Sony DRU 500AX dead after 3 weeks - have to wait up to six..

[JohnnyCNote]

I purchased a Sony DRU 500 AX the end of April, and after a little over 3 weeks it completely died. The first sign of trouble was when I tried to format CD-RW's. It would always fail right before they were finished, giving a vague "general" failure message (I can't recall the exact wording). Then it disappeared from "My Computer", and wouldn't even show up on the BIOS. It was completely dead - even the door wouldn't open.

Since this was over the holiday weekend, I had to wait 'til Tuesday to call Sony. After waiting at least 15 minutes, I got a rep who took my information and said she'd transfer me to a tech suppor rep. This was surprising because, according to the menu, I should have already been talking to one. I had to wait at least another 20 minutes before I finally got a live person.

She wanted me to disconnect the IDE cable and see if the drive powered up. I said I wanted to put the phone down for a minute and she cut me off, insisting that I call back after the computer was open. I told her I'd been waiting over 30 minutes and she could wait for one or two. She corrected me, saying it was only 20 minutes, but she wasn't including how long I'd been waiting for the first rep to answer. I told her that all I had to do was remove two thumbscrews and the side opens right up and that it would have been easier to do without holding the stupid phone, but I opened it anyway (it's an Antec that's very easy to open). I started the computer and, just as I'd told her, the drive would not power up and did not show up in the BIOS.

She told me to remove the drive and, once again, call her back. I said it comes right out and before she could argue I had it in my hand. If you haven't gathered, she was very impatient and did not seem to know much about computer cases, presuming they all must be hard to open.

After I gave her the required info she gave me the RMA address and said it would take three to six weeks before it would be returned! I told her this was entirely unacceptable as I hadn't even had it a month, and that I'd have returned it but it was past CompUSA's 14 day return period. She offered the standard, unconvincing apology and otherwise acted as if she wished I'd hang up. I finally asked for a supervisor, who arrived after a few minutes (what a surprise!).

At least she had a more profesisonal attitude, and said that the turnaround was about 8 days. I explained again that I'd just gotten the thing, that I was having to pay to have it shipped from Florida to San Jose, CA, and that I'd keep this in mind the next time I considered getting a Sony drive, plus I'd have to go out and get another CD-RW so I could continue to do my back-ups. She apologized and said the other rep could give me the RMA data. I told her that the rep had been very unprofessional and argumentative, but she said the rep had to finish processing the RMA.

So I got the RMA info and sent the drive via Priority Mail. With insurance it came to nearly $16. Fortunately, OfficeMax has cheap Cendyne drives for $10 after rebate, so I just picked up one of those. Has anyone else had these kinds of problems with the DRU 500 AX? Also, does anyone have a corporate address for Sony? They don't make that information very public.

Hopefully this won't drag out too long......

[vric]

humm I already read the same story on this forum

[JohnnyCNote]

I can only hope the replacement is better. On the whole it gets very good reviews, so maybe it's a case where my number was up for having a drive failure.....

[vric]

I can only hope the replacement is better. On the whole it gets very good reviews, so maybe it's a case where my number was up for having a drive failure.....

Review... piff...

Personal story:
When the Motherboard Asus P4S8X (with SIS648) came out, I was one of the first to get it.. On praticly all the Professional review on the net, the board got 8/10 or more.. In Fact, this board is one (or was one) of the Worst Board ever made. There were some hundreds of user on Forum crying that there board was pure crap. The Fact is, Asus sent different board for the review that was better quality. Some website after a lot of pression did a new test with a board they get on store, and sudently, the good 8/10 review fall to 3/10.. Good board to unstable and unusable board.. I needed to fight with Asus Canada and asus Japan (Asus USA don't even have customer support) to get a remplacement and finally, after 4 month they made a corect board.. but 4 month later, the board wasn't even up tp date anymore..

After this, I don't even look at Professional Review since praticly all of them are pure marketing s*it !

Look in the forums, this is where you will find the REAL reviews..

[JohnnyCNote]

Look in the forums, this is where you will find the REAL reviews..

I did - most of the comments were favorable. I also check out the user comments on review sites like CNet.com and PCWorld.com. It's not the drive that bothers me so much, since every once in a while something's going to be faulty, but the attitude of the "tech" rep that angered me, and the fact it might take so long. More than anything it was just bad timing.

Thanks anyway.....

[nerdboy69]

Have had mine since Feb, and it has been burning regularly since.
Have not had any troubles, so hopefully you just had a lemon and your next one will be sweet.

Good luck.

[Bob W]

I think that makes about four here who have reported the Sony drives failing. My DRU-500A died after about 300 burns.

[Felix T Cat]

My Sony DRU-500a died after about 100 burns. I went through the same RMA process but I went one step further. The rep I talked to gave me the phone number for the Service Center and I called them. I very politely asked the woman that answered if there was any way I could get it rushed and she was very nice. I get the drive back about 3 days after they got it.

My repaired 500a has been going for just over 150 burns so far.

[JohnnyCNote]

I had a civil conversation with the supervisor, but the other rep was impatient to begin with and kept cutting me off. Having done tech support myself I'm always aware of what the reps have to deal with, but some are either not suited to the job or predisposed to treat the customer as if he doesn't know anything (usually because they don't know much either). How long did it take to get the drive back?

[atb]

huh...i think that is why i would choose bestbuy instead of compusa, at least u got 30 days to try out, well, i got a dru-500ax for 3 month already, burns about 300 disc without problem, i only do DVD burning on it, try avoid burn cd-r with it might save the drive's live.

[JohnnyCNote]

Actually, I got it from CompUSA.com on my CompUSA card. I'm afraid I've had some bad experiences with Best Buy. In fact, you may want to check out the Best Buy Sux website. But thanks for the tip.....

[bigmicka]

i had mine for about 6 weeks before it died on me. was reading info of the disk and it just stopped working. i returned to my supplier its been a week away so far, and i still dont have an ETA on when i will get it back.

frekkin pain in the ass..

mic

[JohnnyCNote]

UPDATE:

The drive came back today. So far it's working fine, but I haven't been able to really check it out. At least it wasn't 6 weeks......