Optical drives are still practical for many users, whether to play old CDs and DVDs, install software, or create backups—especially with modern laptops, which are usually supplied without a drive.

There’s a good chance your next computer won’t have an optical drive (that would be the place on the side of your laptop where you insert discs). For those already immersed in technology, losing the ...

Hard drives and optical drives are the most failure-prone items on a laptop. They're also among the easiest to swap out, upgrade, or, in some cases, live without. Here are the best fixes for saving, ...

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 ...