Installation was as easy as it gets. I just plugged in the power and then plugged the USB cable to my laptop. Windows ME auto detected the device and I put in the CD to install the drivers. I was ready to burn in about 2-3 minutes.

Unfortunately, I did not read the reviews here before purchasing this product. If I had, I would not have bought it. However, I bought mine from an on-line auction (ubid.com) for $69 bucks (re-furb) so if it didn't work, I wouldn't be out too much.

I have an internal burner in my desktop which is a 4x4x24, so buying the HP CD-Writer 8230e 4x4x6 didn't bother me. I was looking at an external firewire device but I wasn't quite ready to drop the $200+ (drive and firewire card). I'm not a heavy burner and the 4x suites me just fine.

A friend of mine has an internal HP burner and we made a few saucers trying to burn a CD before I quit. I borrowed the CD and burned it on my desktop system and it burned just fine. The only reason I can think that it didn't work with my friends CDRW is the burner or the software. So I didn't install the HP software that came with my HP CD-Writer 8230e. It's simple but not the best. Instead, I installed Nero 5.5 and CD Clone v3 which have both worked flawlessly even when burning on-the-fly. I've also used different media brands (4x max, 8x max and 16x max)with no problems either.

Compared to the other reviewers, I may just be lucky. For those that are having problems, I'd try different software.

Laptop: Compaq Presario 1200T, Windows ME, 280MB Ram, 6.0 GB HD, Intel Celeron 1Ghz

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 69
Operating System: Windows