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 ...

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.

When you’re troubleshooting your computer or installing a new operating system, you may need to “boot from a disc” or USB device (like an external hard drive or flash drive). Here’s what that ...