External cd Rec/Player
 

Hi,
I just need a bit of info, If I connect and external cd unit to a Laptop do I need anything else ??? ie will it record /play ??

Playing an audio CD like that should just work. You'll need to run some software on the laptop but Windows Media Player should suffice. Other players are available. You'll need headphones obviously unless the laptop has speakers.

Assuming the external CD unit and the CD blanks support recording then you can copy audio files to the CD and play them back from there. If you want to create an audio CD that would work in a music CD player then that would be more complicated. There will be apps that you can download to the laptop that could do it.

HTH

For info, there has been a problem recording to DVD with Windows 10 using both internal and external players/writers. I wasn't able to write files to DVD at all on my last laptop, CDs were OK. Seems to have been a well known problem and none of the suggested technical solutions I found through Google worked.

Haven't tried with my new laptop which has no internal drive; I do have external writer and have upgraded the laptop to Win 11... I guess USB media and cloud sharing have rendered the CD/DVD obsolete in Microsoft's mind but it was a pain in the rear at the time!

I have no problems playing or ripping CD's with Windows 10 on my Internal optical CD/\DVD drive. It has however, been a while since I have recorded anything to a disk.

I do mine to a memory stick for use in the car.