Posted by Dave Martindale on 12/23/07 19:58

John Williamson <johnwilliamson@btinternet.com> writes:

>> Yes.
>> It seems my drives are older, 5 years, and were not DVD drives.

>If they're not DVD drives, which are required to have the DVD logo on
>the front somewhere, you'll *never* be able to read a DVD, as the
>hardware is incapable of it.

True. To clarify further, CD drives use infrared lasers and a certain
track pitch to store about 600 MB per disc. DVD drives use red lasers
and a finer track pitch to store 4 GB per disc.

>A DVD drive now costs very little & will
>directly replace your CD drive, reading both CDs and DVDs. A combined
>DVD reader & writer for anything other than a laptop will cost about 20
>pounds in the UK, & takes a few minutes to fit into the same place,
>using exactly the same fixings and wiring.

He needs to be a bit careful about the interface type. A 5-year-old CD
drive is likely IDE (ATA), but it might be SCSI. A new drive might be
IDE/ATA, or it might be SATA. If his old drive is IDE and so is the new
one, then it will just plug in. Any other combination won't work.

>It will also come with basic
>software to let you burn DVDs and CDs.

Again, needs to be checked. Some OEM DVD-RW drives come with no software.

Dave

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