NAS 1200s DVD support

[Eric van Uden]

The only USB-DVD drive mentioned in the NAS 1200s specs is the HP DVD writer dvd300e (Q2109A).

I seem to remember having seen stated in this forum that any HP DVD drive should do, however.

Would the newer HP DVD 420ve (Q2135A) be supported?

Does anyone have positive inside knowledge or practical experience in this matter?

[John Shields_2]

Hi,

Essentially any DVD drive should work fine, but the 420 is supported. The problem is that the retail CD/DVD drives rev much faster than our Enterprise storage products so documentation gets old very quickly as it pertains to CD/DVD drive attach.

Cheers,

john

[Thomas Olsen_1]

I can tell you for sure that not all DVD drives will work. I have tested it myself and really learned it the hard way.

You have to use on of the supported drives noted in the NAS 1200s Quickspec: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11829_div/11829_div.HTML


Good luck.

/Thomas O

[Greg Carlson]

Eric,

I have not seen success w/ newer drives like the 420ve either..

The only optical drives that work to restore the 1200s are the VERY select devices listed on quickspecs. The DC3000 is probabl available on ebay. Otherwise the multibay devices are still available here:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/tabletpc/options/multibay.html

Optical Drives
External DVD Movie Writer DC3000

or

Multibay USB Cradle : DC373A

for drives listed below

Multibay 24X DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive DC364A
Multibay 8X DVD-ROM Drive DC352A
Multibay DVD+RW Drive Drive DG189A

[Eric van Uden_1]

Thanks for the follow-up, Greg.
I appreciate sharing your experience.

As I seem to be locked out of the account I created last year, and had to create a new one, I can't award you the points you rightly deserve, however.

In the mean time I have this experience with the 420e drive:
- It works well once the system is up.
- With a bootable cd in the drive, and booting, there is a second where the text 'Press any key to boot form cd' flashes. Pressing a key actually produces a startup from the bootable cd.

I suppose that should suffice for the restore procedure.

I feel inclined to take another approach to recovery, though. What I'm thinking of doing is take out the first disk, create an image while attached to another machine, and put it back. Then use the same procedure to dump the image back when needed.

It still baffles me that this equipment should have such deliberately restricted options, where any $300 pc would have full pnp. I fail to see the sense. But maybe I'm missing something :-|