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Plextor PW1210A users...your experience

S

Serville

Member
I'm upgrading to Plextor 1210A. Will arrive in a week. By the time, I will lose all my internet connection because I will set up everything new.

Questions:
Based on your experience, are there any possible problems during the installation? If so, let me know in advance, so I can set it up faster and without trouble.

While I know many people recommend Master Channel for the drive, I would like to know if there are any issues if I use it as Slave? Any performance difference? or other technical differences ?

Is this drive based on ATA33 ? Some people, including Plextor claims that it only runs on PIO4 DMA mode....but actually not an ATA33 drive like other CDRWs.
Is it ATA33 or PIO4 ?
I need to know this because I'm concerned if it will drag down my ATA66 harddisk performance.

Thanks.
 
As long as you don't have an Asus board, you shouldn't have any problems. Many have reported problems with having DMA on while using it on the controller of an Asus board. I experienced the same thing, and could never get it to work. I have the burner on my ultra100 card, and it's working great. Best burner in the market.

Edit: Let me clarify what I meant by it not working. With DMA enabled, it's detected by windows and reads fine, but once I do a DAO burn, it'll stop right after the TOC and I get a coaster. When I disabled DMA, everything would work fine but my system slows to a crawl during a burn due to high cpu usage.
 
kly1222,

Thanks for that info. Do you know if this is true with other burnproof IDE drives, like the TDK, or just the plextor?

I never could get the Plex 12/10/32 working at all with DMA enabled on my p3b-f. Was very dissapointing.

Thanks, Dave
 
DaveH, looks like we have the same motherboard 🙂

I'm not sure if this problem is isolated to only plextor drives, or if it's the same with all burnproof drives. Since the motherboard only supports ata33, I would suggest that you pick up an ata66 or 100 card. You can put the burner on it and also any newer hard drives to prevent any bottlenecks. If you do, make sure you get a promise card because they make the best ones....highpoint cards are terrible.
 
kly1222, thanks for the reply. Yes, I have a promise 100--I will try that out. Don't suppose you've tried this in win2k? Strange that it would only do this in Asus motherboards...

Thanks, Dave
 
i didnt have any probs at all with mine. i put it as master and not other cdrom drive as slave. i dont use my reg cdrom that much, so whats the point?
 
I'm using win98se, so doesn't seem like an os issue.

Maybe I should make myself clearer. Not all asus boards share this problem...it's just that everyone who has problems with dma enabled is using an asus board. AUt0eXebat, is your dell using an asus board?

Anyway, I did some searching in the archives and found this thread: Click Here
 
Thank you all for the response. I'm glad I have Abit board now.
I've read more and more about this drive, and I feel glad from what I heard from many users.
I will let you all know how I'm doing with this Plextor drive after I set it up. Thanks.
 
Hmm, DMA on with no problems, using latest firmware on an ASUS CUSL2. I love this drive. Listen to bonkers, burn the latest firmware, install the software, and boom, good to burn at 12x. I can even burn at 12x over our network, and 12x from my DVD drive to the CD burner.

Once while burning over the network, my room mate's computer crashed, and a window popped up asking to retry or continue on my machine (with the burner). I went and restarted his computer, and pressed "retry" and finished burning the CD without a coaster! Freakin' sweeeeet. The 16X Yamaha can't do this.

I would also suggest just putting the Plextor as MASTER on a standard ATA33 port. I have my DVD drive slaved to the Plextor.
 
I could get DMA enabled in win98se, but the bios would only recognize it as a pio-4 drive. There's a trick to enable DMA so that the bios sees it as pio-4 and dma mode 2 (ata33).

Read this thread carefully 🙂.
 
Hi 🙂

Ive had my Plex 121032TA for a few weeks now and find it a big improvement over my old SCSI Yamaha 🙂

Trouble im having with it is that sometimes when i shutdown the PC, unplug it from the wall socket - when i reconnect power and reboot my bios cant see the plex and the drive wont operate the drawer as if there is no power being supplied to it 🙁
The only way i can get it to work again is to disconnect my SCSI Epson GT Scanner, bootup and the plex comes to life and then shutdown and reconnect the scanner 🙂

I read that the plex had issues with certain mobo bioses but had been fixed with firmware update which i have!

Seems that my KT7 raid (UL bios) and SCSI scanner combo dont get on too well with my plex.
My system runs 24/7 so once its going i cant be bothered to sort the prob.

Anyone else with a SCSI scanner, KT7 having this prob?

rockhard =)
 
There is still ongoing confusion whether this drive supports UDMA33.
Some people say that we can use the empty jumper besides the Digital Audio Connector to force DMA, but whether this is a PIO4 DMA or UDMA33 mode is still a question mark. Some people say it is only PIO4 DMA mode...not UDMA33 ??? PIO4 DMA = UDMA33 ???

Someone has also posted a reply from Plextor's Technical Support to say that this drive is only compatible with PIO4, but INCOMPATIBLE with UDMA33.

Anyone has checked their drive whether it really runs in UDMA33 mode by using the jumper and runs ok?
 
You've got me worried, I was just about to order the Plexi drive Px-w1210 TA. I also have an Asus Mobo, it is the P3V-4x & updated the N'bridge driver. Do you think I would have the same problem on this board?
I use Windows Me on Piii-733, 128Mb Ram, 20gig Seagate 7200 RPM H'drive. Asus V6600 Card.

My supplier advises the Plexi drive does not support cloning and will not copy directly from my 16 speed Pioneer DVD rom. He suggests I should look at the "Smart & Frienly SCSI drive which he claims has a number of features not supported by the Flexi drive. The problem is that I cannot find any info on this drive on the net.

Any info would be welcome

Van
 
If you mean CD Clone,the Plex 1210a is one of the best.There was a problem
with the 1xx series,but most are 2xx or 3xx now.I have the 204b and use
Clone daily! By the way I use mine set to cable select,but your mb must
support it as well as the cable! Onvia has this drive for under $160 with
coupon!
 
Here is my report after I received my PW-1210TA.

Just want to let people know that I'm a new happy Plextor PW1210-TA user.
I have been testing it for several days, and I feel very impressed.
I don't have the TLA sub-channel problem. It's TLA #0402A October 2000 from Buy.Com.
I've tried reading many discs with data & audio subchannel enabled, and I got no problem at all.
It just read everything I throw at it.....this with PlextorManager2000 installed. Firmware has been
upgraded to 1.07 from 1.04.
All softwares identify the drive correctly. I've been forcing the drive to run at UDMA33 by using
the reserved jumper. I've got no problem enabling DMA. Instalation is a snap. So quick, and so damn
easy. It burn so fast. It just makes my old reliable Yamaha 4416S look like junk in comparison.
But, I will still keep this Yamaha anyway. It's nice to have 2 burners for different purposes

I've also tried Plextor CDResQ...OH BOYYY...this is the most useful program I've met. It makes
backing up routine so easy compared to Norton Ghost. It just takes 9 minutes to backup one of
my partition with 1.2GB of data.
Tried so hard to create Buffer-Under-Run by launching 10 big applications, each successively only 1-2 seconds after another, and it just stopped and continued writing....as if it has its own brain. Using CTRL-ALT-DEL trying to freeze the system, and still I couldn't make it fail writing.
I also tried to stop its writing when burning AudioCD, but still I couldn't hear any click in the burnt song.

I think I made the right choice afterall. This drive is excellent !!
I am also impressed with its well-thought packaging which use airbag to protect the drive during shipping.
Excellent ideas !

Well, just to let you know that I'm a new happy Plextor user now.
I want to thank everyone here whose postings & comments have inspired me to buy this drive.
 
i just got my plexter 12x a couple of days ago. The drives works fine burning data but it can't burn at 12x for bin/cue stuff. Install was easy and fireware is at 1.07. No idea why this would happen. I'm sorta disappointed since i paid for a 12x drive that is forcing me to use it at slower speeds.
 


<< I've also tried Plextor CDResQ...OH BOYYY...this is the most useful program I've met. It makes >>



I already own Ghost 2001. I've seen pics of cdresq, and it looked like it is ghost with certain modifications. Is it worth the extras expense? How is it easier than just using Ghost to image disks/partitions? Thanks for your comments!!
Dave
 
Noxipoo,
Have you enabled DMA ? Plextor's manual says that DMA should be enabled for writing at the highest speed.

Bikman,
You're right. It is a modification of Norton Ghost. It works exactly the same as Norton Ghost, except it writes directly to CDR/W instead of your harddisk as usual, so it only takes 1 direct step to create the CD.
With Ghost, I have to create the imagefile to harddisk first, and then burn it to CDR with another software like EasyCD Creator....2 steps, twice the time. This CDResQ software makes it much faster by reading the source partition/disk and transfer it directly to the CDR. No need to create the whole imagefile to harddisk first. It takes me 7.5 minutes to backup my partition. With Ghost+EasyCD, it takes more than 20 minutes to do the same (opening application, create layout, burn the imagefile)
I would recommend this software to all Plextor users.
 
I'm very tempted to buy it, but the Plextor Support board is full of people who are having problems with copying to cdr/w directly, and the return policy is pretty much &quot;no worky, so sorry&quot;. Thanks again for the info
dave
 
Something you may want to keep in mind...

If you hook up the Plextor (or any ATAPI (EIDE) device) to a PCI controller (i.e. Promise Ultra) you will not be able to use it with Norton Ghost 2001 or Plextor CD-ResQ. Devices are only recognized from windows on this controller (except for HDs when the card loads its own BIOS)and not DOS. Norton Ghost 2001 and Plextor CD-ResQ are both DOS based programs.

FYI from experience...

Hobbes

BTW, the jumper trick across the two reserved pins works to enable both PIO Mode 4 and UDMA Mode.
 
Yes I have DMA enabled. (its w2k, everything already tweaked.) I burn data fine at 12x, just not bin/cues.... don't know why.
 
Thanks Wally for your tip, I have now ordered the Plexi drive and have given the guy the two up.

best wishes for 2001

Van
 
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