cd/dvd rom

bogwalrus

I need to get a new "good quality" dvd/cd rom drive for my pc but unsure of what makes and types are best. Can all of the dvd RW drives be used as normal drives for running all types of formats? What should i be carefull of when buying a new drive? I dont want to go get a dvd drive and find it wont run cd's etc.

pandabat

Typically any modern DVD RW drive will support all major CD and DVD formats. The only exception maybe DVD-RAM but this is becoming a little used format and certainly shouldn't affect a PC user. That said the prices are all pretty much around the same mark so if you're worried about it, just buy one that support DVD-RAM as well as DVD+_RW. The drive should also support dual layer DVD recording.

Of late, one or two issues have been popping up with newer SATA drives not being correctly recognised as DVD drives. It's causing issues with some games when they go to verify that the disc is present before starting the game. Upshot is that if you have an older system with IDE drives then buy an IDE DVD-Rewriter as opposed to a SATA drive.

I have a Samsung DVD Rewriter drive which I got for around €30 or €40 and have had no issues with it but LG, Sony, Plextor, Pioneer should all be okay too

bogwalrus

i was looking at a few sata drives. Does it make much difference whether it is sata or ide? I have sata ports on my motherboard so would like to utilize them if it makes things faster but if they are problematic to use then it might not be worth it. thanks for the info=)

pandabat

In general SATA should be theoretically faster but optical drives have other factors which mean peformance differences between SATA and IDE versions would be negligible. Compatibility problems should be few (I only read about the SATA issue today somewhere) but you can always keep your "old" IDE CD-ROM/DVD-ROM in your system (provided you have a spare drive bay) to cover off all eventualities.

bogwalrus

yeah two drives is a good idea. Thanks again for the advice. much appreciated