i'm doing up a computer for my parents. main specs are: P4, 756MB RAM, XP Pro, CD drive.

their current computer has a DVD burner in it which i need to swap over to this computer. i'm hoping it's as simple as plug-and-play, but can someone confirm this? i will need to remove the CD drive cos it only has the one spot for such a device.

so, will the XP Pro OS automatically detect the new drive? at the most, will i need to upload the driver for it?

can i expect any more issues?

TIA

Most of the time it will be plug-and-play, and as XP is being used the drivers will automatically be installed

schweet. thanks.

How bizarre to see you asking a noob question Rich

yeah .... just take out the CD drive and install the DVD drive, windows will find it automatically.

All you will need to do is install the DVD burning software that would have come with the DVD drive originally.

hee,hee, building computers ain't my thing. but it seems pretty straight forward these days with most things plug-and-play, and less 'configuring' required compared with years ago.

XP doesnt have native DVD burning support like it has for CDs so you will need something like Nero to burn the DVDs - it will work fine as a CD burner though without additional software.
Also XP doesnt have a DVD player built in - but I think there is a patch for media player to allow media player to play dvds? other wise if you load the nero suite media player will then support DVDs

cool.

have a search and see if you can find any of his noob questions from when he had his mr2 and was getting into car audio

I dont think they are still about any more Fudd

he probably deleted them so he dosnt get found out that he was a noob once

unlike myself that is hehehe

Make sure the jumper setting on the back is the same also, so if the cd rom was master or slave or cable select, u will need to make sure u change the jumper on the dvd burner to be the same.

SATA FTW!

Less cable clutter

cool, thanks for the tip.

not catching up with my folks until end of next week, so it won't be until then before i do the changeover. i'll be sure to bug you guys if i have problems!

...then i'll delete the thread...not.

update: i was at my parents' yesterday, but ran out of time to swap the DVD burner over.

one thing i wanted to do was set up their network, so they could transfer files from the 'old' computer to the 'new'. they have a router, and all computers connected accordingly.

but the old computer was running Windows 2000 OS! it wasn't straight forward, adding this to the network, compared with my mother's computer and the new one, both of which have XP.

my plan is to update the older computer with XP. even if it runs slowly, it won't matter. it's just so i can add it to the 'MSHOME' network, and they can finish transferring files, then unplug and discard.

alternatively, they could just upload files onto a USB stick and do it that way, but doesn't seem as elegant.

The standard format still applies here Rich, you can't just give us snippets .... we need more information before we can help solve your problems

We need to know some basics first.
How do all the PC's connect to the router? Does the router have multiple ethernet ports so that each PC connects via ethernet cable?

Do you know the network configuration details of the 2 XP PC's ? (IP address, Subnet, Gateway) as you will need this information to check the configuration of the Windows 2000 PC and reconfigure accordingly.

However since it looks like you only need connectivity to copy data across .... don't worry about elegance .... copying to external media will be much simpler

A USB stick will be slow if you have a lot of data and need to do a number of "trips" because it fills up .... a better alternative would be an external USB hard drive and move all the data in one go.

Enjoy

thanks. to tell the truth, i'm not looking for specific advice on this one. i'm confident what i plan will work, even if there's many other ways to do it, which i'm sure there are. but using a USB stick remains an option if i can't figure out the networking.

so it was more an update, than a question!

getting 2000 to work on the network shouldnt be to hard, we run 2000, xp and vista here at work and the only ones i have trouble with is the xp computers! 2000 is easy (cept when one if them started going nuts and wouldnt recognise anything on the PC including the processor!!)

Sorry Rich, i'm hijacking your thread with my n00b questions

I have no idea about networking... I have a Netgear wireless router and some separate modem. My PC is connected via cable to the router and my mum's laptop connects via wireless. Both run XP, is there an EASY way to share data? Her XP is OEM Home (I think) so she doesn't have the CD, mine uses XP Pro. I've read XP help and it seems pretty complicated and says you need the XP CD to set it up.

Also, her internet browsing speed seems very slow but the wireless signal status says VERY HIGH signal quality.

that's ok mate. n00bs can hang out here.

this might seem like blind-leading-the-blind, but...on XP, it's easy. use the 'Network Setup Wizard' to set up a home network, via the Control Panel. when done, you'll 'see' each other's computers in Windows Explorer under My Network Places.

to share files you first need to change the settings for the folders/files you want to share. basically, it's like unlocking them so that other computers on the network can see/share them. go to the relevant folders in Windows Explorer, and 'right click' then 'Properties', then the 'Sharing' tab. check the relevant box, and all files in that folder become shared. this way, you can still hide your pr0n from your mother by not sharing it with her (unless you want to!).

I'll give it another go tonight. Thanks

The laptop is using Intel Proset wireless software, not the Windows XP built in software, so whenever I share folders nothing (not my PC or the folder) appears in her 'My Computer' or 'My Network Places'

on your laptop, does her computer appear at all, in My Network Places?

were you able to use the wizard on both computers?

I have a desktop connected via cable to router, she has laptop connected wirelessly to router... I've run the normal wizard on both PC's and also the wireless wizard on both PC's... Wireless wizard requires you to copy data to a flash drive and plug it into each PC. Still no other computers in My Network Places. I give up, i'll transfer data via flash stick instead.

I've never really been excited about wireless .... give me a solid Ethernet connection every time

Do you have another Ethernet port on your router so you can connect your mum's laptop to it as well?

Yeah, the router has 4 cable sockets but I don't want her or her laptop down my end of the house

The main reason for the sharing was so she could play my MP3 collection on her laptop. It doesn't matter though.

ditch the intel software, it's soooo frustrating to use!
i seem to have most luck with the standard MS software to run my wireless, generaly works very well