Disc drive

stefano

I have a Dell Inspiron Mini 1011 on XP. I have hundred of CD's I would like to upload on my drive, but no means of doing so. My kids have itunes on their laptops, and I tried to have a file from their laptop, but Window Media Player cannot read it.
Can anyone direct me towards a decent and good value external disc drive that may also read DVDs?

Toxteth_OGrady

If your laptops and netbook are all on your home network you don't need to buy anything. Just set up a share.

poppy10_2

stefano wrote: »

My kids have itunes on their laptops, and I tried to have a file from their laptop, but Window Media Player cannot read it.

Windows Media Player cannot read m4a files. If you download VLC, you will be able to read the files, assuming your kids have ripped them from CD

stefano

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

If your laptops and netbook are all on your home network you don't need to buy anything. Just set up a share.

And how do we do that?

m5rcc

stefano wrote: »

And how do we do that?

XP has a Files and Network wizard. Just make sure that all PCs are under the same network workgroup.

There is a guide here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/setup/default.mspx

free4440273

stefano wrote: »

I have a Dell Inspiron Mini 1011 on XP. I have hundred of CD's I would like to upload on my drive, but no means of doing so. My kids have itunes on their laptops, and I tried to have a file from their laptop, but Window Media Player cannot read it.
Can anyone direct me towards a decent and good value external disc drive that may also read DVDs?

They are available aplenty on, say, Amazon / inexpensive and much the muchness really/ just make sure compatible with XP/Windows 7 ////

marms

if you download a free program called CDex you can rip all your cds in mp3 format on the laptop, then copy the mp3 files to your dell using a memory card or usb drive.

Toxteth_OGrady

stefano wrote: »

And how do we do that?

How did you get the iTunes tracks from your kid's laptop? Was it across the network?

If you are networked connected all you need to do is go to My Computer on the laptop, right-click on its CD drive and select sharing. You should then be able to browse to the shared drive via Network Neighborhood in your netbook.

Another method is to install Imgburn or Isorecorder on the laptop and create image files (.iso) of each of your CDs on its hard drive. You can then copy those across the network.

If you are connected wirelessly it will be slow. If you connect both the netbook and laptop to your router with a couple of ethernet patch cables it will be quicker.

If you use the iso method, just install Virtual Clone Drive on your netbook and it will read the CDs isos as if you had a a real physical CD disk and a physical CD drive fitted.

The other option is to connect the laptop and netbook directly to each other with a patch cable and make an ad-hoc network to copy the CDs across.

stefano

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

How did you get the iTunes tracks from your kid's laptop?

I copied the iTunes track onto a stick.
If I set up another user account on my daughter's laptop, can I choose which default media player I want? My daughter would have iTunes, because she has an ipod. And will it interfere with her account settings?

stefano

stefano wrote: »

I copied the iTunes track onto a stick.
If I set up another user account on my daughter's laptop, can I choose which default media player I want? My daughter would have iTunes, because she has an ipod. And will it interfere with her account settings?

This actually did work. I set up a new user account on her laptop, started Windows Media Player, which then asked me if I wanted it to be my default player, and copied my CD onto the drive, and moved it onto my stick, which then went into my notebook.

Result:j

closed

you didn't need to create a new account, just launch windows media player and rip to mp3