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How do you tell if your getting a Benq drive or a Cyberdrive?

>>Don't know.

Can you use the Benq firmware for the Kypermedia drive or do they change the id string?

>>Probably. I haven't heard that they've changed the string.

How do you tell if the Benq drive is one that can be updated with the dual format firmware?

>>Look at the firmware. If it starts with B3, its upgradable.

I don't understand. Is there two DW800A's?

>>Just different revisions. BenQ does this quite often.

Went to OfficeMax this morning. The CD-R's were either Imation 100 pack or Ritek (Ridata) 100 pack. Both free after $20 MIR. I picked the Riteks because they burn nearly as well as a TY disc in the LTR-52327S with QS0B.

I also picked up a five pack of the Memorex DVD-R for $4.99 (no rebates) which come with full size jewel cases individually wrapped inside. The discs are rated at 4X and K-probe identifies them as CMC Magnetics Corporation. I mainly bought them for testing in my Pioneer 106.

Jim

Ian wrote:Pacific Digital U-30201 - SKU #20678401 [/b]
Serial number starts with: 4813 = Lite-On 851 Black
Serial number starts with: 4823 = Lite-On 811 White
Serial number starts with: 43** = Lite-On 811
Serial number starts with: P ** = BTC DRW1008IM
Serial number starts with: 41D6H7432XX = NEC (ND-2500A?)

I opened up a 4794xxxxxxxx today, and it was tagged as LDW-811S beige, the 4793xxxxxxxx is a LDW-851S beige, as corrected. No NEC at the OM.

Well I guess I finally got lucky in the rebadge lottery, I'm sure they had a few more NEC's at that store. In fact I went to the first store today at 1 PM and they still had a bunch of the PD's and a bunch of the kyhpermedia burners. They also gave me back 80 bucks and a rebate form for the mail in 50 bucks

I wanted the WDC 40Gb hard drive, $20 AMIR, for my son. So I checked the OfficeMax directory for opening hour at my local store. I got there at that time and they were all gone. The store opened an hour earlier.

Khypermedia DVD writers apparently gone also, but I wasn't really looking for one.

I'll always call on Saturday from now on.

They called a nearby store which had some left and they put one aside for me to pick up on my way home from work tomorrow night.

Slim

They seem to be pretty good there. The first store opened a 42 serial number drive so I could see what it was then they held it till I came in today and let them know I had the 2500 and got my rebates while I was there. It looks to me like they are learning what sells fast and getting more stock per store, usually they're sold out for me too.

I very nearly jumped for the Western Digital 250GB.

Then as I was checking out, I found it's the model with the 1-year warranty.

The 3-year warranty of the drive is available online as OEM for about $200, and the version with Fluid Dynanic Bearings is for between $210-225 or so. I'm willing to pay the premium price for the warranty, as good as WD is, it's too much green to shell out for a drive covered only one year.

If you are worried about warranty issues, get a Maxtor or Seagate.

Slim
Who is going to get the WDC 40Gb, regardless.

LoneWolf wrote:Then as I was checking out, I found it's the model with the 1-year warranty.

I know it sucks that they changed from a three year warranty to a one year on the retail boxed drives. You can get it extended to three yaers for 14.95 from western digital.

The extra warranty might just come in handdy I just RMA one of my 80gb WD's luckly it still had a few months under it's three year warranty left.

are there still drives that come with 3 year warranty?
i thought they're all 1 year now!

The WD OEM drives still have three year warranties where the retail drives have one year. Except for the WD Raptor wtich both retail and OEM have 5 year warranties.

I beleve Maxtor and Seagate is the same way on their drives OEM 3 years reatail 1 year.

that's really weird - the OEM has more warranty than the retail? i would've thought it would be the other way about!

I beleve they changed the warranty preiod on retail drives do to mail in rebates cutting down on profit on their drives so they make you pay extra to get the three year warranty.

Why bother with the RMA BS? They are now a throwaway item.

Slim

CowboySlim wrote:Why bother with the RMA BS? They are now a throwaway item.

Slim

For $5.47 in shipping why not.

They also stopped bundling the Promise UltraATA cards inside the 160 and larger drives when they stopped the three year warranties. The last one I found was at Best Buy on New Year's. I grabbed it and took advantage of $100 in rebates they had going. I just received the last rebate ($30) from Best Buy last week. I've purchased four WD 160 gig SE drives over the past 12 months from two different retail chains. All rebates from WD were fulfilled in four weeks or less ($70 each).

Jim

Ian,

Thank you for replying to my questions.

If anyone else has bought a Pacific Digital drive please let us know what you got. Please also tell us what your serial number started with. It may help people to get the drive they want.

Note: The Western Digital hard disks are the models with a 1-year warranty. I almost bought the 250GB model until I found this out. Although without rebate, the 3-year warranty OEM ones are in the $200 range online, cheaper before rebate than OM.

Anyone else get a Pacific Digital drive from Officmax and could you tell us what you got? What did the serial number start with. It would be nice to see what drives everyone got. My officemax only had Btc drive

I already have a Pioneer A07 so I really don't need two dvd burners.

Also, did anyone buy a Khypermedia drive that was a Benq, and is upgradeable to dual format? I'm very curious about this.

The Benq looks like a a good drive.

Dartman wrote:.
A freind said he saw the new 812 over at Best Buy today also for 119 with rebates if anyone wants to try one.
You have a 14 day return with OM

There you go, Ian. The perfect complement to your news item on the homepage about the 812S showing up in Akihabara!

Well I went back after getting my price match at OM and last sunday my store had NO 812's in stock, Online claims to have them now but who knows. Any ways as of last sunday he was wrong though they did have some LiteOn 811's as far as I could tell.

I bought a Pacific Digital drive from Office Max. It was a Lite On 851s. The front list is a little wrong. My serial number started with 43 and I got a 851s. The list says 43 is for 811s. Maybe it depends on the rest of the seiral number. I'm not sure. It came with Power Dvd Xp 4.0 and Sonic MyDvd. It didn't have any blank media with it.

"did anyone buy a Khypermedia drive that was a Benq, and is upgradeable to dual format? I'm very curious about this."

I used BenQ's firmware to upgrade my firmware with no problems, so I would assume that the Dual format upgrade will work as well. You cuold always e-mail them and ask.

The BenQ drive rebadged as a Khypermedia can be upgraded to a dual format

the earlier discussion about the Benq drive having two different versions is wrong

There is two different LINES of FIRMWARE for this Benq drive, the B3 (previously upgraded to the dual format) and the B2 (still single format).

If you don't decide to upgrade to dual format you can just keep upgrading firmware on the B2 line (like me).

If you decide to upgrade the firmware to the dual format, you pay the $10 fee and download the B3 and then you upgrade on the B3 line from then on.

hydrogen wrote:What software did it come with? Was there only one Nec drive at the Officemax you went to?

The Staples I went to in Fremont, CA had plenty of PD boxes (with the NEC drive).

In fact all the ones they were carrying out to the counter had serials that started with 41V...

The one I got was an NEC ND-2500A manufactured in January 2004.

While it is not as cheap as advertised as it is as Office Max, there are $30 off $150 printable coupons for Staples that will knock the price down to the same as OM if you spend another $20.06 in the store.

Mine came with Roxio Easy CD Creator 6.2 Basic and Intervideo WinDVD as well. Actually, it came with two copies of the same CD in the package. Great quality control there at PD.