Another DRU-500A failure

[fng]

My Sony DRU-500A failed after 2 weeks of use. I was backing up data to the same DVD+RW disk that came with the system. When I tried to read the data, it locked up my pc. After several attempts & several lockups, I called Sony Support. I had to wait on hold for well over half an hour before I could actually talk to someone, and their answers were, switch from IDE slave to master, update the IDE driver, & try different media. The last one seemed especially ridiculous since I was using the very media that came packaged with the drive. (They said try TDK). I did the 1st 2 and instead of spending $8 to see if TDK DVDRW would work, I tried a plain old CDRW disk. No luck. I called 2 more times (waited over half an hour each time). I even switched the drive to a different pc while wating on the last call amd it still didn't wouldn't write. On the last call they recommended downloading and running a Drivecheck test that was on their site. Now why didn't they tell me that the 1st time? Would have saved me 4 hours. The test showed a write failure, so they recommended exchanging it where I bought it or waiting 4-6 weeks to get a new one shipped. I chose to try and find one where I bought it (Best Buy). The one I got it supposedly had 1 in inventory but could not find it on the floor or warehouse. They directed me to another one in the area that had 3. Luckily they actually did and I got a replacement (it came with firmware 1.0f). After several test burns it seems to work fine. Hopefully it will continue to do so. This experience has soured what had been a pleasant experience with this drive.

[SonyUser]

Sorry to hear about your drive, I can feel your anger after being there with two failed drives myself.

Now on my 3rd (internal) and 4th (external) drives, both these are working fine so far.

Do you know when the drive that failed was manufactured ?

And what is the date on the new drive (look at the label on the top of the drive) ?

I have a simple test to find out if a drive has died in a certain way, you will need a disc for the test.

The test checks to see if the drive will spin a disc.
Place the disc in the drive and mark it with a CD-R pen in line with the 4 lugs on the tray with numbers 1 - 4 in any order you like, closed the drive tray and wait for the light on the drive to go out, open the drive, if the numbers on the disc are in the same place as when you closed the drive tray, then you have a drive thats failed with it's motor that spins the disc.

[fng]

Here's a link to the Drivecheck test I mentioned earlier. I forgot to link it because I was so tired and frustrated.

http://sony.storagesupport.com/cdrw/diagnostics.htm

[fng]

Sorry to hear about your drive, I can feel your anger after being there with two failed drives myself.

Now on my 3rd (internal) and 4th (external) drives, both these are working fine so far.

Do you know when the drive that failed was manufactured ?

And what is the date on the new drive (look at the label on the top of the drive) ?

Sorry, I didn't want to open up my pc again after messing around with it so much yesterday (and the DRU500 is underneath another drive, so I'd have to take it out completely). So I'm going from memory, but the failed drive was made in early December & the new one in late December.

[glock20rocks]

Is this a trend with these drives? I hope not, they look nice. Maybe the "AX" version is a fix. Guess I'll be waiting awhile to see what everyones experinces with the AX drives.

What is it with Sony and hardware? I've had 5 Playstations and 3 PS2's die on me.

[aznsound]

seems like the DRU-500A is a pretty crappy drive after all...

[VEFF]

seems like the DRU-500A is a pretty crappy drive after all...

No problems with mine, received just before November.

Now I am reading up on the cheap A05 I juts got (as a 2nd drive) and am finding out that it doesn't burn Ritek 1X at anything more than 1X.
Luckily there is "true 2X Princo DVD-R media" that might burn at 2X, for a reasonable price...

[Solr_Flare]

Naw its not a bad drive...its simply the result of any company's first foray into a new type of hardware. Failures are generally more likely to happen with any piece of hardwares initial release and usually through the first couple of months.

In the case of Sony's DRU500a drive and the Playstation 2, both have been extremely popular in their respective target markets, as such, more people than would be normal buy these items and more failures seem to appear....but those increased failures are simply due to the increased number of drives in circulation, not the drive's failure rate.

I havn't had any problems with mine what so ever...just remember you never hear from the people who havn't had any problems and the number of failures are dropping rapidly. By the time the "x" models hit I imagine failures will be mostly history save for the usual stuff that happens with any hardware.

[HyperYagami]

One thing...the A model is "Made In Japan". The chance is that the X model will be made in China/Malaysia or such so that they can make more and lower the production cost...if that's the case what would it mean to the quality? Not that "Made In Japan" always = good and everything else = bad, but I wouldn't be surprise if I see even more failures then.

Of course...everything above is a guess.