Well.... I got a little bonus. This:

Not only is it the same model, that were in my original Zitech machine.
It's the exact same piece of hardware, yes, the same drive I was using in my original machine.

The story goes. That I thought that I sold the machine back then with the CD-RW drive.
As it turned out. I kept the drive and donated it to my brother's computer.
I must have forgotten that I did it, and now it is back in my collection and going to run on a GA-5AX again.
Though there is a big minus with this drive, wich is that it has no buffer underrun protection.
Still. Really looking forward to hear and feel the operation of this drive yet again. 😜

What I really like about this drive, is the design and the tray door. (Only caddies are way more cool)

I have the same drive but a 10x4x32 instead 😀 it's home is in a Socket 7 Acer machine I need to get around to getting running at some point.

Those drives are somewhat special. As the "flap" is mounted to the front bezel and will be pushed down, when the tray comes out.
Quite unusual or was that actually common in drives from that era? (build date is feb. 2000)

brostenen wrote:

Those drives are somewhat special. As the "flap" is mounted to the front bezel and will be pushed down, when the tray comes out.
Quite unusual or was that actually common in drives from that era? (build date is feb. 2000)

I think it indeed was the fashion at the time. My first burner (Smart & Friendly 4x CD-RW) was like that as well. I think it was this one.

dr_st wrote:

But is about 10 times louder than any hard drive I ever owned, before or after. It literally sounds like a jet takeoff. 🤣

Meh,that's nothing compared to my Maxtor 4D060H3. Sounds like a angle grinder spinning up. It said SMART bad once but that seems to have vanished when I formatted it on a Xbox then formatted on a PC back.

One of my quiet drives (working and dead) were a 80GB PATA Maxtor 6Y080L0 (which still works and is used in my OG Xbox),a 160GB WDC WD1600BB-22RDA0 (dead,heat killed it),a 160GB Samsung SP1603N (same fate as the WDC) and a 20GB Maxtor 6E020L0. The last drive is surprisingly still working in a very good condition,given how the 6E0x0L0 drives were pretty infamous for ROM corruption and stuff.

Which reminds me,I still need to find a bigger HDD for both my Xbox and my upcoming Athlon 64 rig. 🤣