Re: DRU500A Failed big time !! Replacement drive died !!

[SonyUser]

Re: DRU500A Failed big time !! Replacement drive died !!

This is a follow-up to my problems !

OK, lets start by placing specs here of the system

Athlon 1800XP (un-clocked)
MSI KT3 Ultra2 (with Raid, but not used) MS 6380E motherboard
256meg DDR memory
ATI AIW 7500 AGP card
Maxtor 60gig HD (IDE)
SB Live 5.1
Ricoh MP5120A

400watt PSU to power system.

Replacement drive came today with firmware 1.0c.
Drive manufactured 07 October 2002

Flashed the drive to 1.0f re-booted PC

Burnt two DVD-R's read them back in the drive, all fine so far.

Burn 3rd DVD-R, go out while drive burns the disc, come back 2 hours later.

Go to read the disc in the Sony DRU500A, burning smell, drive died again while trying to read the disc !

Media used
DVD-R media from DATASAFE made by RITEK. Rated 2x burn.

Anyone else had this problem ?

If you have, please responed here with details as I am now making a list.

SonyUser

[slice-n-dice]

yep my drive died too (Manufactured OCT 2002) - it took longer and longer to read disks (any) and then one day wouldn't ready anything.

Just got my replacement after about 2 weeks (manufactured 19 Dec 2002). Came with 1.0d firmware just flashed to 1.0f working fine.

PC used was 2.53 GHz Northwood
Asus P4S8X motherboard.

[aviationwiz]

Wow,

Sounds like the DRU-500A still has some bugs. If your fine with only DVD+R, I recomend the Ricoh 5125. Mine is the Verbatim Producer 2.4x, it's really the Ricoh 5125.

[VEFF]

The fact that you had BOTH go bad leads me to wonder whether it could be (other than terrible luck):
1) A bug in that particular MSI firmware revision or MSI mobo design

2) A bad voltage setting or other hardware issue, unique to your PC.
Maybe an old or faulty IDE cable (exposed wires or soemthing else electrical that could short your Sony somehow; I am not an electrical expert, so this theory may not hold water).

Maybe you could try the next one with a different mobo or PC, and then move it to the MSI equipped PC, once you know it is working for a few weeks.

My DRU-500A is still going strong after two and half months on a Promise PCI "Ultra100" IDE controller card, hooked up to a FIC AD11 mobo and Win XP Pro.

You must be so frustrated after waiting for the replacement, only to have the same thing happen again. Sorry!

[SonyUser]

Hi VEFF,

Thanks for your idea's on this. I now have a 3rd DRU500A (internal) from Sony and I am testing it in my PIV system running Windows 98SE as I type. The drive was manufactured on the 17th December 2002 (so the label says) and came with the 1.0e firmware, I have since updated this to 1.0f in the PIV system.

I only got the drive back on Thursday (yesterday), so not many burns have been done at this stage, but I will be testing this drive out over the next few weeks to see if I can get it to fail again.

PIV is an AOPEN AX4B Pro motherboard with the lastest BIOS. The PSU is 350WATT.

The only thing I have done different this time is use the IDE lead that came with the drive and the mounting screws.

I also now have the DRX500UL (also got this Thursday), this is also manufactured Dec 2002, but came with the 1.0d firmware, it has not been updated yet with the 1.0f firmware, using it to test with first. This is connected to my Athlon system via the i-Link port (Firewire) and seems to be working well so far with reading disc's. This drive has not burned any disc's yet.

More will follow over the next few days / weeks.

[VEFF]

Hi VEFF,

Thanks for your idea's on this. I now have a 3rd DRU500A (internal) from Sony and I am testing it in my PIV system running Windows 98SE as I type. The drive was manufactured on the 17th December 2002 (so the label says) and came with the 1.0e firmware, I have since updated this to 1.0f in the PIV system.

I only got the drive back on Thursday (yesterday), so not many burns have been done at this stage, but I will be testing this drive out over the next few weeks to see if I can get it to fail again.

PIV is an AOPEN AX4B Pro motherboard with the lastest BIOS. The PSU is 350WATT.

The only thing I have done different this time is use the IDE lead that came with the drive and the mounting screws.

I also now have the DRX500UL (also got this Thursday), this is also manufactured Dec 2002, but came with the 1.0d firmware, it has not been updated yet with the 1.0f firmware, using it to test with first. This is connected to my Athlon system via the i-Link port (Firewire) and seems to be working well so far with reading disc's. This drive has not burned any disc's yet.

More will follow over the next few days / weeks.

You're welcome SonyUser!
Glad you got the third one quickly, at least.
Keep us posted

Good luck!

[rompil]

New here but I have to agree with VEFF. Have burned a bunch of disks with no problems so far! I would really look at the power supply and monitor voltages.

BTW VEFF how do you have all those burners arranged in your box?

[Solr_Flare]

I'll be interested to hear the results, if it turns out to be an actual flaw in the drive itself that may explain the difficulty of finding the drive and part of the reasoning behind the new "x" versions of the drives coming next month.

Either way I'm waiting until the "x" models come out before I add this drive to my system if anything just for slightly lower prices from online vendors with a greater supply available. But thanks for going all out on the testing....the big question will be, if the drive works flawlessly now, are you willing to take the risk and put it back the way your old one was to find the true cause of the error? LOL j/k