Pacific Digital Mach-16X DVD Writer

• Reviewed by:

  Strengths: none

  Weaknesses: No support, No response from Tech Support!

  Overall: The drive comes up on XP as atapi for an ID. I tried master, slave, cable select - and nothing works. Its companies like this that give the industry a black eye. My recommendation is do not buy anything Pacific Digital puts out

• Reviewed by: doctordee0

  Strengths: speed on regular dvd disks

  Weaknesses: won't burn double layer

  Overall: I finally bought some double layer disk to burn some photos to disk and the burner will not burn to double layer disks regardless of what program I attempt to use. It works great on regular dvd disks and is fast for that but forget this drive for double layer burning. It doesn't work.

• Reviewed by: P Guinness

  Strengths: Price. A quiet and nice CD/DVD reader. Works fast too.

  Weaknesses: Burning software compatibility: refuses to work with Nero 6.6.0.1. I wanted to burn DVD-R disk (4X) from Imation. The burner refused the job.

  Overall: I thought this would be a nice cheap drive - I got it for $ 99 at Staples just before the New Year. They were also offering a rebate of $ 30 per drive. I got two drives. They came with the sound cable, IDE cable, two software disks and a box for each of them. I had Nero 6.6.0.1 installed and I tried to burn DVD-R (Imation 4X). Nero was correctly going to burn this at 4X, files were on my hard drive (Maxtor ATA-133). Once I hit the burn button the indicator was at "lead-in", then "track one" (I had filled entire disk with stuff). Nero was reporting it would take appr. 15 min at 4X to burn the disk. It really took appr. 15 min and most of this time indicator was at 1% complete. After the alloted time was up, Nero complained about error and said burning failed.I will be returning these drives - Pacific Digital site does not even offer support for them. I was going to check for the latest firmware update for them after the failure. My computer (Compaq DeskPro EP, P-3, 512 MB RAM) is unable to determine the manufacturer of the drive (it just says DVD/CD drive). Pacific Digital appears to be a reseller of Opto Rite, NEC and Toshiba drives. That is nice, but when a Windows 2000 based box says the drive is generic. It is not a good sign.Nero usually is able to operate on anything, now it gave up. I will as well, perhaps, Plextor will be my next choice - I own DVD-+RW/CD-RW drive (PX-708A). It does not offer dual layer support and is not as cheap as Pacific Digital, but you get what you paid for ...