MSI DR4-A > Reviews > Let down by MSI

Author's product rating:   

Reliability	Average
Ease of Installation	Good - quick to install
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Price -  60 GBP
Disadvantages:	Won't work with Win98SE

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I want a DVD burner to archive data, in particular digtal photos, and also to create Video disks from my camcorder.

I have waited vainly for an answer to the question DVDplus or minus. I once even had opposing answers to this question spoken confidently by staff in the same shop!

I have also waited for some time for the price to fall to a reasonable level. The DR4-A whilst not cutting edge - (only burns at 4x) seemed like a good solution. The price at £60 is the cheapest I have seen, especially as it was bought from a local shop, not mail order.

I have fitted CDrom drives before, with no problem. In this case I merely substituted the new DVD drive for my existing basic CDrom drive. I find I can burn Cds with no trouble, and it plays audio as it should.

I installed all the included software - (some local shops sell drives like this with no bundled software, but this package includes an OEM version of NERO.) I could find no software for playing a DVD, even though it says there is some on the box. However when I had downloaded a free player from the internet, I was able to play DVDs with no problem.

The trouble started when I tried to burn a DVD. I inserted ab DVD+R blank, and after a few seconds My Computer showed "Audio CD" with one track 1Gbyte. Same thing with 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 with DVD blank disc on Windows 98SE¡BME,
You can try it on Windows 2000¡BXP. It won't happen on Windows 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.