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MSI, as some of you may know, are a reputable company most commonly known for their motherboards, as well as graphics cards and many other items of computer hardware. They are not as well known for optical storage devices - but I own a MSI motherboard so I decided to give it a go...
>Value<
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...- but I own a MSI motherboard so I decided to give it a go...
>Value<
The drive was priced well, just under £100.
When the drive arrived, first impressions were good. It was well packaged, and intact (parcel force were obviously feeling gentle). Prying open the protective polystyrene revealed the drive, instructions, audio cable, screws, and a software CD. This contains a basic version of Ahead Nero - handy burning ... ...DVDs! Confused, I checked the MSI forums and found that the firmware was dodgy and many people had the same problems. Once I updated the firmware, everthing was fine though. This is a fairly simple process but risky if you arent careful and involves making a bootdisk. If the words 'risky' and 'bootdisk' in the same sentence scares you, then don't buy this drive!
Firmware is information held on an internal chip that controls the drive. New ... more
I own a digital camcorder, so I decided to purchase a DVD writer. There seems to be fierce competition at the moment, so prices have at last dropped to the £100 mark and below. MSI, as some of you may know, are a reputable company most commonly known for their motherboards, as well as graphics cards and many other items of computer hardware. They are not as well known for optical storage devices - but I own a MSI motherboard so I decided to give it a go...
>Value< The drive was priced well, just under £100. When the drive arrived, first impressions were good. It was well packaged, and intact (parcel force were obviously feeling gentle). Prying open the protective polystyrene revealed the drive, instructions, audio cable, screws, and a software CD. This contains a basic version of Ahead Nero - handy burning software.
>Installation< Installation was easy - I have installed many drives before but for those of you who may need instructions, these were present and easy to follow. Windows detected the drive with no problems and was happy to enable DMA access for optimum speed (if you dont know how to check/enable this, search online).
>Firmware (Updating the drive)< I was happy burning CDs and DVDs for a couple of days -when the drive suddenly stopped reading anything except retail DVDs! Confused, I checked the MSI forums and found that the firmware was dodgy and many people had the same problems. Once I updated the firmware, everthing was fine though. This is a fairly simple process but risky if you arent careful and involves making a bootdisk. If the words 'risky' and 'bootdisk' in the same sentence scares you, then don't buy this drive! Firmware is information held on an internal chip that controls the drive. New firmware can fix problems and add compatibility with new DVD blanks for your drive. You may want to check compatibility on the MSI site before you buy blank DVDs. Sony blanks, for instance, aren't supported!
>Burning< The drive only supports burning my particular brand of 4x DVDs at 2x - which takes ~30mins. I am going to get some Ritek G04 media (search for it) which is reliable and supported at 4x. However, I seriously recommend against multi-tasking while burning. The drive has a buffer and is on a seperate IDE channel to my hard disk, AND I am running WinXP Pro on an Athlon XP 1800+ with 512MB of RAM, but I have killed several blank DVDs by trying to browse the web etc while burning. Burning CD's is fine though and supported at upto 24x.
>Reading< The drive is fine for reading DVDs and CDs, although the access time and transfer rates aren't brilliant so I use my other DVD/CD reader for other tasks.
>Overall< Once you have ironed out any problems by updating the firmware, and when you leave your PC alone while you burn, this drive works fine. If you are an intermediate to experienced PC user, then by all means by this drive, check out the forums to update the firmware, and you will end up with a respectable drive at an even more respectable price. If, however, you expect it to work flawlessly from the box, then you may wish to spend a little more and look elsewhere. The choice is yours! Dave.
NB. Updating the firmware for ANY DVD writer is highly recommded, as it fixes issues and adds compatibility for new media. I would recommend that anyone looking to purchase a DVD writer of any brand finds out how to do this.
Advantages: Price- 60 GBP Disadvantages: Won't work with Win98SE
...a DVD-R!
I contacted MSI as follows:
I have just bought this DR4-a DVD writer. I have burnt an audio CD succesfully, I can play a DVD- R but when I insert blank DVD+ or DVD- the media is not recognised. It appears in "My Computer" as if it were an audio CD with 1 track. It attempts to autorun, but generates an error
from the CDplayer saying please insert an audio disk.
Please can you help?
The reply was:
Dear Customer,
That is the system behavior ... ...2000¡BXP. Best regards, MSI Technical Support
As you can see, they expect me to buy a new operating system! I should add that the specification on the box includes Win98SE. The rather basic manual says it will work with WIN98SE also. I would not have bought it otherwise.
Bit of a shame, because otherwise this seems like a well made well priced bit of kit. ...
DynamicDave 15.05.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of MSI DR4-A
MSI DR4-A takes less time than the CD-R drive to complete a 4.7GB DVD+R or DVD-R disc. ABS Technology absorbs shock and reduces vibrations, making reading and writing of discs more accurate. MSI DR4-A also supports HD-BURN (High Density Burn). This writing technology can record twice the capacity of specified CD-R discs. An 8 MB Internal Buffer dramatically increases the success and quality when the drive is recording data.
