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I dropped by OfficeDepot todat to pick up the cheapie verbatim CDR drive, they were out of stock and the manager offered my the Pacific Digital Mach 52 (52x24x52) drive for 29.99 - 20.00 mail in (to get me to 9.99 price like the verbatim). However, I cannot seem to find out what this drive is anywhere

The model on the box reads

Rtl 52x24x52 CDRW IDE Kit
PN: U-30146
Serial Number
*p03251540455*
U-30146-RV1

Any help would be greatly appreciated (this is my first CDR upgrade since my TDK VeloCD 12x) and I lag way behind on current drive ID technology

You'll probably have to open it up and look at the label or install it and look at the name. If there is a circle on the back right of the drive then it's a Lite-ON.

I just opened it, manufac says "Top-G"

Instal it...

it's going into a new PC...however I did a search on Top-G and the results are less than steller

Oh well, not much I can complain about for 9.99

I don't think that it was really made by Top-G...

All of the search results seems to associate Top-G with BTC or something of the like, and everyone hated them

You are correct, Top-Glory is BTC's manufacturing plant in China.

Ahh yes. Well, BTC isn't the greatest, but at least it has a Mediatek chipset...

The worse would have been Acer/Benq . And if it is true that it uses a mediatek chiset ( i don't know if it is true ) you can expect good protections copying abilities from this drive . Lite-On use mediatek chipsets . I think BTC drives still cannot handle protected audio cd .

Rooster286 wrote:I dropped by OfficeDepot todat to pick up the cheapie verbatim CDR drive, they were out of stock and the manager offered my the Pacific Digital Mach 52 (52x24x52) drive for 29.99 - 20.00 mail in (to get me to 9.99 price like the verbatim). However, I cannot seem to find out what this drive is anywhere

The model on the box reads

Rtl 52x24x52 CDRW IDE Kit
PN: U-30146
Serial Number
*p03251540455*
U-30146-RV1

Any help would be greatly appreciated (this is my first CDR upgrade since my TDK VeloCD 12x) and I lag way behind on current drive ID technology

It's a BCE 5224IM made by BTC. Piece of crap drive.

Keep this Top-G. It is good, and it recognizes many CD-R's that Lite-On doesn't. For burning, it is as fast as Lite-On, and even quieter. It is slow to read music CDs though. I really don't know why people here are crazy about Lite-On after I bought and compared all Top-G, AOpen, and Lite-On (all 52x24x52, see my post).

Good luck getting that $20 rebate... Pacific Digital may have gone belly-up. My $20 rebate (for a drive bought on Feb 16) was returned by the post office with "MOVED LEFT NO ADDRESS - UNABLE TO FORWARD - RETURN TO SENDER" on the envelope.

If you call the Pacific Digital 1-888 numbers, you get a really weird message, like they didn't pay their bill or something.

Well, I'm returning the drive to Officemax tomorrow.... I will NOT get screwed out of a warranty as a matter of principle. Now NO stores have good old fashioned SALES anymore, it's just this rebate crap because they know that less than 50% of the public mails them in.

The drive was only $29 before rebate, but I wouldn't pay that much for a Behavior Tech drive when a little more can get you a Lite-on!

UPDATE on warranty status - Pacific Digital now has address information on their website. OfficeMax rebates returned by the Post Office should be sent to a new address:

P.O. Box 16397
Irvine, CA 92623-6397