Compatibility Hell (Artec 52x24x52x)

Member Name: andycharger

Product:	Artec 52x24x52x
Date:	05/12/03 (567 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick burning, Quiet

Disadvantages: Difficult install, Compatibility issues

When I recently took my father in law to PC World to buy him a CD Writer for his computer, I expected to send him on his merry way within minutes of my return home.
As with most pieces of hardware that I have bought, I just stick it in, turn it on and hey presto....Everything works.

Well this is not the case with the Artec CR-RW drive.

A slimline internal drive with excellent writing speeds, I imagined it to be the ideal solution for him.

INSTALLATION.
So I unpacked the box with the drive and found a new IDE lead and Audio/soundcard cable. I even found a version of Nero copying software all nicely packaged with it. Bargain, or so I thought.

So using my existing screws ( there were none in the box unfortunately. Loose brownie points there), I bolted the new CD writer in. I plugged the power cable from my computer in and the IDE lead.

I turned it on. Computer starts and tells me its found the Hard Drive.....Its found the existing CD Rom......Errr....and thats it!

A ha, I remembered I might need to change the BIOS Settings. For those that dont know, BIOS is the nuts and bolts behind the set up of the PC. Before you get any software, Including the operating system, on the computer BIOS needs to used to set up things like Sound card/graphic card locations, CD rom and Hard drives.
So I set the BIOS to auto detect the new CD Writer......Nothing found.

Thinking it might be something to do with his older computer (Pentium 1 233Mhz with 64MB RAM) I put it in my Newer Pentium 3 512MB RAM PC......Still nothing.

I deduced from this that the drive was faulty and took it back.

They swapped it and I left with a brand new drive.
This time when I put it in, it saw the drive on my Father in law's computer straight away so the first one was definitely dodgy.
So expect at least one dodgy one. The sales person said they had loads of problems with people bringing them back!!!

>So with the drive sucessfully showing on his computer in BIOS and in My Computer (shows as the E: drive!), I decided to install the copying software that came WITH the CD Writer.

Nero is a great copting tool. I installed it within minutes and then decided to try copying a CD. I actually installed Nero from the CD Writer drive so I knew it was reading data fine.

However...
I tried to copy a CD and it said "NO COMPATIBLE RECORDING DEVICES FOUND "
Astounded I looked into this a bit further.
Strange I thought as it could read data fine.
After a bit of investigation on the Web, I found that in order for the Artec Drives to work with Nero, you need to be running Nero Version 5.5.10.
What is shipped with the drive?
5.5.9!!!!
What is the point in that? So for all those people that took Artec CD Writers back, there was nothing wrong with the drive probably. Unless you had a proper cooked drive like mine.

To cut a long story short, I gave him my old LG CD Writer 8 Speed as that worked with anything and he was happy. I on the other hand no have the priviledge of using and abusing the Artec one as an exchange with him.

INSTRUCTIONS.
Well one thing can be said for them....WHERE ARE THEY?

Anyway, enough of the problems. How easy is it to use?

Very simple now it is all set up. It reads data from the CD up to 52 X speed. This is very quick and yet a very quiet drive.
It has the usual Manual Eject button but no PLAY button on the front. There is also a Headphone socket and volume control should you decide to listen to your CD's that way!

Writing is extremely fast as this can also be done at up to 52 Speed! Very very fast and CD's are copied in minutes. Saves waiting around for ever while your disc finishes copying.

The rewrite function can be done at up to 24 Speed. This is great as it allows erasing and rewriting
at speeds I
used to write normal
CD's at. All in all a very quick and efficient drive.

Best of all about this drive is the Price.

It retails for £35 in PC World which I think is exceptional Value. Add to this the fact it comes with a version of Nero (albeit the wrong one!) you cannot find a more competitively priced burner on the market.

Would I buy it again?
Well the headaches are all forgotten now that I have a quick CD burner that is efficient and quiet. Sssssssh....Dont wake the baby!

Summary: