What are you using to rip your cds to a hard drive?


I had been using the cd drive in my old laptop to rip cds to my external hard drive.  I have since bought a new laptop that does not have a cd drive.  To get a cd into the computer I am using a cheap external disc reader.  What are you guys using to spin those silver discs into hard drives?  I think I need something better than what I have, but I don't think I want to spend thousands of dollars to buy a disc drive.  My budget would be less than $1,000,

What do you think?

kenrus
If your external drive is one of the "slim" types I would replace it with one that uses the kind of 5.25 inch drive mechanism that is used in desktop computers. Such as this OWC Mercury Pro, for $69.75. Or, alternatively, you could purchase an Asus bare drive or other high quality 5.25 inch bare drive from Newegg.com for less than $20, and put it in an inexpensive external drive enclosure that provides a SATA internal interface and a USB external interface. Many such enclosures are available at Newegg.

The reason I make that suggestion is that I’ve found that various slim external drives, and also optical drives that are built into laptops, often have problems reading discs that are in less than perfect condition. While those same discs will be read by inexpensive 5.25 inch drives with no problem.

I also concur with the others that the software that is chosen should assure bit perfect copying.

Regards,
-- Al

+1 on dbPoweramp and as usual Al give good advice on the actual disc drive part of your question.
Bedt bang for the buck and then some.
A tech st Bryston turned me on to it D B power amp .