Need Help Selecting Correct DVD drive

Hi,
I'm purchasing a new internal DVD drive for my 4 year old Dell Dimension E310 desktop and I know that I need a "16X IDE DVD" drive .... These seem to be difficult to find anywhere but I have found two to choose between on line. The question I have pertains to the one that is labeled; "16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE/ATAPI DVD-ROM Drive". ..... I do not know what the "ATAPI" refers to. Does the "ATAPI" make that drive incompatible for my pc, or is it not a problem and will work ok for my pc?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Let's see if a true geek answers and can give you a definitive answer on ATAPI, but in the meantime...

I'm fairly certain ATAPI is just another designation for IDE. So it should make no difference it is just a labeling thing. (As in describing an IDE hard drive as IDE/PATA where PATA is just another name for IDE.)

One consideration is that you should be purchasing a DVD burner not just a DVD-ROM. The price will be about the same.

I'm sure any of these three would work fine. I like Lite-On but only because I've had luck with that brand. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-176^27-151-176-S01,27-136-147^27-136-147-S01

 

Thank you sach. .. So does it not matter if the one I purchase is a "22X" as opposed to a "16X"?
... I do still hope to get a geek response.

 

The new IDE burners appear to all be 22X but notice down under DVDROM they are still 16X so the higher speed is only for burning. It definitely doesn't matter that you would be buying the higher speed. Countless people replaced old 4X CDburners with higher speed DVDburners when the DVD burners came out.

The more I think about it I am sure ATAPI is just an advanced version of IDE and any IDE or IDE/ATAPI drive will work. In fact I'm fairly certain that any computer made in the last 10 years is actually an ATAPI version of IDE. http://www.ata-atapi.com/hist.html#T16

Or this "IDE started off using ATA but was then upgraded to ATAPI" http://www.atapi.org/

 

Thank you sach2. ...... I believe you are correct, .. and while I don't know how reliable it is to do this, but when I looked at the pic of the connector jacks on the back of the Newegg one's you posted for me, .. they look like the right connections. I expect I will buy the Lite On drive. ..... Thank you again.

 

You definitely have an IDE drive if you are still using the original. IDE has the flat cable. SATA connections are smaller.

Top picture is IDE bottom picture is SATA.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...PSPAQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0

Good Luck!

 

Yep, ... that's it. ..... Thanks again.