Mine is on its last legs. Anyway, so I'm not much of a hardware guy. I'm shopping for internal burners and I noticed a really cheap one from Lite-On, but what's making me hesitate is that the description mentions "SATA." I have no idea what that is.

Will I be able to install a SATA drive like any other normal DVD writer? Also, what's Light Scribe?

If it helps, I have a Dell PC.

Thanks!

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Vanilla rice, rice baby

All DVD burner have SATA drive. It is new standard. you can install SATA connector just like any burner. It is a small rectangular connector. Light scribe means the burner laser can burn text directly onto the DVD so users don't have to write down titles. Burners with light scribe technology is slightly more expensive than regular burner but it isn't that much.

The name is Bond. James Bond.
Extraordinary lover

thanks pic! you just saved me 10 bucks. Was considering buying another model that didn't say "SATA" to be safe.

SATA is a connection type, it replaced parallel ATA connections. It's faster and runs cooler. You can probably do a google search on your particular computer and see if it is SATA-compatible. It most likely is, but I'm not a PC guy, so I derno. If you still can't find out, look up what a SATA plug looks like and see if the connector to your current DVD burner matches up.

Lightscribe is an HP product. You have to buy their colored discs and their CD/DVD drive--it then "prints" whatever you want on it in 1 color glory. It's essentially a fancy label printer that encourages you into buying HP products. Personally I think it's a waste of time because burning media is still a hit or miss at times and I don't want to waste more time than I need to labeling a disc.


*edit, damn you Picard for worm-tunneling your post before mine.

no CoC, your post was equally helpful. I'm gonna go open up my case now and have a looksee.

Thanks!

you also have to be careful about what kind of media you buy, the usual recommendation was Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden (premium line) only (TYs can be bought from places like supermediastore.com), lately some have been questioning the quality of current Verbs, TYs are still considered really good. I don't do any computer dvd burning, only on a standalone dvd recorder, Verbs always worked very well for me. Stay away from all other brands you see on the shelves like TDK, Maxell, and especially Memorex.

Satisfied? You know, I really hope so because God knows you need some satisfaction in life besides shagging Captain Cardboard and I never really liked you anyway and... and you have stupid hair. Spike

update: no SATA on my crappy Dell from 2006.


ShangChi- I used Ridata/Ritek almost exclusively. I find those to be the most reliable in terms of compatibility.

You can still buy non-SATA (IDE/EIDE) dvd burners out there. Picked one up just recently by mistake when I needed SATA. You can probably find them online if not in stores. But Best Buy might have one or two lying around.

Or as an alternate solution, you can pick up an internal SATA card which you can then plug your SATA burner into. But then you'd be paying more.

yea they still have regular ide/eide burners out there. check out newegg for cheap ones, usually will cost you around/ess than $30, if you opt for an OEM one, which is the drive itself, no box, but usually comes with a cable. if it doesn't you can always use the one from your previous drive.