hey im getting a DVD burner on thursday and i wanna know the basics if anyone can help. Where does it plug into? is it a USB port or a port in the back of my PC? if so, which one? are there any typical requirements i need to install a dvd burner? I would like to know the following so that it saves the time of me buying one and then having to get a refund because of certain circumstances. Any info please let me know Thanks in advance.
What is your pc spec at present.Something to work off please.All pc's can fit a dvd writer but you also need to take in to account your hard drive capacity and memory.There would be no point if you had a very small hard drive my first pc had a 13gb on it and although i could not store many films on it it would do the job.It also only had 64mb memory which really meant start the rip and take a break as you could not do anything else when ripping. John179
There are two types ... Internal and External. An internal drive will connect via ide cable, which means you need to open your pc up and install it. The transfer speeds will be faster than using usb. An external drive will connect via usb(2.0). Any usb port will work, depending on how old your pc is you might be using usb 1.1 ... if so you might want to think about getting a usb 2.0 card.
Easiest thing to do is if you are discarding your old drive plug the new one in the way the old one came out.Just make sure you look at the back of your new drive to ensure it is set to master.Simplest way to explian there will be a little plastic plug on the back of your drive make sure it is over master.Most drives come set on master and it is noramally for you to change over if you want.External drives are ok but intrernal are much more tidy.Sorry do not want you to think iam making you sound simple but i can not remember the bluddy name of the plastic fingy bobbys on the back of the drive myself off the top of my head.Some smarty pants will be along shortly to point this out.Also if you want to keep the old drive just set one to slave and the other master and make sure both are plugged in to the same ide port but one slave and one master.You could also attach a drive to the hard drive ide if you only have 1 hard drive but the drive would have to be set as slave.The easiest way to explain over all is most motherboards have to ide pots apart from the newer ones. 1xport will always have a hard drive attached to it on master and if you put a second drive on the same ide lead this will become slave.This will be the same with the second ide port. John179 Sorry for any bad spelling
Hey there Tommaaay, Welcome to our Club - The Biggest thing to remember is to turn your PC off prior to installing your drive. If you plan to buy a USB enclosure make sure your PC's USB port is a 2.0 connection. Every drive I've ever purchased has come with a set of directions, follow them. You should have some free tech support too, take advantage of it - they have time to answer your questions and to guide you through the installation process - Cheers - and don't forget to stop back so that we can help you with your DVD Backups. (Sorry but it's pretty stupid to try to teach you anything until you can try it on your own PC Pete
Here Pete you know this tech advise you get with the drive.Well when i purchased my mob Asus claimed they would get back to you with in 48hrs.Must admitt they do but if you have alot of questions that can be some serious waiting time.God bless they put a guide in with the board.At the time thank you for my mate who answered the questions i could not ask the guide. Cheers John179
When I purchased my NEC drive there was a toll free number to call and the wait time was about an hour or so - When I got my last 200GB WD HD I hd a bit "O" trouble with the Dynamic Drive aspect and again, used a toll free number and was taken care of within 30 minutes - I have one of those nice cordless headset phones so being on "Hold" isn't a problem I too had one of those "Handy mates" but at the time he was away on Holiday - otherwise, as you say, most times the answer isn't in the guides The point - there are many places to go for information - cheeers Buddy, Pete
