Sony DRU-700A Double Layer Internal DVD±RW Drive

by Sony

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00023XDZ4
• Item model number: DRU700A
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #88 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > Internal Optical Drives > Internal CD Drives
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 23, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Sony's new Double Layer DVD recording brings new capability to your PC. With the ability to store up to 4 hours of high quality MPEG-2 video (or up to 8 hours of MPEG-1 video) or up to 8.5GB of information on a single sided disc with 2 recordable layers. DVD+R DL discs are write once discs of the DVD "+" format, and once recorded they are playable in standard consumer DVD players and computer DVD-ROM drives. What's more, the new Double Layer drives from Sony record the popular DVD+R and DVD+RW 4.7 GB standard discs and CD-R/RW discs too! Sony has packed all this technology into easy to install retail upgrade solutions for your Windows 2000 or XP PC with award winning Nero software, suite and accessories to get you up and going quickly and easily.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Coasters so Far, August 26, 2004

By 

V. Volkov (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony DRU-700A Double Layer Internal DVD±RW Drive (Personal Computers)

I've had this drive for about 4 days and already it made 6 coasters and 1 good disk (I am hoping). I made a mistake of backing up 4.5 GB of data to a DVD and then deleting the data from the hard drive. A couple of hours later I realized that I still needed some of the information on my computer. When I tried to copy from the DVD, the DVD drive reported that the disk was defective. You can imagine how I felt! I was glad that I hadn't archived some of my most valuable image work yet.

I'd like to note that I was using an up-to-date firmware and an updated version of Nero recording software, which is one of the best on the market and still got "coasters" (no errors from Nero, but the drive refused to read the information afterwards). I also tried backing a couple of my movie DVDs with DVD X Copy Platinum, and again two coasters and one disk that worked yesterday, but produced garbled output today (go figure) -- DVD X Rescue reported logical errors in the DVD.

I had gone through much software uninstall/update/try again, before I read on the net that lots of other people were having similar problems with the drive. No solution is available as of yet. Apparently, Sony's tech support is subpar as well.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An ineffectual drive - coasters aplenty, October 14, 2004

By 

TechE (Nowhere, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony DRU-700A Double Layer Internal DVD±RW Drive (Personal Computers)

Bought this drive locally - it is completely ineffective as a drive and in fact is a hazard. I used it to replace an old LiteEon (Spl?) DVD drive (after uninstalling all the related drivers and software) and it refused to burn a single disk (12 coasters!). Tried burning three different types of media (+R, -R, +RW) at various speeds, and not a single disk of any type would burn! When it was attempting to burn, I could not get over x2 speed - the drive simply would not even attempt it. It also would not burn CD media successfully. When I installed the included Nero software (6.2 I think), it was completely incompatible with my LiteEon (Spl?) CD burner. Not only could I no longer burn CDs with it, I could not even get it to read disks after installing the included Nero software. The DVD drive then promptly decided to quit reading disks altogether! I now had a destroyed system. Even uninstalling the Nero drivers and the related other drivers the install puts on did not restore the use of my CD burner nor did it resolve the DVD burner issues. Six hours and a complete reformat and repartition of my HD later, I still could not get it to work as the only drive in my system on a brand new install of XP (2gh proc; 512 ram; 120gb HD).

Also please be aware of the very limited selection of double layered DVD disks. I have only found them available in multi-media packs, which usually include a single double layered DVD disk along with various other formats - most of which no one would use - as most people find a format that suits their needs and they tend to stick with that format only. These packs are comparatively very expensive and make for a very poor purchase for just one high capacity disk.

As a genral warning, I am telling everyone that when I attempted to contact Sony for help, new drivers, firmware updates or some manor of fixing the issue, I did not get a response. I finally took the drive back to the local store and I am now without a DVD drive, and I have an expensive pack of coasters I cannot take back. Beware of the poor quality of the Nero software itself (the bundled pack seems to be poorly integrated with the drive) and the drive's speed (only x2 max - not the much higher advertised speed). - Thanks

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worked flawlessly with Linux., November 14, 2004

By 

starvinh "starvinh" (Gaithersburg, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony DRU-700A Double Layer Internal DVD±RW Drive (Personal Computers)

I bought the 710 model to burn my wedding dvd. I don't have Windows so I used Linux and it worked perfectly. Burned ten copies so far and tested them. So, guys update your drivers or switch to Linux !