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I have a Dell computer that has windows 98SE operating system with 256mb of memory. I want to put in a DVD burner and bought one from Newegg that I was told would work. Well it doesn't. I looked on the box and it requires window 2000 and up and 512mb of memory. I looked on their website and they say nothing about the operating system. Is there one out there for my system, if not how about a player only? Thanks for the help.
Hmm, I don't recall ever seeing a DVD burner in a Win98 machine. You know they're beyond obsolete, right? I imagine it would depend on the software (Nero, NTI, Roxio, Sonic, etc) being able to run on Win98. You'll also might have a problem with such an old machine being able to feed the burner fast enough. Playing a DVD on Win98 will work as long as you have a software player that's compatible. If the DVD-ROM doesn't come with one, you might try a free one called VLC Media player. It might be choppy though, again because Win98 machines are so slow.
I have a Dell computer that has windows 98SE operating system with 256mb of memory. I want to put in a DVD burner and bought one from Newegg that I was told would work. Well it doesn't. I looked on the box and it requires window 2000 and up and 512mb of memory. I looked on their website and they say nothing about the operating system. Is there one out there for my system, if not how about a player only? Thanks for the help.
Google DVD burning software Windows 98. That should give you some leads.
Install more RAM as well. You'll definitely need it for burning DVDs.
The majority of modern cases don't even come with 5.25 inch drive bays. That would be fine if they had enough extra USB ports built into the front but they never do, necessitating the installation of third party ones such as these...
In any case, I really wish this forum would autolock threads after 6 months of inactivity. It's the only one on the internet that encourages necroing decade old posts.
DVDs hold 4.35GB of Data, while blu-rays hold something like 25GB... I can get a flash drive that holds 128GB for 20 bucks, or a micro-sd card.
I really cant imagine a real need to burn dvds on a win98 machine. My memory not that good. Win98 didnt handle USB very well, remember the days of one usb port if you were lucky... But the could burn cds so I imagine there is software that runs on win98 that could burn a dvd. Or just mount the win98 partition with a newer system and copy/burn the files to dvd on it.
As to usb thumbdrive doing everything, why waste a $25 usb drive for something that can be stored on a 25cent dvd? I have more important uses for usb drive than storing files for ten years. I can tell you that floppy disks are not a good long term storage medium. LOL I do remember vaguely using file splitter program to store big file on multiple floppies. You could buy win95 on multiple installation floppies, cant remember if they ever sold version win98 on floppies or if it was always only offered on cd?
Data should never be archived on optical drive media for long term storage. The laser stores data by melting the data into a layer of dye. The chemicals in the dye layer aren't completely stable and will break down over time, and the disk will become unreadable. Also, the reflective layer will eventually oxidize, making the data difficult to read. Commercially produced single-burn CDs and DVDs are made and written differently than the burn-at-home technology and they last much longer.
Because the chemicals in the dye break down at different rates depending on environmental factors, there is no known lifespan for optical data. When they did studies it was estimated to be between 2 and 100 years depending on temperature, humidity, and exposure to light and other factors and varied wildly between different manufacturers or where the disks were produced. I have some that are about 10 years old that can no longer be read.
Edited to add: I'm not clear from this thread is the issue of needing an old DVD drive or software for one. If it's an old drive you need I probably have one you can have.
Also, a good takeaway is that there is no data storage that is fool proof. There are people who are making records "permanent" by putting it on blockchains, but even that is making a lot of assumptions.
Last edited by terracore; 07-09-2022 at 03:56 PM..
I really cant imagine a real need to burn dvds on a win98 machine. My memory not that good. Win98 didnt handle USB very well, remember the days of one usb port if you were lucky... But the could burn cds so I imagine there is software that runs on win98 that could burn a dvd. Or just mount the win98 partition with a newer system and copy/burn the files to dvd on it.
As to usb thumbdrive doing everything, why waste a $25 usb drive for something that can be stored on a 25cent dvd? I have more important uses for usb drive than storing files for ten years. I can tell you that floppy disks are not a good long term storage medium. LOL I do remember vaguely using file splitter program to store big file on multiple floppies. You could buy win95 on multiple installation floppies, cant remember if they ever sold version win98 on floppies or if it was always only offered on cd?
Data should never be archived on optical drive media for long term storage. The laser stores data by melting the data into a layer of dye. The chemicals in the dye layer aren't completely stable and will break down over time, and the disk will become unreadable. Also, the reflective layer will eventually oxidize, making the data difficult to read. Commercially produced single-burn CDs and DVDs are made and written differently than the burn-at-home technology and they last much longer.
Because the chemicals in the dye break down at different rates depending on environmental factors, there is no known lifespan for optical data. When they did studies it was estimated to be between 2 and 100 years depending on temperature, humidity, and exposure to light and other factors and varied wildly between different manufacturers or where the disks were produced. I have some that are about 10 years old that can no longer be read.
Edited to add: I'm not clear from this thread is the issue of needing an old DVD drive or software for one. If it's an old drive you need I probably have one you can have.
Also, a good takeaway is that there is no data storage that is fool proof. There are people who are making records "permanent" by putting it on blockchains, but even that is making a lot of assumptions.
To second what terracore just said, during the pandemic I was doing some spring cleaning and decided to consolidate and/or discard old backup CDs and DvDs going back about 20 years. All of them had been indoors in a good environment.
About a fifth of them could not be read.
There were a variety of brands of disks, burners, and software used over the years so I wonder if there may have been some compatibility problems between some of those disks and my present reader/burner. Anyway, it's been a long time since I trusted those things.
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I would guess the software that comes with it is for win 2000 and up.
