[rescue] Sun 540-5014 (AKA X7288A) versus Teac DV-28E

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 03:29:06PM -0400, Dave K wrote:
> $WORK is looking to upgrade a bunch of older systems from CD-ROM to
> DVD-ROM drives.  All of these would use the Sun 540-5014 (AKA X7288A)
> drive.  Of course genuine Sun drives are absurdly expensive.
> 
> The drives are marked as Teac 28E, which is also used in some laptops,
> and far cheaper.
> 
> One notable difference is that the Sun version includes bracket
> "370-6204", but I believe we could steal those of the CD-ROMS we'd be
> pulling out.
> 
> Now for the hard question: Does Sun have special firmware put into the
> Teac drives that would prevent us from using non-Sun versions?

Two points to ponder.

1. Will the computers in question boot from a USB drive? You can buy a USB
   DVD drive for very little money these days.

2. It may depend upon which version of Solaris you wish to boot. I know that
   Solaris 10 will boot on almost any drive. I also know that Solaris 7
   requires a 512 byte block drive. I don't know in between.

   For example, I have an old Samsung combo 4 speed CD burner, DVD reader
   in my Ultra 5 and it boots Solaris 10 fine.

   YMMV. 

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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