17 replies to this topic

[glennwebster]

I am thinking about replacing my old slow burner. The Pioneer 111 was highly  recommended to me.
The only place locally I can find it carries the OEM  version only which, I am told, is just the bare drive. Not even a cable or a disk  containing drivers.  
The clerk was not knowledgeable so and I haven't had  much luck finding answers online ......so I am turning to the Gurus. .
  Does  it come with firmware installed?
Anybody know the web site where I can  download it if I need it.
Is this a bad idea?
Any comments, ideas,  suggestions,warnings or ruminations regarding the drive or this idea would be  greatly appreciated.

glenn

[Beerman]

glennwebster, on Sep 16 2006, 11:54 AM, said:

I am thinking about replacing my old slow burner. The Pioneer 111 was highly  recommended to me.
The only place locally I can find it carries the OEM  version only which, I am told, is just the bare drive. Not even a cable or a disk  containing drivers.  
The clerk was not knowledgeable so and I haven't had  much luck finding answers online ......so I am turning to the Gurus. .
  Does  it come with firmware installed?
Anybody know the web site where I can  download it if I need it.
Is this a bad idea?
Any comments, ideas,  suggestions,warnings or ruminations regarding the drive or this idea would be  greatly appreciated.

glenn

The place you want to buy it from won't even tell you where you can get the drivers?  That sucks!  I would try the Pioneer forums but there are other places you can like like The Firmware page
I've only purchased 1 OEM drive long ago and it came with outdated firmware.

[cdanteek]

glennwebster, on Sep 16 2006, 11:54 AM, said:

I am thinking about replacing my old slow burner. The Pioneer 111 was highly  recommended to me.
The only place locally I can find it carries the OEM  version only which, I am told, is just the bare drive. Not even a cable or a disk  containing drivers.  
The clerk was not knowledgeable so and I haven't had  much luck finding answers online ......so I am turning to the Gurus. .
  Does  it come with firmware installed?
Anybody know the web site where I can  download it if I need it.
Is this a bad idea?
Any comments, ideas,  suggestions,warnings or ruminations regarding the drive or this idea would be  greatly appreciated.

glenn

Glenn, you have the 7.5 software?
I buy OEM drives all the time from Newegg.com. No fancy box no IDE cable and usually
a stripped down Roxio, Nero software I don't use anyway. The operating system has the drivers for the burner and MS drivers are usually the best. You can get a 40 pin 80 wire IDE cable local Best Buy or
the like.
Firmware is information stored in the drive for write strategies on different types of media.
New drives always have firmware updates and you get them from the manufactures website.
You are smart to purchase a drive from someone who actually makes the drive, because you
get better firmware support!

Newegg has this drive for $32.00 and $5.64 shipping in beige or black.
Pioneer 111D

cdanteek

[lehill]

glennwebster, on Sep 16 2006, 09:54 AM, said:

I am thinking about replacing my old slow burner. The Pioneer 111 was highly  recommended to me.
The only place locally I can find it carries the OEM  version only which, I am told, is just the bare drive. Not even a cable or a disk  containing drivers.  
The clerk was not knowledgeable so and I haven't had  much luck finding answers online ......so I am turning to the Gurus. .
  Does  it come with firmware installed?
Anybody know the web site where I can  download it if I need it.
Is this a bad idea?
Any comments, ideas,  suggestions,warnings or ruminations regarding the drive or this idea would be  greatly appreciated.

glenn

I'm a Pioneer and Newegg fan too. Other good brands are NEC and BenQ. Good instructions for installing it yourself are here. Getting the right cable and setting the jumpers are the most important part of the install process.

Installing firmware is another story, if you do it wrong you could ruin the drive and be out of $20-30. Pioneer regularly updates the firmware of their drives and I see the DVR-111D firmware was updated Sept 1, 2006 to upgrade media compatibility. I have RAID'ed drives and have not figured out how to get the firmware update utility to work, I have to pull the drive and temporarily install it on a non-RAID machine to do my firmware updates.

Depending on your mechnical skills, you may want to have a computer savvy friend do it. The effort is worth one large pizza and some beer.

Lance
*****

Edited by lehill, 17 September 2006 - 09:39 AM.

[cdanteek]

Quote

I have RAID'ed drives and have not figured out how to get the firmware update utility to work, I have to pull the drive and temporarily install it on a non-RAID machine to do my firmware updates.

Lance, could you expand on that a bit more! The firmware utility returns an error when you try to update?
Would you list the drive model, motherboard model and bios version. What brand of raid Intel, Via, what version of the raid driver. Is the raid on the motherboard or a add on card?

I run raid arrays, and have no problems with firmware flashing utility's.

I see some answers in you signature!


cdanteek

Edited by cdanteek, 17 September 2006 - 10:05 AM.

[lehill]

cdanteek, on Sep 17 2006, 11:03 AM, said:

Lance, could you expand on that a bit more! The firmware utility returns an error when you try to update?
Would you list the drive model, motherboard model and bios version. What brand of raid Intel, Via, what version of the raid driver. Is the raid on the motherboard or a add on card?

I run raid arrays, and have no problems with firmware flashing utility's.

I see some answers in you signature!
cdanteek

I just recently re-formatted and re-installed WinXP SP2, so I visited the Intel site and got the latest

Intel "F6" RAID driver (6/17/2003, 3.5.0.2568),
Chipset (6.3.0.1081),
IDE (11/17.2004, 6.3.0.1005),
LAN (4/27/2006, 8.7.1.0),
Audio (Creative, 6/16/2003, 5.12.2.290)
Video (ATI 9600XT 8x AGP, 8/2/2006, 8.282.0.0)
BIOS (3/31/2005, P34)

as appropriate for my "computer enthusiast" D875PBZ motherboard. All are built-in components except for the audio (cheapie Creative Live! series PCI card ) and video. My RAM is only running 320MHz, but that's my fault for not buying matched pairs. I'm looking to replace them.

I have attempted firmware updates on my DVR110D in the past with Pioneer's firmware utility (DVRupdate 0.9.exe). From my files it looks like the last attempt was on 3/12/2006 with firmware v1.39.

This site says there's v1.41 available with "improvements" to write-/read-ability so I'd like to try it without the hassle - my DVR-109D at work is due for a firmware update too.

Hmm...looks like their update instructions have changed, the updater is very different than before. Will try it out and get back to you soon.

Lance
*****

Edited by lehill, 17 September 2006 - 11:54 AM.

[cdanteek]

Quote

Intel "F6" RAID driver (6/17/2003, 3.5.0.2568),

IDE (11/17.2004, 6.3.0.1005),


Video (ATI 9600XT 8x AGP, 8/2/2006, 8.282.0.0)

I'm running the same raid driver. Your IDE is that the controller driver or the primary and secondary. Mine are different and we both run xp sp2! Are they MS drivers?
I see you have the new ati driver, I have to catch up and install it.
F6 I assume the os is on the raid array.
Is that where you run the firmware updater from? Have you ever ran it from a IDE drive?

cdanteek

[lehill]

lehill, on Sep 17 2006, 12:49 PM, said:

Hmm...looks like their update instructions have changed, the updater is very different than before. Will try it out and get back to you soon.

Success!! Pioneer fixed the update problem with a different firmware updater (ODD Firmware Update Utility v2.33I).

Looks like the problem was not with the RAID drives, but the Intel Application Accelerator and UltraATA drivers.

Thanks cdanteek, looks like I owe you 1 pizza (no beer because I actually did the work) for making me look closely around the Pioneer site. I was really dreading having to pull the drive again.

Now I have to go burn something...

Lance
*****

[cdanteek]

Quote

no beer

Thems fighten words!

Good work on the updater.

cdanteek

[lehill]

Just to satisfy everyone's burning curiousity:

cdanteek, on Sep 17 2006, 01:31 PM, said:

I'm running the same raid driver. Your IDE is that the controller driver or the primary and secondary. Mine are different and we both run xp sp2! Are they MS drivers? I wrote down the controller driver, the channel drivers are from MS
I see you have the new ati driver, I have to catch up and install it. It never ends...ATI always has newer drivers
F6 I assume the os is on the raid array. The floppy disk you put in at the very first step of Windows installation and have to "Press F6..." to install RAID drivers so Windows can install on your RAID.
Is that where you run the firmware updater from? Have you ever ran it from a IDE drive? That's the first place I tried, not on purpose but my IDE's just happen to be where I store these files, I try (not there yet) to keep the RAIDs just for software - so reloading Windows is not so traumatic.

cdanteek

[glennwebster]

cdanteek, on Sep 16 2006, 10:30 AM, said:

Glenn, you have the 7.5 software?
I buy OEM drives all the time from Newegg.com. No fancy box no IDE cable and usually
a stripped down Roxio, Nero software I don't use anyway. The operating system has the drivers for the burner and MS drivers are usually the best. You can get a 40 pin 80 wire IDE cable local Best Buy or
the like.
Firmware is information stored in the drive for write strategies on different types of media.
New drives always have firmware updates and you get them from the manufactures website.
You are smart to purchase a drive from someone who actually makes the drive, because you
get better firmware support!

Newegg has this drive for $32.00 and $5.64 shipping in beige or black.
Pioneer 111D

cdanteek

     HI, Thanks for the info. Been away for a few days and  didn't see your reply until today.

1. Yes, I have the 7.5 software also  have EMC8, but not installed.
I'm in the middle of a project and have been  reluctant to tempt the computer gods by updating to the new version. What is  your opinion on that?

2. I am getting a few read errors on my current   DVD ROM drive and have decided to replace it at the same time as my burner.  Considering installing two Pioneer 111D drives. Seems like a good idea to me.  Any advantage or problems in doing that? Can you recommend a replacement DVD ROM  drive in case I decide to go that way.?

3. Can I assume  the existing  IDE cables will suffice?

4. Should I remove the existing Drives using the  Device manager before shutting down to replace the drives?      
glenn

lehill, on Sep 17 2006, 10:37 AM, said:

I'm a Pioneer and Newegg fan too. Other good brands are NEC and BenQ. Good instructions for installing it yourself are here. Getting the right cable and setting the jumpers are the most important part of the install process.

Installing firmware is another story, if you do it wrong you could ruin the drive and be out of $20-30. Pioneer regularly updates the firmware of their drives and I see the DVR-111D firmware was updated Sept 1, 2006 to upgrade media compatibility. I have RAID'ed drives and have not figured out how to get the firmware update utility to work, I have to pull the drive and temporarily install it on a non-RAID machine to do my firmware updates.

Depending on your mechnical skills, you may want to have a computer savvy friend do it. The effort is worth one large pizza and some beer.

Lance
*****

[glennwebster]

lehill, on Sep 17 2006, 10:37 AM, said:

I'm a Pioneer and Newegg fan too. Other good brands are NEC and BenQ. Good instructions for installing it yourself are here. Getting the right cable and setting the jumpers are the most important part of the install process.

Installing firmware is another story, if you do it wrong you could ruin the drive and be out of $20-30. Pioneer regularly updates the firmware of their drives and I see the DVR-111D firmware was updated Sept 1, 2006 to upgrade media compatibility. I have RAID'ed drives and have not figured out how to get the firmware update utility to work, I have to pull the drive and temporarily install it on a non-RAID machine to do my firmware updates.

Depending on your mechnical skills, you may want to have a computer savvy friend do it. The effort is worth one large pizza and some beer.

Lance
*****

   Hi Lance,
Thanks so much for the links and advice. I feel confident that I  can do the replacement now. Please see my reply to  cdanteek for a couple of  other questions.

I haven't figured out how to reply (Copy) to more than  one person at the same time    


glenn

[cdanteek]

Quote

1. Yes, I have the 7.5 software also have EMC8, but not installed.
I'm in the middle of a project and have been reluctant to tempt the computer gods by updating to the new version. What is your opinion on that?

2. I am getting a few read errors on my current DVD ROM drive and have decided to replace it at the same time as my burner. Considering installing two Pioneer 111D drives. Seems like a good idea to me. Any advantage or problems in doing that? Can you recommend a replacement DVD ROM drive in case I decide to go that way.?

3. Can I assume the existing IDE cables will suffice?

4. Should I remove the existing Drives using the Device manager before shutting down to replace the drives?  
glenn

1. I would finish up with 7.5 before trying 8.

2. Buy two 16x DL Burners. I would buy two different models. The
Nec, I like BenQ 1640 but the 1655 has poor firmware support for DL burning.

3. No make sure they are 40 pin 80 wire cables for the new DVD Burners.

4.Yes!

cdanteek

[glennwebster]

Beerman, on Sep 16 2006, 09:58 AM, said:

The place you want to buy it from won't even tell you where you can get the drivers? That sucks! I would try the Pioneer forums but there are other places you can like like The Firmware page
I've only purchased 1 OEM drive long ago and it came with outdated firmware.

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the link. I'm going to buy the drive from Newegg.com. I may take a little time before doing the replacement.
I noticed today that the Cosmic Sphincter is about 15 degrees off my port bow and appears to be keeping an eye on me. I'm going to see what develops there before making any rash moves


glenn

[glennwebster]

cdanteek, on Sep 18 2006, 12:08 PM, said:

1. I would finish up with 7.5 before trying 8.

2. Buy two 16x DL Burners. I would buy two different models. The
Nec, I like BenQ 1640 but the 1655 has poor firmware support for DL burning.

3. No make sure they are 40 pin 80 wire cables for the new DVD Burners.

4.Yes!

cdanteek

Hi cdanteek,
Need a little clarification on your last reply.
I like your  idea of buying two different models.
I want to buy the Pioneer 111 (OEM) but  am not sure what the other burner is that you said you liked, and is it an OEM  drive and does that make any difference? Thank you for the link to Newegg.com. I  think I will do most of my shopping there.

Glenn

[cdanteek]

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827152058

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827106019

No difference to me. If you want retail add 5-10-bucks, they are on the site with some searching. The Lite-On is Light Scribe, maybe you would like one of those!

cdanteek

[lehill]

glennwebster, on Sep 18 2006, 11:57 AM, said:

Hi Lance,
Thanks so much for the links and advice. I feel confident that I  can do the replacement now. Please see my reply to  cdanteek for a couple of  other questions.

I haven't figured out how to reply (Copy) to more than  one person at the same time    


glenn

Sorry for the delay...had a rough couple days at work.

I agree with cdanteek's recommendations (see post #13 in this thread).

I haven't figured out replying to multiple posts at once either. I think you copy (ctrl-c) whatever you want to quote, paste it (ctrl-v) into your edit box, highlight it and push the "wrap in quote" icon located on the edit box toolbar. Let's see...

Quote

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the link. I'm going to buy the drive from Newegg.com. I may take a little time before doing the replacement.

Yep, the "wrap in quote" button works as expected.

Lance
*****

[lynn98109]

lehill, on Sep 19 2006, 10:40 PM, said:

Sorry for the delay...had a rough couple days at work.

I agree with cdanteek's recommendations (see post #13 in this thread).

I haven't figured out replying to multiple posts at once either. I think you copy (ctrl-c) whatever you want to quote, paste it (ctrl-v) into your edit box, highlight it and push the "wrap in quote" icon located on the edit box toolbar. Let's see...

Yep, the "wrap in quote" button works as expected.

Lance
*****

If you use the "reply" button at the bottom of each post (not the one at the top of the page), it seems to merge the two together if nobody else has posted betweentimes.

Lynn