Ricoh's MP7063A - 32x/6x/4x CD-RW. Fast and cheap CD burning
Written: Sep 03 '00 (Updated Oct 17 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great speed, great price, extremely reliable, helpful (and prompt) tech support, stack of burning options, nice software bundle...
Cons: It can cause problems if you need to replace your motherboard, but the solution is simple enough (when you know how!)
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| mythor's Full Review: Ricoh Internal CD-RW drive |
A fully customised music cd in 13 minutes? You bet! This baby burns cd's quickly and reliably, and it'll also read cd's at a good pace too.
I recently gave in and purchased the Ricoh MP7063A from a computer fair that was held near me. The RRP for the drive is around $350 (Australian) but I got it for $290, so right from the moment I bought it, I was extremely happy.
Next of course, came the unpacking and reading of manuals.
Really not sure why I bothered!
Not that there's anything WRONG with the manuals, there just wasn't a great deal of point to me reading them. If you know how to install a standard cd-rom then you'll have zero problems installing this burner.
After the physical installation of the drive, is the always fun installation of the software drivers for the hardware to be recognised.... right?
WRONG!
The Ricoh burner is automatically recognised and configured by Windows! Plug it in and switch it on and you're in business!
Of course, you still need to install some kind of cd burning software, which is provided on a cd bundled with the drive. Two different programs are on offer. One is a very simple affair - stick a cd in that you'd like to copy and create an "image" of the cd on your hard drive (obviously you need enough space to store the image!!). Then insert a blank CD-R (or CD-RW) and tell it to use the image file as the source to burn a new cd. 13 minutes (time might vary with slower PCs) you have a copy of that cd! This program isn't hugely versatile, but it's a nice quick way of burning a copy of an existing cd. Of course, it's illegal to sell the copy or anything, but it's handy to use to back up very important cd's, in case the original dies!
The other program that comes with the drive is called, "FunCD". Stupid name, but a pretty good program! Using it you can do the same kind of thing as the program mentioned above, taking an image of the cd, then burning it onto a new one. You can also tell it to create compilation cd's of all your favorite music, assuming of course you have the music on cd (or as wav files on your hard drive). This is pretty simple to do, and the resulting cd is a high quality copy of the original songs, which you can then use in a standard cd player, such as in a proper stereo, or your car cd player etc. You have to be sure to burn the cd in the right format for this though, but the program lets you know what the format is suitable for, so there's no problem.
And of course, you can also use the burner to burn just any old file off your hard drive onto cd - which is probably what most people want it for! This side of things is all pretty straightforward as well. Just tell FunCD what files on your hard drive you'd like to burn to cd, then stick a cd-r in and you're off. Of course, if you want to avoid making what are known as "drink coasters", you'd do well to ensure your hard drive is defragmented and running smoothly beforehand. It's also a good idea to have no other programs running at the same time, as well as making sure your screensaver is switched OFF before starting to burn. So far I've had no problems, but it's better to be safe than sorry! For the curious, I have had mIRC running as well as burning a cd, and it created no problems, so with a faster PC you might be safe if you just run low memory usage programs. If you can afford to waste cd's, experiment!
Among some of the other nifty options this burner sports is the ability to burn "bootable" cd's. Bootable cd's mean that you can stick the cd in the drive while booting up your PC, and assuming your BIOS supports it, you can actually run an operating system from the CD! Not a hugely useful feature for me, but it's nice to know the option is there, should I ever want to create my own Linux installation CD or something similar.
The only problem I've run into so far was when I had to get my motherboard replaced last week. Upon starting windows with the new board installed, it detected all my new hardware and installed new drivers for all sorts of things - including my IDE controller. For those that don't know, the IDE controller is what tells your hard drive/s and cd-rom/cd-R/cd-RW how to behave. Reinstalling it shouldn't cause problems - if you're using a standard IDE controller interface. My new motherboard doesn't. It has special drivers for the IDE controller. I didn't know that. My PC didn't like the new drivers. My burner would no longer be recognised by windows. I was NOT HAPPY!
I won't go through all the steps I had to go through to fix the problem, I'll just say that it was a very long and brainbending process. I'd advise anyone who is getting a new motherboard installed to be sure they have the right drivers available if needed, or else you're going to have a hell of a time getting your CD-RW functioning again! This wasn't the fault of the burner itself of course, I mention it mainly so people are forewarned of this potential problem!
I also mention it, because when I was about ready to tear my hair out in frustration (it took me 2 full days to work out what needed to be done!!) I sent off an email to Ricoh (in Australia) requesting some way of receiving some tech support. Today at around lunch time (today being the first working day since I lodged my request for help) I got a phone call from a nice lady at Ricoh, asking about my request for help! I'd already got it fixed by then, but it was good to know that they do indeed have a support department that would've helped me if I'd needed it. For their records I went through the problem and the solution, so hopefully if someone else faces the same dilemma, the Ricoh people will know exactly what to do! :-)
Overall, the Ricoh MP7063A is not among the fastest burners out there. Even Ricoh itself has faster burners out now! However, if you're looking for a rock solid burner, with decent speed behind it, that isn't going to break the budget, check it out!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
mythor
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Member: Matthew Sharpe
Location: Sydney, Australia
Reviews written: 77
Trusted by: 47 members
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