Where can I find a cheap DVD Player/CD Burner combo drive (with a
black faceplate) for my PC?  All the ones I see have white faceplates,
which won't look very good with my all black tower.

Hello Sherpaj,

I hope this will help you finish up your black system with style.

There are a number of sites that you can acquire this type of drive
at.
I will list a few of the places that I found through pricewatch. If
you would like more options or these do not fit your needs, please
don't hesitate to ask for clarification.

The cheapest CD-RW DVD-ROM drive I found was a Samsung drive, however
it only offered 4X DVD-Read, 4X CD-Record, 4X Rewrite, and 24X read,
so it is quite slow compared to the other drive I mention a few lines
down. Still, if price is the only consideration, this one can be had
for $50.95, including shipping, at
http://mtzon.zoovy.com/product/SA4XG.

A slightly more high end model (though, I think you'll find it worth
it), offers 40X CD-R writing, 10X CD-RW, 40X reading, and a buffer of
8mb. This is also a Samsung drive. The price for this is $72 including
shipping.

Samsung CDRW Model SC240BEA 40X12X40 from www.newegg.com

You may buy it from here:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=sc240

Another company that sells a complete line of black accessories is
this one.
http://www.directron.com. I had listed a CD-RW from them at first, but
found a better/lower priced one later. You may wish to go there if
you'd like to find a convenient place to locate black peripherals.
They also offer a painting kit.

Other sites did exist that had higher prices, including
https://www.dcpuraty.com/store/Product_List.asp?CID=3&CAT=DVD-ROM. Let
me know if you want the URLs of the higher priced sites.

Any questions? Doesn't fit your needs? Feel free to ask, I will locate
a drive that better fits your need if it is at all possible.

Thanks,
Todd

---

Clarification of Answer by coldfusion-ga on 16 Sep 2002 00:23 PDT

Please hold on for a minute - I need to clarify whether that drive
actually has DVD capacity. I see conflicting information. I will
correct this ASAP.

---

Clarification of Answer by coldfusion-ga on 16 Sep 2002 00:35 PDT

My apologies:
The drive was listed as Samsung CD-RW/DVD BLACK Model SC240BEA
40X12X40 OEM, and was listed in the DVD Drive category. However, on
further checkup, there is no DVD functionality included with this
model number. This will only do if you want a plain CD-RW drive.

A couple more options for DVD-R/CD-RW drives are the following:

Black Samsung 8 CD-R writeX4CD-RW WriteX32X CD-Read & 8X DVD-ROM Combo
Drive, SM-308, OEM
Available from:
http://www.directron.com/sm308.html 
for $79.00 plus shipping, or from 
http://www.bpcland.com/mystore/servlet/details?prod=141&cmd=spe 
for $67.95, shipping included.

The Toshiba Black Bezeled SDR1202 , 16X CD-record, 10X CD-rewrite, 40X
CD-ROM and 12X DVD, SDR-1202 CD-RW/DVD Drive Only. This retails for
$97.00 including UPS ground shipping.
This is available at:
http://www.micropro.com/item.htm?item_id=CDTOSDR1202-OB&product=CD/DVD%20Drives

The Samsung CD-RW & DVD COMBO 8X CD-R writing/4X CD-RW writing/32X
reading/8X DVD SM308B (Black Bezel Face). This retails for $109.00
http://www.shentech.com/samsm8xintid.html

Keep in mind that most of these drives expect you to have your own
cables for audio and connections, which is usually not a problem since
they use standard cables.

Thanks, and sorry for the confusion, the vendor had listed the non DVD
drive in the DVD category of the pricewatch website.

You'd be very hard pressed to find a CD/DVD drive with a black face
plate, the best option is probably to paint one yourself. This is not
very difficult to do, I sanded back my entire computer and painted it
blue and it came out just fine. I will have a look around for some
black face plated drives, though. Have you considered getting one with
a silver coloured or aluminium faceplate? These seem to be reasonably
popular given the proliferation of aluminium cases nowadays.

Hi,

This is directed towards shananigans.

I was wondering whether you could further elaborate on your methods of
painting a CD Drive.

In the case of a CD Drive, would it really need to be sanded down? If
so, with what kind of materials?

Also, what kind of paint would be best to use? Obviously you would
want a matte finish but where you would find a paint that wouldn't
gunk up the bottons and the moving parts?

I would really appreciate your help on this, I'm faced with the same
situation as the guy above me but I don't want to throw out any of my
drives.

Thanks,
Nina