it;
3. both master and slave drives are set to CSEL.

Panasonic suggest that there is a seperate CSEL model of their drive. However, if Big Bruin recalls correctly that changing the cable solved the problem of using this drive as a Slave, that would suggest that the CW-8122-BPN supports CSEL, as long as the above conditions are met.

That would make sort of sense as the most practical solution in selling drives (rather than making at least three different versions)-- except that nothing in computing ever makes sense... Confused

Big? What do you say? In studying your review of the CW-8122-B, and that of the Morex Cubid 3688 unit that you installed it in, I notice you definitely wired it up as a Slave on a single IDE cable with the 2.5" HDD. Did you test the drive like that?

Nexxo · Posted: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:48:22 Post Subject:

Big Bruin? Talk to me, big guy...

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:56:32 Post Subject:

I don't really know... I find it odd that a drive would have several models to address this issue though! But, there are no dipswitches on these slimline drives, as found on standard IDE drives, to allow you to change the master/slave/csel setting. Perhaps I wound up with the optical drive as a master and the hdd as the slave? I don't think so, but it is possible, I suppose...

Current configuration of my system is the same, except I have a different optical drive (a basic 24x cdrom)... All I did was remove the Panasonic combo drive and drop this other drive in, and as of right now I can tell you that the hdd is master and the cdrom is the slave...

Nexxo · Posted: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 15:51:39 Post Subject:

Curiouser and curiouser... Luckily the shop where I bought the drives (those good people of linitx.xom) investigated the matter and Panasonic sent them a little program which allows you to flash the firmware to convert the setting from master to Slave yourself. They then helpfully passed a copy on to me. Which is nice.

Interestingly though, Panasonic Tech Support told me such a utility did not exist! Instead Panasonic gave me a service center address in the Netherlands which can do a Master to Slave conversion-- for 50 Euros per unit! Yikes

What can I say? It's a racket out there! Two Cents

ka-ching!

Big guy, if you're interested I can e-mail a copy so you can post it on the site, for those who buy the drive and want it in different configuration.

A manual how to use this utility can be found :here:. If you want to make your drive region-free, find another patch :here:.

sysserv · Rated PG Joined: 27 Oct 2007 Posts: 1

any chance of emailing me a copy of that utility?

phil@sparesweb.com

Nexxo · Posted: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 09:45:33 Post Subject:

Sorry, no. This was three years ago and I haven't got it anymore. It turned out not to work in any case...