The Sony drive installed without any problems. Everything you need is included in the retail box. After installing the Power DVD software, I decided to insert Lord of the Rings: Return of the King DVD to test the system. The Sony's drive tray opened silently and smoothly. Certainly much smoother than the NEC that came with my Dell 8200! The Cyberlink Power DVD software played the movie without a hitch.

All in all, this is a very capable DVD drive. I bought the unit from Best Buy, for about $59.99. At the time, there was an available Sony combination CD-RW/DVD-Rom for $89.99 (which had a mail-in rebate that would eventually reduce the cost to $69.99). I decided to go with this unit simply because I do not need the ability to write to CDs on this system. However, if you do not have any kind of CD/DVD writer on your system, I would recommend the more expensive combination unit.

There are cheaper DVD-Roms out there. But, this is a Sony. And the build quality is what you would expect. Also, this drive is shorter in depth than your typical optical drive. The smaller physical size of the drive is definitely an advantage in a small desktop system.

I highly recommend this unit to anyone looking for a simple DVD-Rom. The quality is traditional Sony, the included Power DVD player is more than capable, and the smaller physical size of the drive can make installation in a smaller desktop unit easier.

Don't buy if you want to watch dvd movies on win xp (Rating: 1.00)
Review : This DVD player works fine with windows 98, but if you're ever thinking about using windows XP, don't buy this one, unless you feel that it's okay never to be able to watch dvd movies on it.

So basicly any other dvd player works better than this one.

Doesn't like all DVD's ... (Rating: 1.00)
Review : Some of the dvd's I tried wouldn't work, or it would start spinning like crazy shortly into the DVD. Sometimes it made it beyond the menu, but not much into the movie. Trying again (rebooting, swapping DVD's, restarting programs, etc.) didn't work. However, the same DVD's it hated worked perfectly fine in a different desktop (its drive was a Lite-On).

Incredibly poor drive! (Rating: 1.00)
Review : I tried two Sony DDU-1621 DVD-ROM drives, and both of them constantly disappear from Windows Explorer and Device Manager on a brand-new install of WindowsXPSP1 on an Intel D875PBZ mobo. Reboot, reboot, reboot... Then I read the reviews elsewhere, and you would nearly think that this was the worst drive ever made. The Sony storage support website has NO official firmware updates, either. I tried a new IDE ribbon cable, but that wasn't the answer. Yes, the drive is properly configured per the instructions on the Sony drive support website. I've read that Sony doesn't even make this drive; well, they shouldn't put their name on it, either, since it drags down their namebrand quality. Best thing about it? It's even quieter when it's dead!

Works great. No problems. (Rating: 5.00)
Review : I had no problems with this drive. I was great for movies, ripping CD-Audio, and CD to CD copying.