The drive, which is an internal IDE model, is accompanied by some mounting screws, a rather skimpy instruction sheet, which takes you step-by-step through the installation process, one blank CD-R and CD-RW disc, plus a software CD, which includes the excellent Nero. The one notable omission is the lack of a dual IDE cable, which may be necessary, depending on your PCs configuration. Installation was straightforward--a case of setting the jumpers on the back of the drive, removing our test PCs case and slotting it into one of the vacant 5.25" bays, connecting the IDE cable and the power connector, fixing the drive in place with the mounting screws, replacing the case and rebooting. Again, this process can vary slightly depending on your PC, but it remains straightforward in most cases. Windows automatically recognised the drive and it just remained to install the software, which was also a painless task.

The software included is the excellent Nero Burning ROM. Where Nero excels is in its advanced feature set, tailored towards those who want to maximise the use of their CD-RW drive. Whether you are looking to overburn CD-Rs so as to squeeze more data on, write to multiple drives simultaneously, create bootable CDs, remove hiss from analogue recordings, utilise buffer under-run technology, such as SMART-BURN or you need UDF support for packet writing CD-RWs, Nero has a powerful set of tools to help you. It is also the ideal companion for those working with multimedia files. For those with less experience of CD writing, who are likely to be overwhelmed by the vast array of features Nero has to offer, a Wizard system is available to manage the less involved tasks. This makes burning direct copies of CDs a simple matter of following a walkthrough of options.