Gotega External DVD Drive, USB 3.0 Portable +/-RW, DVD Player for CD ROM Burner Compatible with Laptop Desktop PC Windows Linux OS Apple Mac Black

I was initially a bit sceptical over the drive as it is so low cost while the big brand name equivalents are 3 to 4 times and more expensive. However, I only needed a CD/DVD disc drive to load my software on CDs/DVDs and to read my data files. Since my needs are pretty much basic, I didn't need a drive with all the bells and whistles and after a lot of shopping around on Amazon, finally settled for this drive for my Windows 11 laptop. I have two free software programs to run the drive as it didn't come supplied with any. This is not a deal breaker as one can download free programs like VLC and cyberlink. VLC does not burn discs but reads them very well while cyberlink software reads and writes. Both programs are not for Blu-Ray in their native form. If you need reading and burning software for Blu-ray discs, I'd suggest looking elsewhere or buying the upgrade professional version from cyberlink and a Blu-ray disc reader/burner - which this "gogeta" unit is not and suits only CDs and DVD discs.. In any case, the drive worked straight off with the need for either VLC (VideoLan) or cyberlink as Windows 11 recognized the drive immediately and popping in a CD/DVD disc with a movie or MP3 music will work pretty straight off. If there is any drawback to the "gotega" drive (Made in China), it is that the "User Instructions is printed in a tiny scrap of paper less than A4 in size and in font size that would require the use of a magnifying glass to read. I overcame this by scanning the instructions and then, printed them in an enlarged format on a full A4 sheet (two sheets required - one for the front and one for the back). The USB cable is a bit short but there are many other drives that are supplied with equally short cables. The "gotega" disc drive USB3 cable is only around 8 inches in length. Not a big deal again as I suppose a longer cable will make transportation harder as well as affect the electrical properties of the data carrying cable. The drive itself is very lightweight and feels almost flimsy and has to be handled with care. Alternatively, it is too heavy, it will attract criticisms too especially when it is used in a laptop and not a desktop. One final minor drawback is the fact that because the drive is so light (and very silent as well which a good thing), it tends to get pushed around a bit easily as there are no sticky rubber feet to help hold down the drive - especially when you are pushing the eject button (the eject function in software control is also available in Windows 11) and so, it's not a big deal as one can easily get some small stick-on soft rubber feet from the local hardware store (or Amazon). The eject function gets the drive to pop out about under an inch while you will have to pull the rest of the disc carrier manually but again, this is a low-cost unit that does the job without any problems so far. I hope that it will be durable in the long term for use in my ASUS laptop but for the time being, I have been pretty satisfied with this product.

Laptop registers the dvd but then the videos weeren't playing.

AWSOM... All my old CD/DVD working fine, Thanks Amazon

First, for under $30, you can't go wrong here. The callouts in the description above are quite good, so make sure you review those if you do have any issues. I'm using this as a CD ripper to bring older CD's into my NAS by converting them into MP3's. I'm using Windows to do this, and I had a couple of speed-bumps not otherwise mentioned in the product description along the way: 1 - Make sure you go into your Windows Device Manager and Check "Enable Error Correction", otherwise, you will get an instant "Can not rip one more tracks from this CD". 2 - Use the older USB-A plug-in when ripping. Using the USB-C interface appeared to work well for playing CD's etc, but when I tried to rip one, the device kept spinning up the disc and then stopping and starting over. Looking into the folder, it had ripped the first 300 bytes or so of the first track, and was continually spinning up and failing. On a hunch, I switched to the older USBA port and it worked fine. I have not tried this on any of my Macbook Pros to see if their USBC's work, mainly because I hate using iTunes for anything ever, under any circumstances.

This CD/DVD drive is so easy to use - simply plug it in and it works immediately. I have lots of old photos stored on CD, which I wanted to transfer to my PC and was really impressed with the read-speed and transfer speed. It's very slim and lightweight so would easily slide into a laptop bag. It also plays our DVDs perfectly. Excellent drive.