My DYNEX DVDRW IDE 16X burner is toast, please excuse the pun. Could anyone recommend a good burner that will not give out after 6 months. Looking at a Sony, DRX 820 U and want to know if this is a reliable burner. Did google search for burner reviews and not much comes up. What is the difference in an internal and external drive? Other then location. Hate to spend $30 a crack to replace and am not computer savy. Have a Pentium III, 500 processor and 256 RAM. I use DVD shrink often Nero 6 Suite Looking for something easy to use and dependable. Could also use advice on how to clear out my previous burner and drives, so as not to interfere with different software. All suggestions welcome. Noticed lite scribe burners, any suggestions there?
granny2 I use a lot of NEC DVDRW for computers I build for my family. I like to buy at Directron.com - they are out of Houston,Texas - mostly online sales and some walk-ins. They run about $30 - if you want to make external they stock the Vantec Nexstar 3 5.25 enclosures(I think around $35).
Externals are more expensive,and harder to find the quality ones. I stress quality when it comes to dvd-rw drives.You'll need USB 2 or Firewire. A lot of peeps will take NEC internal drives and place them into external enclosures. Usually a lot cheaper than the regular externals. Cracking a case is pretty easy.I can do it under 5 mins. You just have to configure the drive. You have to match the correct flat ribbon connector with the pin settings of the jumpers. Let us know you're going to swap it or add it to your existing dvd-rw drive. I believe the sony DRU-820 is a rebadged Benq,and maybe the 1640 model? Should be a great drive,just different firmware compared to the ligitimate Benq 1640. With those limited specs,Benq drives can handle your pc. I have an old P3 598 mhz celeron/256 mbs rimm and my benq 1640 burns sweet,just slow encoding. Benq 1640/1650/and the lightscribe model of 1655- If you can find any of them. Also check out the NEC,Pioneer,LG,and lite-ons. Not sure of which model # is better than the other,but over all-quality drives. Quality drives will save you from a lot of headaches.
If I can add it to the existing drive, that would be great. Was planning on installing tomorrow but did not know if I should delete the old drive first and run a cleaning tool. I do have liveupdate to check the firmware. Might try my hand at opening the case and seeing first hand if I can replace the internal on my own. Would prefer internal to save desk space. I did find a site to compare and read reviews, your suggestions are very good ones. My model did not come up, but they did have a Sony DRX 10 that had good reviews. THX to both of you for responding.
Personally I would recommend lite-on. They have been very reliable for me. Feature rich including bitset ready. NEC's and pioneer's require a flash with hacked firmware to be capable of bitsetting dvd5 media. Good prices here and very good service, ask anybody. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...336&Submit=ENE&Manufactory=1336&SubCategory=5 I buy 90% of my pc hardware from them.
Got new burner installed. Used DVD Shrink to back up a movie, got to the burning process with no problems. When it was in the middle of writing to cauche, the computer froze. Have not taken old burner out, could that have caused the freeze up?
Make sure the new one is MASTER and the old one SLAVE if wish to keep them both. See this.. http://home.comcast.net/~bbmayo/Jumper Settings for your Drive.pdf
WOOOHOOO! I replaced my internal drive and it was so easy. But now I have two master drives, one from the external and one from the internal I just installed. How do I delete this external? Have tried to right click, but nothing happens. Wondering if I should just uninstall both Neros, each driver had a different one {startsmart and express}, run a cleaner and reinstall. Unplugged the USB thinking that might do it, NOT.
First and foremost make sure you are using quality media. See my sig. Also, your new drive may not like the media that your old drive did. Media problems and firmware updates are always the first thing you should check. It doesn't matter if your external is a Master. That only matters for the internal ones. Since you are doing a replacement, simply set the jumper on the new drive to the same position as the old drive had. IT HELPS, after removing the old drive, to boot the computer without installing anything. That way, Windows clears out any drivers or hardware-specific data pertaining to the old drive. Then shut down and install the new one. Windows will automatically "find" the drive and install it.
Hey guys im getting ready to dump my sony 710's i looked at the liteon link and theres a ton of them.Is there one that you would reccommend over another?I want it to be able to do dvd+r media and make them look like they are dvdrom......thanks in advance for an exact model number as i do not know which one of them to buy?
I like and recommend the litey SHM-165H6S. It is also lightscribe and dvd-ram capable. It all really depends on what you want it to be capable of doing. There are some new lite-on 18x drives but I don't have any experience with them. All the newer half height lite-on drives are capable of bitsetting (booktyping dvd+r to dvd-rom). The webpage with the lite-on booktype utility is down right now but I'll post it later when the webpage is available. The lite-on booktype utility will automatically booktype your dvd+r media to dvd-rom regardless of what burn utility you use. You can try the link on this page http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=83441 It should be back up soon.
