Another laptop question.

[Yuna_Firerose 0]

I may be able to upgrade my laptop soon. I was thinking of getting a DVD Burner drive -- Linkage for specs -- but I'm rather clueless as to its installation. The site certainly doesn't offer any explanation.

 

My laptop currently has a standard CD-RW/DVD-Rom drive, which I plan to of course remove with the new drive. How do I go about doing that? And, when switching the drives, will that effect whatever is on my hard-drive at all?

 

Related to the topic is another small inquiry. What's the best method for cleaning the keyboard? Mine has gathered quite a bit of dust and kitty hair (just how it gathers this latter, I'm not sure; no cats lay near it) and I'm leery of popping the keys off and doing the ol' q-tip cleaning method, without knowing if I can reattach the keys.

 

As always, thanks.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

If it's a laptop, I'd get the drives installed by a professional, or at least someone knows what they're doing.

 

 

And you might want to get one of those keyboard vacuum cleaner things if you don't want to pop the keys off.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

What type of laptop do you have? If it's a Dell (from my experience), they have a big user community that can help you. From my personal experience of installing a hard drive and DVD drive, each notebook has it's own caddy. This caddy connects the drive to the computer. You can either, buy a new caddy (eBay) or remove your current caddy from your DVD drive. In my case the DVD caddy was harder to remove than the HD because the DVD caddy had smaller screws.

 

If you can remove the caddy, installation is simple. Remove the old drive and put the new drive in.

[Black Lushus 0]

yeah, my laptop was pretty simple to switch things out on. Just be sure your comp can handle the drive and you pretty much pop one drive out and slide the other one in. Windows should recognize the new hardware and start set up on it (or use the disc that comes with it, of course). Changing the hard drive out is a bit trickier, but it's not TOO hard.

[Yuna_Firerose 0]

I currently have a Dell Latitude 110L -- one of those basic-of-the-basic types. I've had it free since Feb. so I can't complain (offer from the college). The major drawback to it, well second to the 30gb HD of course, was the lack of a dvd burner. At least for my field of study, that is.

 

I looked on the dell site for the upgrade that matches the comp. That wasn't too hard; I've had it bookmarked for a while. The main issue I had was how to install it. How to take out my current one, put another one in.

 

they have a big user community that can help you.

I'd love to know where to find 'em

 

Just be sure your comp can handle the drive and you pretty much pop one drive out and slide the other one in.

I did try looking that up via google; but looking up specific models lead to sites where to buy things. Basically, I'm a complete newb for upgrading computers. The last thing I wanna do is screw anything up...obviously.

[Black Lushus 0]

Yuna, make sure your comp matches 3 things:

processing speed

available hard drive space

available RAM space.

 

you can get all that info on the "my computer" icon on your desktop...right click and click proporties.

 

after that, check the system requirements on whatever drive you want to purchase and make sure the specs match.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

http://support.dell.com - Just ask on their message boards. The people there are friendly.

Even better if you use Google groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell. They're better than the above link.

 

Edit: now that I looked at your link, check NewEgg.com. I think you can find a cheaper burner there. I bought a CD Writer for $60. Dell overprices their stuff.