Customer Reviews

Iomega 32974 8X External Super DVD/rw

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

 

 

This is a good drive. Don't be fooled by another reviewer who had problems with it in Windows 98. If you are trying to use this with Windows 98, you probably don't have a fast enough computer to even begin to utilize this drive's potential.

Drive is nice and portable.... I take this unit between home and work with no problem. The unit has its own power supply, which isn't always ideal, but seems to be the norm these days.

The drive has good features. My only beef is that the included software is so-so. The "main" burning program is Iomega's own proprietary burning software. I tend to prefer industry standard/well known burners when it comes to DVD/CD creation (more features). Ghost 2003 is included, which is a definate plus for making bootable DVD backups of your system. Iomega also includes their own backup utility, but this simply isn't as good as Ghost. The Sonic DVD creation software is pretty basic. You can get more functionality out of Microsoft's free movie maker software, though.

The avgerage Amazon.com rating was higher when I purchased this drive (so was the price). It turns out it works just fine with my Windows XP PC. I purchased Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.0 also which picks up the drive with no problems. The drive is also compatable with Mac OS 10.2.7 or newer using the CharisMac Discribe software.

I purchaced this drive for two reasons. I needed an external writing drive for my laptop, and I wanted to transfer VHS tapes to DVD. As an external drive, it seems to be a solid, well-built(although slightly costly) drive. I was very disappointed at it's ability to transfer VHS to DVD though. After installing the software and reading the manual, I found out that I needed to buy an additional video capture card. The really big problem there is that most cards on the market transfer analog video on your internal drive, making the external writer completely unnecessary. My advice would be to only buy this as a primary writing drive, of which there are equally good and less expensive models out there. If I had to do it over, that would have been my course.

No problems so far -- having being using it for the past few months. Using Roxio Easy Media Creator instead of Iomega's software. Also received Ghost though I have not tested it out. Also unable to use DVD+RW. For some reason, these DVD are not readable on most DVD drives. Not sure if this is a Iomega drive issues. In any case, successfully used it with Win 2K and XP.

(...), it is well worth it's price. Just 3 stars for "poor" propriety software package.

I'm really trying to make it work with this burner. After hours and hours of attempted DVD-R burning with the 4x model and 10+ chat's with Iomega support, the support team realized the problem might be my drive. I received the 8x model as a replacement and am having similar problems burning. I know it is not a machine specific problem since a TDK external drive burns no problem. I would never wish the amount of time I have wasted troubleshooting and $$'s spent on failed DVD-R burns on anyone.

I tried this drive on Mac OSX, you would think get up & go as easy as mac is but ohno, the box says its for mac, the CD in the box is for windows & guess what ? this drive does not work on Mac osx or tiger. You turn it on & nothing, nothing mounts to the desktop & I mean nothing so what does one do in times like these ? Goes to show ya!!! buy from apple & you get what you pay for .. top quality. Buy from those trying to meet the mac system & its the worste buck spent for the day. Man I tell ya! windows is so lame. Mac rules but then you guys/gals knew that .. right ? Of course you did..

In spite of a product description that says the contrary, this product is NOT MAC COMPATIBLE. It will *NOT* burn DVD's under OS-X. This straight from the mouth of Iomega tech support.

This device was a major bust!!! Will NOT properly transfer any format data,music,video from a Win98SE to blanks then to WinXP MC2004 computer. Crashes computer and the included CD/DVD software willNOT work properly. Sonic CinePlayer froze computer up and would not load. Installation software changed config.sys/ regedit/autoecec files to its own parameter and rendered my internal cr-rom drive inoperable. After 7 hours on non-toll free repair line with Iomega got that working but Sonic tech support could NOT fix freeze problem so I had to return it for full refund. Iomega is a piece of junk and its 3rd party software sucks!! Sabve your money go Sony or LaCie d2!!