Chapter 21. Replacing the CD or DVD Drive
Any PC worth its chips should have an optical drive, a catchall term that includes every type of CD and DVD drive, as well as the latest Blu-ray drives. The optical part tells you that these drives use light—specifically, a semiconductor laser—to read data from and write data to the disc. (For example, the Blu in Blu-ray comes from the fact that it uses laser light with a wavelength in the blue section of the spectrum.) Among many other uses, an optical drive enables your system to play audio CDs, screen DVD movies, watch high-definition video (you need a Blu-Ray drive for that), install programs and device drivers, store data, and make backups.
In this chapter you learn about optical drives, get information ...
Get PCs for Grown-Ups: Getting the Most Out of Your Windows 8 Computer now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
