Listing of July 1996 Reviews
By James E. Powell
Smart and Friendly's CD-R 4000 CD-Recordable drive may dazzle
you with its 4X speed, but its Windows 95-phobic installation
may leave you scratching your head. The CD-R 4000 is a SCSI drive
that uses a caddy for your CD-R disc.
To get files onto the disc, I used EZ-CD Pro for Windows 95, which
is supplied with the CD-R 4000. When you launch EZ Pro, specify
that the CD is new and choose the type of CD you want to create:
data, Red Book audio (CD-DA format) or mixed mode (first track
in CD-ROM or XA format, the remainder with audio tracks in CD-DA
format). (You can also add files to an existing CD-R disc.)
Then, drag and drop files onto the Data Track tab, which displays
the directories. Press the Test button, and the program will simulate
a recording session to ensure your hard disk is feeding data fast
enough. The software/hardware combination, however, is sometimes
problematic--multisession recording sessions could be read by
some read-only drives I used for testing but not others.
CD-R drives generally work well under Windows 3.1x, and you should
have no trouble with the CD-R 4000. However, beware of Windows
95, in part because Win95 doesn't support such CD-R drives. EZ
Pro for Windows 95 found the drive, but without loading MSCDEX
and associated drivers, the drive won't appear in either Explorer
or My Computer. The CD-R 4000's documentation is not for the timid,
and while Windows 3.1x users should have no problem, Windows 95
installations are puzzling. The unit lacks Windows 95-specific
instructions.
--Info File--
Smart and Friendly CD-R 4000
Price: $1,375 (street)
Pros: Speed
Cons: Price; installation; documentation
Platforms: Windows 95, 3.1x, NT
Smart and Friendly
800-959-7001, 818-772-8001
WinMag Box Score: 3.0