[wazoo2u]

Originally Posted by cmaz

On the contrary, i have had no troubles at all with my very old LiteOn LTR-16102B (cd rewriter) and my more recent SOHW-812S (dvd rewriter).
Also, LiteOn has a very active community over at cdfreaks.

I had a bad LiteOn. After wasting a solid 12 hours troubleshooting it, I decided I had more important things to do with my life than getting a $70 DVD drive to work correctly. It's much easier to throw it out and buy something that actually works, right out of the box. Both my Plex and Pioneer drives did that. My NEC needed a firmware upgrade to settle down, but that was a minor fix.

Not impressed with LiteOn at all. Their factory tech support is non existent, and if it wasn't for CD Freaks I would have had no place to turn at all.

Love the CD Freaks community... much more valuable to me than some ratty ass cheap DVD burner, but I'm glad that you had good luck with your LiteOn.
I've been a Plextor customer since they had 2X drives, and even though I'd RMA'ed a couple of their CD burners (the 6X was particularly a lemon) they always stood behind their product and worked to make their drives perform well. I still like them, even if they cost a few dollars more.

You can always shop at www.pricewatch.com or www.pricegrabber.com to find the cheapest prices on any drive... just try to buy RETAIL BOX, NEVER OEM... that 30 day warrantee will getcha...