Decided to buy my own dvd burner once I get the system. I configured it with dual drive CDRW and DVD drive. Should I just add a third drive (dvd burner) or remove one of the above? Also I've never owned or used a dvd burner before, after reading these forums I see a lot of positives on the LiteOn SOHW-832S. Is this still the one I should shoot for with the Dell or is there something else I should consider? thanks for your help from a newby...
Dave scott
Dave I would put the DVDRW in place of the DVDROM drive, a DVDRW will playback DVDs so you really won't need the DVDROM drive at all, if your Dell is configured like one I just worked on, it will come with WinXP Home and possibly a single SATA HDD, which will leave the Primary and Secondary IDEs for optical drives being jumpered as the single Master of each IDE.
If that is the way you're setup, then the DVDRW should be set as Master and replace the DVDROM with it.
However it may have a different setup than that, it may come with a single PATA HDD, set as the Master of the Primary IDE, which would mean that the Secondary IDE would have both the optical drives jumpered Master and Slave, so you would set the jumpers on the DVDRW for however the DVDROM drive was set, and replace it.
One of the reasons I'm telling you to replace instead of add the drive is Dell usually gives you just enough Power Supply to cover whats in the machine, and not enough to cover added components, thats how they get you when upgrading and adding components like additional Optical and HDDs comes along you discover you need a new Power Supply also.
Well at that point, [You've been Delled], but replacing existing drives keeps you out of the Dell zone completely.
LiteOn is a good drive but my wife got a H/P DVDRW Dual Layer Burner from Walmart for $99.99, US if you're in the US I'd get that before I'd get a LiteOn DVDRW. Ryan
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