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Installation was simple and straightforward for a standard ATAPI device. In our test machine we chose to install the drive as a master on the secondary IDE channel of our system board (as stated by the manual for best performance) and slave the existing Lite-on 48X drive. Yes –we know the Lite-on drive is a bit slow for testing purposes, but it’s all we had on hand :)

The manuals that came with the PlexWriter drive are very comprehensive and clear in all their instructions. Even if you have never cracked open the case on a computer before –the Plextor documentation can get you going with the installation of the drive in just a few minutes.

Everything is included in the package to get your drive installed and there wasn’t anything additional we needed, Plextor took extra time to assure that you won’t -even going as far to include an emergency tray-open tool to “pop” the drive tray open in case it gets stuck in the closed position!

The Software included with the package makes me smile from ear to ear! Of course what else could you top such a prestigious drive with other than the award winning software from Adaptec EZ CD creator, and DirectCD version 4! In addition, also included in the software package are a few other programs proprietary to Plextor, which are actually three separate programs bundled together to create and play music files and to copy CDs. Installation of these programs was very simple and straightforward. We had no problems getting all of them working after a quick system reboot. Here’s a brief run-down of each program included and what we liked and didn’t like about them.

To start we installed the EZ-CD creator (v.4) from Adaptec. This software is one of the most widely used and distributed CD-writing utilities out there. It has support for all the new features the Plextor drive has including Burnproof technology as well as MP3 music file drag and drop support! We loved this software from the start. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s familiar and it’s stable –what’s not to like?

Next is the also highly acclaimed DirectCD from Adaptec as well. It allows you to perform packet-writing sessions on CD-R disks or CD-RW disks –to treat them just like any other removable media (such as floppies). Again, this software from Adaptec is easy to use, and very stable. We like!

The extra additions to the software bundle were as already mentioned proprietary to the Plextor drive. Not to say they can’t be used with any other CD-RW, but each software title is stamped with the Plextor name –thus obviously developed for them only. The entire package is grouped in a Plextor Manager 2000 group icon after install and there are three separate programs that can actually be used