Rating: 
Summary: Initial doubts are now gone.
Review: (Note: this review is for the 9150i, which is the new model replacing this one... since they are essentially the same I thought I would review it.) I am like a lot of the other reviewers for this product, in that I shopped around quite a bit before settling on a burner. Each company has its pros and cons- being the shopper that I am, I tend to look at the cons very closely, since all the pros are comparable with any brand. HP turned me off almost instantly when I found out their tech support charged for help (when will companies realize this is not the way to do business?), so I didn't exclude it, but put it at the back of the list. Well one by one each in front of it found its way off, so I decided to take another look at it. I couldn't be happier that I did. This is a VERY easy to operate rewriter. If you can get through the install (which will require a bit of tech knowledge, even with the instructions), you'll find this to be a very capable and efficient product. The Adaptec software is very nicely laid out, making it a breeze to record music and save data. I get better write times than I thought I would- I choose what songs I want on the disc, and after a 30 second write test, it's ready to listen to in about 8 minutes. That's plenty fast for me, and the recordings sound really good (even that's more to do with what disc brand you have.) Haven't tried storing any data on a cd-rw yet so I can't really comment on that, but I would assume it works just as well. I've used the burner roughly 10 times with and gotten perfect results with each. Minor gripe would be the tech support, but the darn thing is so simple I sincerely doubt the need to even keep the phone #, but I will just in case :) Overall an outstanding value and worthy of the raves it has received. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Great value despite bad experiences with certain disks
Review: As this is my first CD writer, I'm not sure how it compares w/competing products, but this is great value for a very useful computer add-on. Primarily, I use it for backing up my PC, storing digital photos & other documents, passing digital photos to my friends and family, and making my own audio CDs.In my Win98 system, I did run into slow performances and occassional hangs when writing onto CompUSA 2x CDRW disks. The fault may lie with the 2x disks, because with the 4x CDRW disks (also from CompUSA), I've had no problems and the speed is impressive. I really love the DirectCD software, which lets me write to the disk from any programs just like a hard drive. The CD Creator program is fine for making audio CDs, but nothing beats being able to simply drag & drop files from Windows Explorer to the CD. This is perfect for storing important but large file sets (such as my digital photos) that are frequently accessed and added to. I considered getting a tape backup drive last year; I'm glad I waited because this works great as a backup drive--speedy and easy to access. I can't archive GBs of data at a time, but it's just fine for backing up selected files & directories.
Rating: 
Summary: No HP Support and I cant install it!
Review: BE CARFULL!! It turns out that IDE driver is not compatible with the HP CDwriters and the basic IDE driver that comes with Windows wont work either. I stayed on the phone with a Microsoft tech and we could never get it to run without crashing. Even after I upgraded to Windows 98 to try to fix the problem it still doesnt work.. so it looks like Im out $175 for the damn cd writer and $90 for the worthless upgrade to windows 98. NO HELP FROM HP. Just for the lack of support Id tell friends to avoid HP, If you have trouble you are on your own. Ive installed hardware before but Ive never had this much trouble.
Rating:
Summary: The best for the price
Review: Easy to install, no problems and I reasonable price.
Rating:
Summary: Great drive - cheap too!
Review: Got burned buying the first 2x HP writer back when this was relatively new technology. It made more coasters than CD's. This one, I'm happy to say, makes up for the former. Yes, it makes CD's and fast too! I don't think people will be able to tell the difference between 10 or 20x. It almost takes longer to start the burning process than the actual burning. The feature that sets this apart most, however, is their Simple Backup program. As an Easy CD Creator user, I've been increasingly frustrated that they continue to ignore the obvious need to back up a hard drive. HP's program solves that problem quickly and efficiently with their program, it even spans across multiple CD's for you packrats. I ran into a slight problem originally installing their software (common for Microsoft plug and PRAY users). Popped off a note to tech support and got a response in a week. Not fabulous, but probably as good or better as any other company. Solved the problem. Only caveat - they include an old 3.0 version of Easy CD Creator. If you have 4.0 you can uninstall theirs and install 4.0 into the same directory and it will work seamlessly with their other programs. One thing to check out before buying is the new "burn-proof" technology or something similarly named that Sanyo has developed and is starting to appear in Plextor CD writers as of the time of this review. So far the reviews have been really positive and you may want to spend the extra cash for the technology. Otherwise this is the best writer at this price level (I paid twice as much just two months ago - man I hate that!)
Rating:
Summary: Forget Cheap asian and chinesse burners!
Review: Hey guys, american technology rules! If you want to spend every other year on a new burner, then by all means, keep buying oriental burners. If you like quality and reliability, perfect burns every time, then you must own the best! Hewlett Packard burners/ Is your money, mine is earned very hard so I rather spend a bit more now than 100% again later after the damm japanesse burner dies and they ask me to send it to Mexico or Canada! Forget you Yamaha! Thanks HP! Best Free Phone Customer Service I used them to install (i am not too bright you know) They have patience and stayed until finished on the phone! 5 Stars people!
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT BURNER!
Review: I bought this burrner after alot of comparsion shopping and was a little iffy on the IDE, i would have rather went with SCSI, but well what can ya do. the only drawback to this burner is you need a fast Computer / 12X+ CDROM to keep up with it when its writing at 8X.....my computer is a 233 MMX with a 12X CD rom, and it barely keeps up with this Burner..... Excellent burner!
Rating:
Summary: The best computing product I've ever purchased
Review: I have been in computing for almost 20 years now, and never has a product impressed me all round as this one has. Installation of the unit and the drivers is a breeze - the manual is reasonably decent too. The bundled software is the real bonus though: For example, DirectCD allows you to use a CD-RW as a floppy disk - just drag and drop files onto and off the disk which is "mounted" just like another drive. The Multimedia Organiser is a good product too - it can be used to catalogue and keep track of all your (for example) image files on a CD-R. What is also nice, is that each time you insert blank media, be it a CD-R or CD-RW, a menu pops up with a sort of "Idiot's Guide To Writing A CD" type of thing. It's a very simple and easy way to create the type of CD that you want. Other than that, there's a whole host of additional functionality and goodies - such as the free Neato CD labelling kit together with printing templates. For important storage I only use HP branded CDs, and have never had a problem. As for other brands, the cheaper discs can sometimes fail, but this is caused by faulty CD production and not by the HP CD writer. Saving the best for last, the speed is fantastic. At 8X a full CD-R takes well under 10 minutes from start to finish. Writing to a CD-RW is obviously slower at 4X, but it's good enough unless you're backing up your 20 gig harddrive each Friday :-) In summary, an all round fantastic product at a most competitive price. Go and get one.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent drive
Review: I have had this drive briefly, but its just amazing as to how reliable this drive is. So far I dont have any wasted CDsand am extremely satisfied with the speeds at which this drive writes.
Rating:
Summary: Good product, good value
Review: I have used a number of HP's products in the past and find that this is yet another really good investment. I love to use it for making my music CDs and now that I have a digital camera and digital camcorder, I will be using it for storage as well. As to the comments made by another reviewer, you can use music discs you create in your car (I have 5 right now in mine!). The only thing you have to do is burn the disc in one sitting. Any CD-RW drive creates a menu at the beginning of the disc. This is read by your CD-ROM or CD player telling it how many titles/items are on it. If that menu is broken up by writing the data in multiple sessions, it will be unreadable by any player other than a CD-RW drive. So if you plan to make music CDs you can listen to other than at your computer, plan them out and burn in one session, otherwise, you're SOL. :)
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