Recently I became the mostly happy owner of an HP Pavilion dm1z. I say “mostly happy” because I wasn’t thrilled with its performance. To give the system a boost, I decided to swap the pokey 5,200-rpm hard drive with a speedy Solid State Drive (SSD).
The Samsung SSD upgrade kit I bought came with Norton Ghost 15--a utility that would copy the entire contents of my existing hard drive to the new drive--on CD. But the Pavilion, like so many ultrabooks, ultraportables, and other ultra-compact laptops, has no CD drive. How was I supposed to install Ghost?
A friend of mine had a similar problem with some new drive-less systems he’d purchased. He wanted to install his licensed, disc-based copies of Microsoft Office, but couldn’t.
Note that you can rip a CD when your computer isn't connected to the Internet. However, the Player won't be able to identify the name of the CD, the artist who created it, or the names of the songs until you go online. Insert an audio CD into the CD drive.
This begs the question: If your PC lacks an optical drive, how can you install software that’s stored on a CD or DVD?
You have two options. First, you can buy or borrow an external drive. A quick check of Ebay reveals tons of USB DVD burners selling for $20-40. Might be a handy item to have on hand.
Second, try downloading your software instead. When I checked Samsung’s support page for my SSD kit, I found not only manuals and drivers, but also Norton Ghost 15.
I downloaded it, installed it, then activated it using the license key that came with the actual disc.
You can do likewise with Microsoft Office: just download the trial version that matches the version you already own, then activate it using your product key. (This gets a little trickier with older versions of Office, as Microsoft currently offers only the 2010 edition for download. You might need to hit up some torrent sites to find older trials.) Spotify ++ iso download.
This method should work for the vast majority of other software as well. Usually you can download a trial or demo version and then unlock it with your license key. And the added bonus is you’ll have the latest updates right from the get-go.
Optical drive, shmoptical drive. Who needs it?
Contributing Editor Rick Broidawrites about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at [email protected], or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the PC World Community Forums. Sign up to have the Hassle-Free PC newslettere-mailed to you each week.
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How To Download From Laptop To Cd
In a process known as ripping,Windows Media Player in Windows 10 can copy your CDs to your PC as MP3 files, the industry standard for digital music. But until you tell the player that you want MP3 files, it creates WMA files — a format that won’t play on iPads, most smartphones, nor many other music players.
To make Windows Media Player create songs with the more versatile MP3 format instead of WMA, click the Organize button in the top-left corner, choose Options, and click the Rip Music tab. Choose MP3 instead of WMA from the Format drop-down menu and nudge the audio quality over a tad from 128 to 256 or even 320 for better sound.
To copy CDs to your PC’s hard drive, follow these instructions:
How To Download Audio Cd To Laptop
Here are some tips for ripping CDs to your computer:
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