Okay, I am pissed. My Ricoh MP9120A CD/CDR/CDRW/DVD drive has bit the dust. This is the second one, the first went in for warranty service, and I'm fed up with this crap. I'll send it back to them to be fixed, but I want to replace it and use it as a backup.

So I'm in the market for a new drive, and I'm wondering what's out there. When I bought this one, the "combo drive" was a pretty new concept, but it seems there are others out there now. The 9120A I'm replacing is 32X read, 12X write, 10X rewrite, 8X DVD. Audio extraction speed was pretty good, and is very important in my new drive.

Everyone always says Plextor has the best drives out there, and I'm wondering if they have an entry into the combo drive market. Just wondering if anyone has any positive or negative experiences, or any models to recommend.

Thanks.

Yikes, I think that's the one I've got. Hope mine doesn't have the same problems as yours did!

(Been OK so far)

Yeah it was great for about 3-4 months and then it wouldn't burn. They confirmed it had a hardware failure and sent another. Now when I stick discs in, the yellow light just flashes after about 10 seconds instead of spinning up and going out. I wanted to rip Vapor Trails (which I just received from Amazon today) but I will have to use my CD player until I get a new drive, as the Ricoh is my only drive right now. I am thinking I'm just going to go out and buy a $20 CD-ROM drive or something as a backup to whatever my main drive ends up being. Then I could send the Ricoh in for repairs and EBay it. Damn Ricoh.

One thing I noticed about the Ricoh is that it's sensitive to heat. Mine would stop working in my old case about 3/4 through a movie. Had to reposition things in my new case so that heat was taken into account...

Hmm. Well my case temp is 35, no arctic breeze, but no solar wind either. If that's too much for the drive, then it's a piece of cow poop. Wait, it's a piece of cow poop in any case.

I think they sent me a re-manufactured drive as a warranty replacement, based on the packaging and the fact that this model was discontinued when I sent it in. So that could have something to do with it. Whatever, I'm never buying Ricoh again. Very flaky. Hopefully someone has better experience with another brand in the combo drive arena.

I'm interested in any comments for replacement suggestions about making the suggested combo drive RPC-1 (Region Free) permanently o nthe DVD playback side.

As this is something a lot of folks would want also.
[I know I do].

Plextor has the best drives out there, and I'm wondering if they have an entry into the combo drive market

Like this?

And BTW its DAE maxes out at 40x

Sounds pretty good. Anyone have one? Specs look good, I can't find any reviews or anything on them, though. Looks like NewEgg has them for $178.. Not too shabby...

Well for region-free hacked firmware, this page seems to be the place to look...

Interesting. I had no idea you could region-hack a DVD-ROM drive just by rewriting its firmware.

Not that I'd need it since I don't own any outside-the-US movies. Just an interesting idea.

Yes I have made both my existing DVD ROM drives Region free by upgrading the firmware. One is a IBM Thinkpad DVD drive (acutally a Toshiba DVD drive) the other a Samsung drive in my Dell PC.

Down this part of the world its almost de-riguer to have a Region Free DVD player as there are so few DVD Region 4 movies available to buy or rent, so most people have a mixture of Region 1 (US etc) and/or Region 2 (UK & Europe) DVDs hence the need for a multi-zone player.

In fact the only DVDs I own that are Region 4 is the Sopranos Season 1 DVD set.

re: Firmware site - the one menitoned by yn0t_ is the site I use, however not all the most revent DVD's drives (especially the combo ones) have hacked firmware available yet.

There is even a 'how to patch DVD drive firmware' arcticle there if you look in the right place.

I was more hoping that someone who has one of the Combo drives could indicate if they have loaded hacked firmware to make it region free.

I loaded hacked firmware onto my first Ricoh MP9120A and it worked for me. It was from that very same site.

Does that happen to all discs you put in? It might also be a "copy-protected" disc the drive cant read.

I had similar symptoms with my sony dvd drive when I tried to rip a copy-protected cd (OST Spiderman). The led kept flashing and the drive would not initialize.

Marc

Right when I was thinking about getting a combo drive, Plextor had announced theirs. Since my next case is going to have only one 5.25 bay, a combo was almost mandatory.

I picked mine up two days ago from Best Buy for $210, including the 3 year protection plan (aka, my way of ensuring Best Buy looses money on me). So far it seems to be a great replacement for my aging HP 4x burner. But I haven't used it much yet to get an idea of it's DVD and DAE workings. Overall, everyone I know with a Plextor has been happy, so I don't see this one being much different. I'll keep you posted on it.

ya i have a 8x plextor drive, and LOVE it, but i had to move to a faster speed and am also housing an LG tech combo drive, it works great so far only had it for a month, but burns like a champ

Yeah, all discs, it's definitely a hardware failure. It's happened before too, which is why I'm abandoning Ricoh drives entirely.

Thanks for the input Tom. $210 is only a little bit more than the online guys, and that three year protection plan sounds sweet. Looks like I'm off to Best Buy tonight.

Why do you want a combo drive? I have a good Tosh CD/CDR/CDRW/DVD one, but I also have a basic CD drive and was vaguely thinking about a DVD writer until I filled that slot up with my Audigy Platinum.

I would have thought that your best bet is to have separate drives wherever possible, lowering cost of failures and increasing resilience. Although admittedly I haven't had any failures yet (touch wood) This even lets you rip and burn simultaneously, which is just a good phrase in itself

Am I alone in preferring separate modules for each function?

His case probably has only one 5.25" slot available for optical.

Cheers

Am I alone in preferring separate modules for each function?

Well, no, in fact most people use separate drives, for your reasons, or simply for the fact that they already had a DVD or CD/RW drive and just wanted to add the other. I'm not one of those people.

For me it's a matter of cost... The price of a good DVD drive and a good CD/RW drive is more than that of a good combo drive. I have the extra 5.25" slot, but I prefer one drive that does it all. I have no need to rip and burn simultaneously or anything like that, I never really copy CD's or anything. I pretty much burn the occasional CD, watch DVD's, etc and haven't felt limited by only having one drive. Why have two if one of them is always going to be sitting idle?

But your arguments are all valid, just not for my needs.

His case probably has only one 5.25" slot available for optical.

That's certainly why I'm using a combo drive.

More specifically: I'd rather use the bays for extra hard disks than for Yet Another CD Drive.

Overall, everyone I know with a Plextor has been happy, so I don't see this one being much different. I'll keep you posted on it.

I agree. I've been a big Plextor fan since their 6X days. However, in my new free subscription to PC World (which is a lousy magazine, and this just goes to confirm that fact) their comments on a Plextor drive (which they at least list in their top ten CD-RWs) are:

This model was quick writing CD-Rs, but mediocre at writing to CD-RW media and extracting digital audio. Also, this is the only 40x drive to limit the write speed for audio CDs.

They also notably have a Lite-On and a Lucky Goldstar drive ranked well higher. So I guess that my real thesis is that PC World is a lousy magazine, which is well off-topic, but who cares? This is my own personal gripe-forum, isn't it?

I love my plextor drive, but it sucks at extracting audio from many of the cheaper classical albums in our selection (not even scratched!).

I'm buying LG next time.. half the price, better performance (heck, most/all Plextor drives don't even have UDMA support yet).

Cheers

This model was quick writing CD-Rs, but mediocre at writing to CD-RW media and extracting digital audio. Also, this is the only 40x drive to limit the write speed for audio CDs.

The first part I have heard about a few times. So many sites seem obsessed over DAE speed, when my system still dosen't go much beyond 5x due to the encoder working at the same time.

The slow audio comment shows they didn't bother reading up on the drive. By what I understand, mine has some feature in it to ensure the best possible burned Audio CD, by sacrificing speed a bit and limiting the burn to 4x. Aparently it adjusts the laser to ensure the best quality based on the media. Nero has the ability to toggle this on or off, so it's probably something thats only needed if the audio cd is headed for a really picky player.

And Mark, my combo drive supports UDMA 2 as reported by the IDE driver utility under W2k. Checking Plextor's site, all of their drives show UDMA or UDMA2 support listed under current products.

My Plextor, which has gone in for warranty replacement is starting to gronk and die again. It's a burnproof 32/10/12a. #$&(**#&($*&(*!! I emailed support about this and they're now ignoring me.

Calvin

"mode2" is not the same as "UDMA mode2".

Most of their drives up to now at least, including the combo unit quoted earlier in this thread, only do "mode2" DMA.

Perhaps they're finally catching up with the brand new models, though.

Cheers

Well, maybe my prediliction is based on old information. I've loved all the Plextor drives I've had -- probably four or five of them, maybe more. But, then again, I've never owned an ATAPI one, so maybe their quality has dropped with those. Oh, well. Nevermind, then.

Here is the IDE report from my combo Plextor.

Secondary Master: PLEXTOR CD-R PX-320A
Model: PLEXTOR CD-R PX-320A
Firmware: 1.01
Device Type: ATAPI - Removable - CDROM
PIO Mode Support: 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
DMA SW Mode Support: 0 - 1 - 2
DMA MW Mode Support: 0 - 1 - 2
UDMA Mode Support: 0 - 1 - 2
Default Transfer Mode: UDMA-2
Current Transfer Mode: UDMA-2
Transfer Mode Limit: No Limit
Cable Type (Device): 40 Conductor
Cable Type (Host): 40 Conductor
PIO PPE: Enabled
UDMA Control Register: Ultra DMA Mode Enabled
UDMA Timing Register: CT = 2 CLK / RP = 4 CLK
Base Clock: Ultra DMA 33 Timings

But, then again, I've never owned an ATAPI one, so maybe their quality has dropped with those

Same here. I stopped buying CD-rom drives when plextor stopped making new SCSI models. So the models that are in my PC now are the 12x SCSI writer and the 40x CD-rom.

That 40x Cd-rom is still regarded as one of the best, fastest and most accurate drives for audio ripping out there. I'm VERY happy that I own one.

I've mailed Plextor recently to ask them what their future plans are for SCSI and they replied saying that the SCSI market was not all that anymore for them and that they would not make any new SCSI models.
So I decided to stick to my current models for as long as they'll last.

On a note about the Plextor support : once my 40x broke down. I could simply contact Plextor Europe directly, ask for a RMA number and send them the drive. Within a week it was replaced. It still works fine up to this day.

Excellent! UDMA2!

-ml