[woodsyi]

I got a HD camcorder and I figured I might as well burn to Bluray rather than DVD.  So I ordered this LG unit.  Is there anything I should be aware of as I install this? I am running Vista Ultimate with a Mobo (not sure of the exact brand or model) that has Core i7 920 and is a year old.  I would think it has all the necessary connections.  I know it has an available blank drive bay. 

[srb]

It has a SATA interface, so it should be a simple plug and play installation.  If you have 2 SATA controllers on your motherboard, I would connect it to the same set of SATA headers that your current optical drive is connected to.
 
Vista doesn't have native Blu-ray burning capability, so you would either install a burning program that may have come with the unit, a freeware burning program such as ImgBurn, or one of many third-party burning programs.
 
If you intend to playback Blu-ray movies, Vista also has no native software for that, so you would need to install some kind of Blu-ray movie playback software.  Your video card would also need to be HDCP compliant (and most likely is).
 
Steve

[woodsyi]

Thanks Steve,

That's about what I thought.  Canon included software for playback and burning to BR.  I should eventually migrate to Windows 7 but I am letting all the kinks worked out (for the third party softwares mostly) before doing that.

[woodsyi]

I put in in a second drive bay and hooked it up using the existing cables in the Dell box.  It was pretty straight forward and the drive was recognized and appears to work just fine.  I haven't burned anything yet as BD disks are expensive and I want to get everything authored right before clicking on burn.  This is the good part.  The bad part is that my existing DVD drive disappeared.   I did not unhook anything.  The SATA connector is still there right next to the unused one that I put on the BR burner. 

What have I done?  What can I do to get it back? 

Come to think of it, the bay doesn't even open.  Is the daisy chained PS the culprit?  Both drives are on the same PS cable.

[ichillpill]

check to see if there is a jumper at the back of your old dvd drive next to the power cable. pull out the jumper (if there is one, it probably is on master mode) and align it to next column to set it to slave mode. there should be a small diagram on the drive to show how the jumper can be attached if you wanted it to be on slave or master mode.

if you find the jumper on slave mode already then switch it to master mode. I'm guessing the bd drive is in master mode. so what you end up wanting is having 1 master and 1 slave; can't be both....hope this helps it recognize the drive.

it's probably too late to return it...but you could go for an external hard drive like a 1tb goes for $100 and save your movies there. you could play back to your hdtv via 1) and hdmi cable if your pc has it or 2) a Western Digital HD Live Media Player (you can hook up to 2 usb drives)! and is network capable. This beats out having to put in and take out each bd disc you want to watch. How much is a bd disc these days?

[woodsyi]

Thanks,

I will try that.  I wanted the BR burner so that I can send out the disks to other people.  I got requests from a lot of people in the college opera production that my daughter was in.   The best I can get is 4x write once single side (25GB) at about $2 each in a bundle of 25.  BD RE is like $7 single side at 2x. 

[srb]

check to see if there is a jumper at the back of your old dvd drive next to the power cable. pull out the jumper (if there is one, it probably is on master mode) and align it to next column to set it to slave mode. there should be a small diagram on the drive to show how the jumper can be attached if you wanted it to be on slave or master mode.

Serial ATA (SATA) drives do not have Master/Slave jumpers like older Parallel ATA (PATA) drives.
 
As far as daisy chaining two drives on a power cable, that should be no problem, but it is odd that the drive tray doesn't open.  Double check the power connection by removing and reconnecting.
 
Which Dell model computer do you have?
 
Steve

[woodsyi]

I got Studio XPS 121M as an open box special at a local store.   

[ichillpill]

Waaah, sorry for my incorrect info! I guess times have changed and Sata has addressed that annoyance in chaining drives...

Serial ATA (SATA) drives do not have Master/Slave jumpers like older Parallel ATA (PATA) drives.
 
As far as daisy chaining two drives on a power cable, that should be no problem, but it is odd that the drive tray doesn't open.  Double check the power connection by removing and reconnecting.
 
Which Dell model computer do you have?
 
Steve

[woodsyi]

Double check the power connection by removing and reconnecting.
 
Steve

Finally got a chance to check.  Bingo.  Somehow it was loose and I didn't see that.  I tripled checked the make sure the new drive was connected.  I probably yanked the top one while I was doing that.   

Anyway,  all is well and both drives work just fine.

Thanks for you help and the offer to help even more had it been something more.