I tried to hook up a sony dru820dvd burner to my new hp8120 desk top, but the hp does not have theright cables. Am I doing something wrong, or are they not compatible.
They should be compatible. You should have a ide cable in it that you use to connect it with. It's either a round or flat ribbon cable that usually has 3 connectors with it - 1 for the motherboard, the master and the slave. Is there another optical drive in the pc? If it's connected by ide there should be another connector open on it to connect it to. Here's a guide that might help some - link
The sony 820 seems to only have a connection for the flat ribbon connector,( which is how I connected it to my old HP)The drive that is in there now is hooked up by two smaller black connectors but no flat grey ribbon cable. Everything guide I have looked at says there should be a flat grey ribbon cable.
Ok sounds like these drives are sata drives using a sata connector if only 1 drive can be connected to it. The Sony needs an ide connector/cable. You should have a slot or 2 on the motherboard for this. Look in the owners manual or on their site (for your model) on where it's located. Then you just need to buy an ide cable - drives usually don't come with them. You can pick them up pretty cheap esp online.
THAT"S IT! Thank you so much. I will get a new cable and see if I can find the slot on the mother board. Should it be a problem having the two different burners in one computer? I really liked the sony because it burned every brand disc and the HP seems to be much more picky.
Not a problem Shouldn't be to hard to find the slot - check the owners manual or online - each motherboard can be different. You should be fine with having 2 different connections and burners in the pc - all ok there. Use the cable you used to use for the Sony if you still have it.
The soap opera continues. It seems there is no open slot. I looked everywhere for the some documentation for the hp8120,but I cannot find anything anywhere.Any ideas how to hook it up, or am I done.
Here's what I found at HP - but may not help to much help - link Do you have any drives in this pc hooked up by ide cable? The cable may be round also instead of a flat ribbon. You can tell the diff from sata because ide has more then 1 connector on it. You may have an empty connector on that one and you can also follow it to the motherboard to see where an empty slot may be. If you can't find anything to show you where it is you might need to call HP and have them look it up and tell you.
