Mixed in...

From: "Dennis Lucas"
>I find it hard to believe that Dell used a single drive type DVD.

Strange, but true...
Dell will send you the oldest stuff they have in stock, just to get
it out of the place... They have a high turn-over, but unless you
ask, they will stick you with "last years" model parts sometimes.
It happened to me on the first and only Dell computer I ever bought...
The modem was so slow, it was only good for FAXING...
I eventually wound up with three internal modems in that computer,
so it did not matter... (Extended com ports and high IRQs etc...)

>Today almost all DVD drives are dual types.

People need to say if theirs is new or not...
The person I was talking about had a Dell computer "only" a year old...
Some of the hardware manufacturers held out for making their "type" THE
standard for a little too long... Pioneer comes to mind... (AO4???)
What happened instead was that the standard "became" that a drive HAD
to support both types, or nobody was interested in buying it...

After Dell pretty much "software" trashed his system, and "while" an on-site
tech was in route with replacement parts, I tested all the hardware with a
BartPE-CD using my "embedded" Nero Full registered version as the burning software.
BartPE boots from a CD, to a modified version of XP-Pro-SP2 with Nero and some
other programs, etc...  It uses the HD for a swap file of sorts, and some shared DLLs,
but they are not necessary. You can boot and run with NO hard drive -- if you want...
It is a modern diagonistic tool you have to make yourself with your OWN copy of XP...
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

For more features, but harder to make and configure, look here: http://xppe.com
The owner of that second site has given seminars at Gov't research centers on the subject.
(His picture is on his other site with more details about his trip there...)
http://www.wavijo.com/sandia/index.htm

Getting back to the Media type problem, (remember back that far, <grin>...)
There were no problems with burning anything we wanted, and the Nero info tool,
(or one of their other utilities), verified the drives specs and capabilities.
We THEN knew it was a "single media type" drive... We could not find that info any
other way, and Dell appeared to not know, or was not sharing that info...
(Or did not consider it important to "ask" or tell...)
Remember the first rule? Check the simple stuff first?

They were more than willing to replace his burner AND wipe his HD back to the
factory restore disk... (Loose all data, etc...)
You ever wonder why they have those scripts (now) with all those seemingly dumb
questions when you call in? It protects you from yourself AND them...

I have to admit, I was surprised since this was a high end gaming computer they
had built for their son...  (I don't "do" high-end" when computer challenged
people are involved, but will help them pick up the pieces later...)

                                               Rick Glazier


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