Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: Software write error. Error stated I was using a high speed disc which was incompatible with the drive. I was using standard Sony discs. Spent two hours with tech support and still, did not work. Tech support says software 'record now' is new to them. My computer operating at optimum speed and still, did not work. A waste of time and money.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for laptops...
Review: I was quite pleased with the appearance of the unit and the ease of which the set-up with my laptop went. Problem came up with the three cords and the unit to store when not in use. Perhaps a simpler plug in than the one line w/ a tranformer on the end and another cord to the unit itself? And straps to keep cords with unit. It's suppose to be portable, right? But my real problem came when I tried to use it with my desktop, in which I already have one CD-R. The software doesn't even acknowledge the HP. I'm sure with a bit of tweaking I can work this out, but I don't feel I should have to, if you know what I mean. I want things to work perfectly right out of the box.
Rating: 
Summary: Suggestions for avoiding coasters
Review: My experience echoed a lot of the complaints here. The set-up worked fine on my Dell Latitude, and the drive made data disks just fine, but no music disks. It would report a write error and spit out a coaster every time. After weeks of frustration, I tried this: shut down all programs, including the screen saver, rebooted. Opened HP RecordNow. At the "Welcome to Record Now" menu, I clicked Options, then the Advanced tab. For Recorder Speed, I checked "limit maximum recorder speed to 1x." Since then, I've burned several music CD's with no coasters. It's not fast, but it's working. Clearly an inferior piece of equipment, but since I can't return it, I'm happy I can at least make it work.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT PURCHASE
Review: This product is terrible!!! I never did get it to work. HP tech support is no help and the website is even worse.Save your time and money and do not purchase this product
Rating:
Summary: Good Hardware, But Serious Compatibility Problems
Review: This CD burner worked perfectly when it was working ... but unfortunately, I had severe compatibility problems using it with my Compaq (running off a Pentium III). The software wasn't very intuitive to begin with, and would crash my system repeatedly without warning. Bizarre installation problems turned into frequent reboots, which eventually turned into fatal exception errors. For the first couple of days, I was making flawless CDs; but after a week, I was struggling just to keep my computer running. So yes, it's great hardware, but if you get system errors early on, be very careful.
Rating: 
Summary: Did everything I wanted it to
Review: This machine is very easy to use and to set up. I purchased it, set it up and installed the software/drivers within 30 minutes. Storing data on this machine is also very easy. However, it is not a very fast machine. Recording an audio CD from MP3's takes about 12 minutes to an hour, depending on what speed you set. (4x, 2x or 1x). There are several internal CD burners available on the market that will write and read faster, but finding an external one with more speed will cost quite a bit more than the 159.00 I spent on it.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: After reading some of the reviews of this product from customers
about this product i was reluctant to buy this CD-Writer. I must
say it has worked very well and easy to use it was also a snap to
install and start using, i was making CD's 20min after i opened the box. I used memorex 74min blank media and it has worked flawlessly using just about 18min to burn a CD. One problem i did have was it gave me a error message when i tried to use one of the two 74min HP blank media CD's that came with the writer so i
switched to the pack of Memorex that i had purchased and have been perfect from that point on. If you're looking for a easy setup and non hassle product i highly reccommend the HP8230e.
It is also alot bigger then i thought but it looks very cool!
Rating:
Summary: Very simple to install
Review: I found the HP 8230e very easy to setup & install on my Dell Dimension desktop. The only problem I had was with the HP CD-RW disc that was included. Apparently it was defective bc the drive would not acknowledge it. There are also only certain CD-Rs the drive will write to correctly. I've found that CompUSA brand 80 minute CD-Rs are hit or miss. You have a 50/50 chance of success. On the other hand, Memorex brand Black CD-Rs work 95% of the time. I suspect the reason why the recording is not always successful can be attributed to the HPs rather picky nature. In other words, you can't expect that you are going to cram 80 minutes or 700 MB to the CD without leaving at least a minute's worth of space at the end of the CD, otherwise you'll end up with a coaster. I still dont fully understand the reason for the "data" CD feature in the Adaptec software but then again, it's not an issue. I use the HP primarily for audio CDs. In the final analysis, if you're looking for a mid-priced, external CD writer with a reputable brand name behind it, then buy the 8230e. Tech support, however, is another story. I am a tech so I rarely have a need to contact anyone else about any given issues.
Rating: 
Summary: So far so good.
Review: I got this burner yesterday. It is fairly easy to setup. First I installed the hardware then pop in the driver floppy disk. After that I installed the software. It is fairly easy to use too, I burned my first data cd within 30 minutes. I was surprise how big this burner really is, from the pic above it looks small but this thing is about 10 inches long and 5 inches wide. But that's no biggie as long as it keeps burning. One complain though, it takes a while for me to burn stuff. Like it took about 12 minutes to extract one CD and about 5 minutes to burn my data CD. That's like an eternity. It'd be so much better if they make it a lil faster. But I guess with this price, that's the best u can get.
Rating:
Summary: Great Product
Review: I have a Dell Inspiron 7000 notebook and have been using an old Smart and Friendly 2x burner. It was scsi, and i bought a scsi -> parallel port cable so my burner was slow as molassas. I read some reviews that made me contemplate buying this product, but it has worked great. With USB cable, its plug and play is an awesome feature, so I dont have to restart when I connect it. The software is also really easy to use, and has been burning audio cd's directly from mp3 format without problems, and i was concerned with buffer underrun which i used to always get. This is definately worth the price, and I would have even paid more because it works like a charm.
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