It definitely sounds that way from the looks of a Google Groups search for it.

I'm easily confused. Just for arguments sake, say it's propriatory. Can I hook it up to a Soundblaster card's propriatory "header" using a typical standard "boring gray" 40 pin IDE cable, or does the cable have to be "special" in any way? Thanks!

If it's IDE, you need an IDE port. Those proprietary ports are not IDE. Some sound cards do have IDE.

I know that the proprietary Matsushita interface is 40pin just like IDE, for ex. But it is not IDE. 😀

I know for Matsushita drives a regular IDE cable will do the trick. I would guess that it works with the mitsumi interface as well.

Good point. I didn't see it that way. I still have the cable that came with my Creative/Matsushita 2x proprietary drive. That cable works fine with IDE CDROMs.

Thanks for the replies. I've just bought one, and when I get it, I will post back with an update with photo.

It works, but the spin sound is noisy. 🙁 The "data access" sound is OK.

On the front bezel, it says:

Quad Speed
Creative
PC2 Multimedia PC

On the back, it's got:

Host interface (1 to 40 pins)
Master/Slave/Cable Select jumper pins
Analogue audio
Digital audio

The BIOS POST screen says:

MATSHITA CR-581-M
CDROM,Mode 3

I am using a typical standard 40 pin gray IDE cable.

Windows 98 doesn't want anything to do with it. I notice that inside win98's Control Panel -> System, the secondary IDE controller is labelled as "VIA technology", but I'm using an Intel chipset-based mobo. I've tested my current HDD on many different mobos, and at some stage I installed a VIA 4-in-1 driver package. I think that could explain this situation.

However, if I then reboot in to DOS 7, the DOS CD-ROM driver is initialized OK and I can use the CD-ROM drive. I tested Dark Forces, and it worked. The "spin down time" takes about 1 minute.

I didn't take a photo, because my crappy camera doesn't do close ups all that well.

Maybe try removing the VIA controller device from Device Manager and then have it "Scan for hardware changes" (or reboot). You could also try uninstalling the VIA driver(s) from Add/Remove Programs.

I'm afraid the CD-ROM drive has already been put in my box labelled "take to the recycle centre". The noisy spin sound is the show stopper. I got this slow 4x speed drive, hoping it would be near silent, but it's about as noisy as my 48x DVD-ROM reader!

If you want a quiet drive, get a caddy loader.

I did a quick browse on google, and found this -

http://www.oldsoftware.com/caddies.html

Is this what you mean? Do these caddies only go inside "specially equiped" CD-ROM drives?

(Please note, I've decided to go with IDE rather than SCSI.)

Well, if you change your mind I have a few 4X SCSI drives I can give you for the cost of shipping. They're quiet and can read CD-R media too. (these ones are tray loading drives)

Is it something like my cd drive below? If yes, you made a right choice in trying to get a quiet drive. Unfortunately it seems you have some problems with it which defeats the very purpose of getting it.

My experience with it is very good. Yes, it's EXTREMELY silent. (It's actually impossible to hear any sound from it, unless you don't have any fan or air-cond. running. And that too only if it's quite near to your ears.) And there's no delay while waiting for the drive to spin up to access the cd-rom, like those seen with newer and faster drives. Especially while playing games with speech like Monkey Island 3, and any of the CD editions of Sierra games.

I actually looked for this drive. And the max speed I'm willing to go for a CD Drive to be used in a classic system is not more than 12X.

I also have another 6X Teac CD drive which is equally good in silent performance. But it doesn't have the classic, vintage labels like "Quad Speed", or "MPC". You don't get to see these wordings anymore.

Anonymous Coward, hey thanks a lot for the offer! (I think I'll stick to IDE for the time being though.)

Malik, yes that's the CD-ROM drive I just tested. Very noisy. Perhaps it was faulty? What DOS driver do you use with it? I just use oakcdrom.sys - seems to work with more or less everything. I have a Teac 6x drive. It's not bad.

Yes, I think the one you got is faulty. I basically use the qcdrom.sys and shcdx33c under QHimem configuration. For old times (nostalgic) sake, I'm using the classic mscdex.exe with another driver which came with a Acer 8X CD drive - VIDE-CDD.SYS in my EMM386 configuration.

So far, I haven't noticed any problems with any drivers with this drive.

Sorry to revive that topic.

But i have this cdrom drive here, nothing written on it on the front, but it IS a 4x cdrom drive, with IDE 40pins interface. It does appear on the auto-detect (Pentium Socket5 board) as "Matshita CD-581-M", also after a speed test (found in many games such as most Cryo DOS games of the time), it does detect 4x speed.

Thanks for answering, and it may help other posters in the future - but the OP hasn't been seen in years.

Also, gonna lock it now. 😀