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[DJofSD]

I can appreciate the confusion. Terminology and acronyms help to abrieviate things for the knowledgable geek but if you're not over the hump then it gets confusing quickly.

It sounds like your older PC is a vintage one from when IDE predominated the market. IDE as a acronym is Integrated Drive Electronics. There's a history there as to why that was important at one time, however, what you need to know is IDE means parallel and uses those flat ribbon cables. Most likely you have two: the first connects to the hard drive and the second goes to the DVD.

Next, there is SATA. Bottom line, the "S" means serial. Which is not parallel. SATA uses a different connector since it is serial. If you look inside most, if not all, computers of recent vintage, they are using SATA and you should see cables that are smaller and usually red or orange connecting the hard drives to the controller. The controller is usually just another set of chips located on the mother board (MB), though, early on before all of this stuff got integrated onto the MB there were separate boards for the PCI bus.

For you to use the newer SATA devices, you need to get one of those SATA controllers for the PCI bus in the HP.

There are a couple of different flavors of PCI busses and the boards that plug into them. The newer one is PCIe while the older is just plain old PCI. Very likely your HP has PCI. Post the model/part number and a little bit if internet searching should turn up the details of the box which will help configure the upgrade. But you should be safe assuming plain old PCI.

Of course, all of the rest of the characteristics of the upgrade need to be discussed too. These are the electrical and physical.

The physical size of the slot for the DVD drive will determine what will fit for all 3 dimensions: highth, width and depth. Not all burners are of the same exact size. Very likely the older IDE DVD drive was large and the empty space it fills is likely big enough to take anything newer, but, it is best to double check especially the length of the drive slot -- how long it is from the very front of the face of the PC to the furthest point into the case the back end of the drive protrudes. There are some drives which have a short dimension, and, to point out the obvious, a smaller drive will fit into a longer space but a drive that is longer that the space in the PC where it is suppose to go could be a show stopper.

The check of the electrical is primarily the connector for the power supply and the voltage. I believe these are all MOLEX and are 5 volts. They're typically a whitish plastic and are keyed -- one corner has an angled cut to it and will only fit into the plug coming from the PC's power supply one way. It is very, very, very likely all of the power connector are exactly the same, so, from that perspective, it is plug and chug. But, make sure before hand -- look before you leap.

Yes, I just told you how to build a watch but I think the background information and discussion should level set you and get your comfort level up in order to do the upgrade. It actually is a very straight forward upgrade.

Find whatever SATA controller which will work with the specific PCI bus the HP has in it, and, whatever fits your budget. I have in the past used a number of Adaptec products but these are more expensive.

I would expect any aftermarket DVD burner to come with a SATA cable but if not these can be had at just about any electronic supply store.

Check the maintenance level of the XP operating system. XP-SP3 has been out there long enough there should not be any problems with drivers, etc.

Follow the instructions from the SATA controller manufactor. Take caution to not generate any static electricity while working on the system unit which has been unplugged and let sit for a while.

Once the new SATA controller board is installed, boot the system. Watch the messages as XP loads and very likely you will see some messages about a new device and Windows should successfully install the needed drivers. Once that is done you should be able to see the new item in the Device Manager application.

Next, install the new DVD burner. Again, follow the directions. If there are new drivers supplied by the manufactor, it should be a part of the directions when and how to get these on the system. Again, after all of the installation work for the optical drive is done, you should be able to see it in the Device Manager application.

You should be done and ready to use the new burner.

Good luck.