Customer Reviews

HP 20x External Super Multi DVD (Lightscribe) HP1040E

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Thought I would follow the instructions included with the writer. Installation went fine, the pc recognized the player. The install of the Nero software was a mess. It conflicted with the already existing burner software on my pc.
The Nero software has limitations, the player as-is will burn to DVD-R. With the Nero software you lose that functionality, due to some sort of licensing conflict.
What's the point of owning a writer, if the third party software doesn't allow you to write? I uninstalled the Nero bundle, but evidently it had made a change to my pc that would still not let the DVD writer to write.
Had to perform a system restore, and now the writer writes to DVD-R. Yay! Thats what I wanted.
Unfortunately the added feature of the software was going to be Lightscribe. But Nero bundled it into their all-in-one (all Seven-in-one!) executable, and doesn't allow for installing JUST the Lightscribe software.
It's not that important a feature. If I want it so bad, I'll just buy a copy online, or just use a magic marker.
Also, the Nero software wants you to associate all media files so that they run on it's software. Thats all your video files MOV, AVI, MPEG..., all your audio files mp3, wmv, wav..., all your image files BMP, JPG...(you have to deselect, to stop it from doing that)
The HP writer seems to work fine, HP (IMO) made an error in selecting the Nero bundle to include with the writer.

PS--June 2008 upgraded from 2 stars to 4 stars. And so far, no other reviewer reports a reading problem. Maybe the problem was with my system. Also, I later installed an internal Sony DVD-RW and that now has no reading problems but intermittent writing problems. I've decided the best situation is to have 2 DVD drives from 2 different manufacturers. Where one doesn't work, the other generally does. So I would look mainly for a good price on a good brand, which would include this one. My original review follows, edited for brevity.
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This HP dvd1040 works fine for all reading of data and all writing of movies or data, but not for watching movies.

I like to use my computer to watch Netflix rentals. Several times, a DVD has not played in this HP DVD writer, but has played in both my Acer laptop and my stand alone Panasonic DVD player.

PS--In case you don't know, the 'lightscribe' label writer only works on discs with 'lightscribe' capability, which currently, seem to cost significantly extra. So long as this is the case, I just as soon pay less for standard discs, and to write my titles with an acid-free Bic Mark-It Retractable.

Purchased this external drive 2 weeks ago because my internal drive was taking longer and longer to operate. As soon as I connected it to a USB port, Windows XP recognized it and assigned it as drive "G". It's worked flawlessly so far, both as a reader and a writer. Very much faster than my original internal drive which was only 8X. Finally got around to using the Lightscribe function, and I've got to say, it's pretty cool. The price is very reasonable, it's easy to install and operate, and I'm thinking of getting a second one to replace my other internal drive.

This HP burner has been simple and uncomplicated to use. It was made for PCs but works fine with both my Macs and PCs with no complications.
I haven't tried the software, just used the burner programs that I already had in my computers.
My needs are uncomplicated, just data backup, and this burner reads and writes without a hitch. My Macs and PCs read the data without a problem.

This burner is very easy to use, just plug it in and go. I had to get a USB card because I didn't have USB 2.0. The burner will work without, but it will take two hours to burn a dvd. After the USB upgrade it took only minutes to burn a dvd. The only thing I would recommend is to not use the burning software that is included (Nero). It lagged my computer and would abort the burning process at times. I tried the online free 21 day trial of CloneDVD 2 and then decided to purchase it because it works so well. Overall this is an excellent burner, good price, and the lightscribe feature is nice.

Regarding CD burners, I am an amateur reviewer.The last CD burner I purchased was back in 2002, and it had clunky usability at best. So this HP seemed like a really easy tool. I was able to install the drivers and Nero burning software quickly and burning data and audio CDs takes about 30 seconds of set up and burning only takes a few minutes at most.

Other users in my household find Nero's burning software unintuitive and wish they could just drag and drop data to be burned. That may be an option, but I just use Nero for them.

The sense I got from visiting HP's site for updated drivers and documentation (none) and then reading some reviews is that the technology for this model came out in 2004. My box said it was manufactured in 2007, but my guess is that there are more advanced burners and software available today. For basic needs, this the HP dvd1040e has been working fine for the last six months and was very inexpensive. No problems.

I am very happy with the HP DVD Writer. It is easily installed onto your computer and has made my boyfriend incredibly happy (one of his XMas Gifts). Easy to use, Does not take up a lot of space, Works Great!

I have owned this drive for about a year. I took a risk buying this drive as it did not say it had mac support. I have used burned all types of disks including lightscribe, and dual layer DVDs on but Mac Os 10.5 and Ubuntu and everything worked perfectly. Have to download your own burning software and lightscribe software from its website works great.

I like this burner. It was very easy to set up and so far seems to work great although it tends to burn slowly with my computer. The Nero software that came with it was only a 30 day trial, so you will need to upgrade or purchase another software program to really utilize the CD/DVD burning feature. I enjoy the lightscribe feature. It's fun to be able to put photos on the disk to really describe what's on there. [...] has tons of great templates that can be downloaded for free. Overall, the burner is awesome and I would recommend it to anyone.

The HP 20x is a low price external drive that works great as a CD/DVD burner. The Light-Scribe on the other hand was a let down. To get the Light-Scribe to work I had to download an updated driver from Light-Scribe's website. I had to set the program to burn at Top Quality and the darkest setting but, still you can barely see the images. I can burn 3 CD's in the time it takes to make one Light-Scribe label.

It is still a cheap answer to CD labels just not a quality answer.