Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Samsung SE-208 External DVD Drive

May 9, 2015 4:19AM PDT

Hi all,

I just purchased this little disc drive since I don't have one in my case. Normally I have to take the sides of my case and hook up a traditional disc drive to install Windows which I'm sure you'll agree is a pain.

So, I bought the external drive from the title and plugged it in all ready to do a re-installation of W7 which I thought would be hassle free. I was wrong.

Non stop errors including Bootmgr is missing, not creating the 100mb partition for sys files then error, installation copying/expanding works then error pop ups (2 different ones). I tried using different usb ports, the ones at the front, the ones at the back and usb 3.0 ones too. All seemed to give me an error of some sort (for the record the usb ports work fine with everything else).

After throwing in the towel I took the sides off my pc and plugged in my old dvd drive and Windows installed first time, no issues at all.

Is there something I should be doing in the bios to get this drive working or is this a known issue with installing Windows from an external drive? The only reason I bought the thing is to save me some hassle but it's been more hassle than the old method so far Sad

Thanks for reading and any replies.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
It's usually USB woes.
May 9, 2015 4:30AM PDT

I've used many USB DVDRW externals over the years but once in a while I will hit a PC that balks. So I have to use internal, USB or another way.

Do you think such issues are going to spell the end of the PC?
Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
well....here's the problem
May 9, 2015 5:16AM PDT

I often use USB flash for installing LIVE Linux systems onto and installing from that to a hard drive, but once in a while I run into a flash that will only take an install if I use a "dd" command and "force" it, and even then it might not boot from USB. (typically it's those button drives that present the most problems). I've heard of similar problems when using some external CD or DVD drives, especially those powered entirely by USB.

I see it's not Mac compatible, and that it needs drivers in windows, so I'd say it's not a standard setup.

This one has mentions of success using as a boot drive with windows 7 and 8,
where as the many Amazon comments on the one you have doesn't mention that even once.

Here's Samsung with some idiosyncracies about use as a boot drive.

- Collapse -
Reply
May 9, 2015 5:05PM PDT

"Do you think such issues are going to spell the end of the PC?
Bob"

Yes - "Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!" (C10 points if you can name the film I quoted without using the internet).

Seriously though, this PC I've built has been without issues, do you think I should return/refund this drive? I've built PC's in the past that have had some niggly hardware issues but this thing is just a space taker upper atm. I was kinda hoping you guys would say something like "You idiot, there's a little switch on the back that turns on installation mode!"

- Collapse -
Sure. Why not?
May 10, 2015 12:26AM PDT

As many don't know I ran service shops for decades and this issue would pop up now and then. We would work around it and carry on. It didn't seem to be the USB drive but the PC in question.

But you may want to return it anyway since for your PC it doesn't work and as such isn't an useful item.
Bob