LG Electronics GSA-4040B Super Multi DVD Writer (LG Electronics-GSA4040BI)

Reviewed by: taraxacumoff

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: can write any format available right now

Weaknesses: cannot write to DVD-RAM IN CARTRIDGE,quite selective about media,does not always write at highest speed (4x)

Overall Evaluation: Good sturdy writer, that can do any format available right now and has decent CD-writing speeds. It came with a totally unknown software (BHgold), that has handled perfectly every DVD I have tried so far. The biggest problem I had at the beginning is that the computer would lock up every time I wanted to write a CD or DVD. I had to flash the firmware to A300 and it started to work as intended, so if you are scared of doing that, don't get it. In fact the first thing potential buyers should do is connect the DVD-ROM as a master by ITSELF on one of the IDE channels and flash the firmware to A300 - available at lgelectronics website, althogh not very easy to find. After that the writer has worked pretty well for me. I have only tried one type of media with it so far - Fuji, DVD-R, 4x. Some times it writes at 4x, sometimes at 2x, which tells me that even with the new firmware it can be a picky drive on media - beware of buying cheap such, or read newsgroups carefully to find info. Other than that I think it is a prett decent piece of hardware, especially for the price. ake sure you buy retail version - for the sfotware, it does not work very well with Nero 6 and older versions of Nero won't even recognize it.