How can I add a DVD drive to my Microsoft Windows PC?

You must have a relatively old PC, I have to say. It's been a while since they sold computers that had CD drives rather than DVD/CD drives. If you'd said you couldn't burn DVDs, that'd be a different story, but we'll have to work with what we have.

Generally there are two possible solutions in your situation: replace the CD drive with an internal DVD drive, or buy an external drive and plug it in to your computer.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

Most importantly, to replace an internal drive (or add another internal drive that'll live inside your computer's case) you need to be comfortable taking your computer apart, fiddling with it, plugging in picky little cables, tightening tiny screws, and generally messing about with something that's a tricky piece of electronics.

You also need to figure out what kind of drive you already have since there are a variety of different types of drives (ATA, SATA, Parallel, SCSI) and you'll need to exactly match what you have now lest you find you can't plug the new one in.

Doable, but not for the faint of heart.

Now you could take your computer in to a service place and they can upgrade it - or the geeky boy or girl down the street can help - but that's an additional expense over and above the cost of the new hardware, and suddenly it can seem like getting Guitar Hero III to work is going to cost more than just booking a band to play in your living room.

External DVD drives are an excellent alternative, however, and there are a wide variety of surprisingly inexpensive options. For example, a quick search on Amazon.com produces about twenty matches, ranging in price from $49 to $110 dollars. In this instance, the key is how you're going to connect the drive to your computer, and I'm going to guess that since you have an older PC you'll have USB, but not USB 2.0 (which is faster), and you won't have a Firewire connector. Look on the back to make sure, but if that's true, then you can pick up a good external USB DVD drive for about $50 and not just solve your Guitar Hero III problem but be set up for any other software you purchase in the future that's distributed on DVD.

I hope that helps. Rock on!