Sony DRUV204A - 20x PATA - $19.99 - Staples - Black Friday

Can I flash this drive Sony DRUV204A - 20x PATA to an Optiarc AD-7200A or should I wait for a new firmware from the sony optiarc site ??

Wait until Liggy or Dee confirm with absolute certainty that this is an AD-7200A. Don't do any flashing until then.

Liggy will have AD-7200A v1.08 bitsetting firmware ready sometime in December, and by then we will know. For now, just leave the drive alone and use it as is or set it aside.

Has anybody that ordered there drives online received them yet? Staples shows my expected delivery for today but when I try to track my order via the UPS website it will not track. Just curious. Now I get to go take care of the wonderful white stuff that dumped on us overnight. I was so hoping for a green Christmas but at least my 3 year old can't wait help me shovel.
budzos

I got the drives today, the funny thing is the expected delivery date online still says yesterday. Is there any confirmation on this drive being being a AD-7200A yet?
Thanks, budzos

Liggy said in the NEC forum that the dumped firmware from my drive looks very much like AD-7200A firmware:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/2167470-post513.html

No one has tried a cross-flash yet.

Thanks for the reply, I have been unable to find any real information on this drive on the web. It says made in Sept. 2008 on the drive and the Sony website
doesn't even list the model.
budzos

Staples called me yesterday and said that there would be a slight delay in delivering my DRUV204A and to my surprise it arrived today.

Here is where Sony hides the information regarding this drive:

http://sony.storagesupport.com/product/331#

Actually, they haven't been hiding anything. Look at the date on the files under documentation. They just added those today, so the drive hasn't even been on the site until now.

You are correct - my Sony Live Support chat just confirmed that these drives are new to the Sony family.

Dow18K: Is the DRUV204A basically the same as the Optiarc AD-7200A. If so, can I cross-flash the DRUV204A with firmware for AD-7200A

You are now speaking with Lori of Sony Optical Support.

Dow18K: Hi Lori.....

Lori: No those drives are not the same.

Dow18K: Interesting as the firmware seems the exactly the same as do the internals. I am comparing each DVD's stats and they are amazingly similar.

Lori: The AD drive is an OEM drive.

Lori: That is not a drive that we provide support on.

Lori: That product is not supported by this division of Sony. For information regarding your product, please visit: http://support.necam.com/Optical

Dow18K: Oh - ok. Will there be a new firmware version released for DRUV204A? If so, when?

Lori: This drive was just released last Wednesday.

Lori: So it will be a while for a firmware to come out.

Lori: Just keep checking the website and if they release one it will be posted there on the website.

Dow18K: Thanks!

You can't talk to tech support people about rebadges. They either don't know or are under NDA not to disclose such things. You're wasting your time whenever you ask such questions.

The information that you find on places like CDFreaks is special knowledge that is not supposed to be known by the general public. Corporations do not talk about their products the way we do, and so you cannot ask a corporation about their products the way we do when we talk to each other. It's two different worlds.

as of 12-03 Staples price is $69.99, but newegg is $21.99 w/ free ship.

On a side note; anyone know of a good/ inexpensive external enclosure with usb+ firewire connections? My laptop's drive is still in great shape but being made obsolete due to lack of firmware updates.

1. Two slightly different products, as was already pointed out several times. This is a retail product that is boxed and includes software, and on initial testing and with only anecdotal observation, is a little bit quieter.

2. This was a Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend special, as is self-evident from the title.

negritude Thanks a million for your posts
This is the most amazing drive i have had sence my BenQ 1620 and 1650.

I have in fact just retired the BenQ1650 till further notice and replaced it with this drive

this thing is amazingly Quite and the burns are looking great on everything I have thrown at it
..thanks again for pointing me to this drive,
I think I'll still order a OEM SATA 7200S for future use to go with this Jewel

Sony TY02 Disk Burned @8x

If you can, you should scan with your BenQ. The Optiarcs are not known for being good DVD scanners (using them for CD scanning is fine).

It's on today's Staples Friday-Only deals for $24.99
http://www.staples.com/office/suppli...mArea=SEASONAL

I wonder if Staples Friday Deals are online only or also in-store, because I have a $10off$20 coupon from OfficeMax that I could use to make one $14.99, even better than BF.

Online only, but just maybe they've got an in-store special with it.

I was just reading Dee's Review on the 7200A and she reported the drive did an OK job at scanning and it's an excellent burner.

The whole idea for me getting this drive was to give my BenQ a break. (thanks for the reminder though)

O and by the way both my BenQ 1650 are in fact Rebadged Sony's DRU-810A-R that i read about right here back in 06 - http://club.cdfreaks.com/f92/any-suc...2/#post1533963

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Last edited by clsA; 06-12-2008 at 17:25.

If this drive is indeed a rebadged version of the AD-7200A then it is a great deal!

I wonder if Dee's negatives have been addressed in the firmware that comes with the drive?

The main positive points:

The Optiarc AD-7200A is a blisteringly fast drive as far as writing DVD R media is concerned, recording the fastest ever DVD+R burn in our reviews. Not only were the 20x DVD R burns fast, 18x and 16x burns were also extremely fast.

The Optiarc AD-7200A wrote our tested DVD±R/RW/DL media with excellent/very good quality and is a huge step forward from the Optiarc 717x series drives.

The Optiarc AD-7200A was able to burn all our tested CD-R media with excellent/very good quality and media compatibility was excellent.

The Optiarc AD-7200A was also able to burn selected DVD±R/DL media at faster than its rated speed.

Audio CD ripping performance and quality was very good indeed.

The Optiarc AD-7200A is a reasonably well built drive. Noise levels, even at 20x are not intrusive.
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The main negative points:

There are not that many negative things to say about the Optiarc AD-7200A.

DVD+R/RW BitSetting would be nice and would enhance compatibility with some older standalone DVD players. This is not a big problem, as there are many firmwares available from the CD Freaks community that support this feature.

We would also like to see support for 100 minute CD-R media
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To sum up, this is what we would say:

"The Optiarc AD-7200A is blisteringly fast when writing DVD±R media and writing quality across all media groups is generally excellent. It’s a must have drive"

We were very impressed by the Optiarc AD-7200A writing quality and performance. We decided to award the drive our "CD Freaks Editor’s Choice Award".

http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Opti...onclusion.html

I took one of the Sony DRU V204A drives that I bought from Staples and crossflashed it to a Optiarc AD-7200A with 1Z.3 firmware. The following scans are the results from a TY TO2 burnt @8x with the drive after the crossflash and scanned @8x with a iHAS120 and pretty much confirm that these drives are oem AD-7200A's. I know there are people out there that were wondering if this would work so your answer is yes it will work.
budzos

THANK YOU for the confirmation! Houston, we have a go!

BTW, budzos, there's a typo in your sig. I made the same mistake initially, but the native firmware for the V204A is 1.60 not 1.06.

Also, the current price of the drive at Staples is $29.99. Look for it to go on sale again during the Christmas and New Year season. If it drops to $19.99 or somewhere near that again, I would grab another one. The new Optiarc drives are rebadged Lite-Ons, so this may be the last NEC chipset model you see for awhile, if ever.

And now a retail Sony DRU-V202A has just shown up on NewEgg with what appear to be similar specs:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827131058

This is crazy. A few months ago, a Sony DRU-V200A/S model made an appearance, and there's also a Sony DRU-842A. All these drives appear to be AD-7200s or something very close to them. What the hell is going on over there at Sony?!

Can you please give me the exact details on how to crossflash to an Optiarc AD-7200
THANKS

Download Binflash and the AD-7200A AZ.3 firmware from the Liggy And Dee's website via the link in the NEC/Optiarc Forum. First I dumped the firmware with Binflash and then using Binflash I simply flashed the DRU V204A with the AZ.3 firmware for the AD-7200A and thats it. If you need instructions on how to use Binflash I believe there are some on the Liggy And Dee's website. I would also like to thank Liggy And Dee for making this possible.
budzos