Dell USB Slim DVD +/- RW Drive DW316 - Plug and Play, 8 Watt Power Consumption, Windows 11 or below - Black

Recently I had a need for a DVD player for my laptop to play a few specific discs however with technology change, of course it did not have a built in optical drive. So I hit up amazon and picked out an external DVD/BD that claimed to be plug and play. But upon using it, there was no software to read discs and it would not work with the VLC software I already was familiar with and had installed. I returned it and went looking again.I came across this external player that specifically advertised it came with software to read discs as well as to burn them. It was a bonus this Dell external would save me $$. It arrived quickly and sealed. Nearly flawless plug and play but it did require a little Googling during the software installation. I ran into trouble that Windows was blocking the installation requiring Administrator access regardless that I am the admin of my own computer. If you find you run into trouble installing the PowerDVD software that comes with this drive, try the following which was taken from the Microsoft Answers Community Forum:1. type "command prompt" into the search bar and then RIGHT click it to "Run as Administrator".2. in the command prompt window type "net user administrator /active:yes" and it should follow with "The command completed successfully" message.3. from the Start window and your user profile, click it to change to the Administrator profile and wait for it to be set up.4. locate the setup.exe file for the software and install it.5. switch back to your original user profile from the Start window.6. to disable the Admin account access the Command Prompt with Admin rights and type "net user administrator /active:no" which will also be followed by the message "The command completed successfully"This worked perfectly for me, and the software has had no issues reading the DVDs I placed in the drive. The drive initial disc spin up has a little bit of noise but then the drive quiets back down and is not noticeable during playback. Highly recommend this drive with its included PowerDVD software.

I bought this cd drive to replace an off brand one I had to send back. This one works great! It came with a cd and all I had to do is insert the cd and plug the USB into the computer. The software loaded automatically and within two or three minutes I was using the drive. The instructions were easy to understand and follow, truly "plug and play".

Update: Maybe the quick connect to my laptop was beginner's luck - I haven't always been so successful lately. Plus I got a 6-foot cord which has the proper plugs but using it seems to make it even harder to get the computer to recognize the drive than with the short original cord. I'm getting almost superstitious in my attempts to get the laptop to recognize the drive: boot the computer with/without the drive plugged in, try to connect the drive with/without a disk in the drive, long cord, short cord, etc. I usually get the computer to recognize the drive and the disc eventually but i haven't worked out the correct formula yet. I'm lowering the rating from 5 stars to 4.Original review: Based on some other reviews I read, I was a little concerned about whether the drive was truly plug-and-play, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it it connected to my Lenovo laptop right out of the box with no muss, no fuss. It remains to be seen how long the drive will last, but so far it's performing admirably. My only complaint at this point in time is that the cable is too short, and longer cables are hard to find and quite pricey. Yeah I should have paid more attention to the photos in the listing, they do show quite clearly how short the cable is, so mea culpa, but I still think the supplied cable should be about twice as long. So if you're OK with a 2-foot cable, I recommend this drive without reservation. But if you ever want use the drive while your laptop is on your lap, you may wish you had a longer cable.

It works pretty well, but it seems a little flimsy.

A nice portable DVD/CD USB drive, slim and lightweight, was plug and play on my pc, arrived quickly and works great.

Works perfectly ! Plug and and play ! Very pleased with this purchase ! I have a desktop computer and this longer cable plug works so much better than the really short one that most of these units come with.

Performs flawlessly and dead quiet. Worth the extra $10 versus the $20 junk out there.

if you are looking for an external dvd player reader writer, this is the one! Do not waste your money on the cheap ones they will not work, it happened to me. I bought the cheap one firs and spent 2 years trying to make it work, finally gave up and bought the Dell one and it was 100% worth it! Comes with software which I used instantly to rip some old cd's and move them to a USB drive so that I can listen to them in my car. It felt great to be able to do this finally! Do not waste your money on the many cheap external dvd drives, buy this one! Dell is a good Brand! Definitely reminded me of why I bought so many DELL computers and Laptops in the Past and will continue to buy in the future!