As with most other CD-RW drives, installing the Lite-On CD-RW drive was a breeze. Just install the drive into an empty 5½" bay and plug in the IDE connector and power plug. And Windows would automatically detect and display the drive in the Device Manager. You should see a LITE-ON LTR-12101B drive detected under the DVD/CD-ROM drive section.

Device Manager detects the Lite-On 12x10x32x CD-RW drive

After that, all you need to do is just to install the recording software and you're ready to start burning your own CDs! You may use the bundled Adaptec CD Recording Software CD or alternative software like Nero Burning ROM or even CDRWin.

Just make sure you install or patch to the latest version. This is because the Lite-On drive is relatively new to the market. Therefore, some older programs might not be able to recognize the drive. In addition, while the drive supports BURN-Proof, the software must also support BURN-Proof in order to take advantage of that technology.

The CD contains the installation files for the Adaptec Easy CD Creator Standard Edition v4.02 and DirectCD. There's also an update utility for you to update the Easy CD Creator to version 4.02d S24. However, I would suggest you apply the latest patch from Adaptec's website instead. For your information, Adaptec's software department have changed their name to Roxio. Therefore, the correct URL to visit for patches would be http://www.roxio.com/.

An inside look at Adaptec's Easy CD Creator 4

The CD also includes a few license-free MP3s, courtesy of MP3.com and emusic.com. I suppose the MP3s were included to allow new users to quickly practice burning their own Audio CDs.