Posted by Ohso on 31, 2000 at 7:10 PM:
In a word: DON'T
Toshiba sucks ass.
Let me explain why.
I recently purchased two SD-R1002 drives for about $200 each.
These are combination CD-RW/DVD drives. Shortly after installing them I found they would not write CD-TEXT discs. I was surprised at this since it is something I specifically checked for compatibility before buying the drives. I double checked the specs on Toshiba's site. Confirmed, they do CD-TEXT. OK, I am not inexperienced at all of this and a very competent troubleshooter, so to make a long story shorter I ruled out everything but the drive itself. I looked for firmware updates, but found a dead end, so I e-mailed Toshiba. At first they didn't respond, but finally they did.
Basically this is a shortened version of what followed:
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Toshiba:
You need to ship your drives to a repair center to have the firmware upgraded. Please reply if you have any questions.
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Me:
I have some questions-
1) Will the firmware upgrade allow me to write CD-TEXT discs?
2) Why do I need to ship them when firmware upgrades are typically available for download as they are simple to install?
3) Will Toshiba pay for shipping? These are new drives and the specs state they can write CD-TEXT. I should not have to pay to 'upgrade' a new drive to do what you claimed it could do in the first place.
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Toshiba:
The latest firmware is 1037. We do not make it available for download anymore because users were installing incorrect versions and ruining their drives.
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Me:
Firstly, You didn't answer my question. Will the firmware upgrade allow me to write CD-TEXT?
Secondly, Since you know I have an SD-R1002 and the latest firmware is 1037, why not e-mail me the firmware? This is a much simpler solution as I won't have to lose my drive for an indeterminate amount of time and possibly incur shipping costs as well.
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Here they stopped responding. I also sent a similar e-mail to their repair center at the request of the technician and received a standard RMA form as a reply.
So Toshiba is selling drives they claim are capable of features which they are not (not without a substantial investment of time and money anyway). This is blatant false advertising and I strongly recommend people to avoid them for this reason.
Honestly I believe they are not posting their firmware to prevent people from hacking it and circumventing the DVD regional code protection schemes. I sincerely doubt they will ever admit this though. They would rather screw their customers.