Sunday, October 26, 2003

HP CD-RW Drive Can’t Write to 48X Speed CDs A reader writes: “I have an external HP CD-RW drive (an HP CD-Writer Plus 8200 USB) I bought about three years ago. After sitting unused for about a year, I happened upon an occasion to want to burn a few CD-Rs, and after using up what I had on hand, I bought another pack... and found the drive refuses to attempt to write to them. It seems that the CD-R industry changed the method of manufacturing CD-Rs when the drives jumped to 48x speed from 16x speed, and my HP drive, which burns 16x speed CDs all day, cannot recognize the 48x speed CDs. Of course, I can't seem to find 16x speed CD-Rs in any of the stores.” “The CD-R manufacturers all (I've called just about all of them) say a firmware update is needed, but HP's web site says no such update is needed or available for this model (not so for others, from the web site list). HP won't even talk to me about it without my credit card in hand, since the device is out of warranty, and that request for the credit card comes after an hour of department shuffling and seemingly endless hold times. My only practical option is to replace the drive, but don't expect me to replace it with another HP drive.” 10:55:36 AM    comment []