WARM - Officemax CD-RW deals - Polaroid 48x16x48x $20 AMIR

[Defender77]

I'm not familiar with this drive, but for $20 AR, it might make for a cheap cd drive or a good gift for the folks. There's a $30 rebate, and Officemax has it for $49.99 after an IR. here's the links

Polaroid 48x16x48 Internal CD-RW Drive

Mail in Rebate form

Anyone have any insite on this drive onto whether it's a BTC=POS or what?

 

[mindless1]

The last Polaroid CDRW drive i bought was a 24X?X? model, actually BTC/Top-G... HORRIBLE

Who knows what's really in that Polaroid box?

To their credit, Polaroid does offer a download of the whole Nero CD, but of course it's OEM for their drives only, and it's not "really" appreciated since they failed to put any software in the box with the burner.

 

[bargainshopper]

I bought an 25x burner last summer from OfficeMax. Took a long time to get the rebate check and CDRWIN doesn't "see" the drive. Good luck if you going to get one!

 

[2k1civicdotcom]

this is actually FREE if you find the $20 off $100 coupon floating around.

 

[fornax]

I'm still waiting for my rebate for a Polaroid drive bought in September. In my last call I was told I could wait 18 weeks or more, and that Polaroid is not paying the rebates and it was not clear when they would pay. Needless to say, I'm not buying another Polaroid drive. Deadbeats.

 

[Joel Kleppinger]

So has anyone determined who the manufacturer of drive this is?

 

[Slugbait]

I bought a Polaroid BurnMAX32 about six months back, also pretty cheap after rebate (which was received about two months ago). Supposedly it is made by a company called DFT Inc (Disk Fusion Technologies). It came with NTI CD-Maker, which was good, since Nero didn't see it. Retail Roxio 5.02 and later *should* see it, but I never tried Roxio. Install/configuration was a bit more time-consuming than most other CD-RW's I've installed. Support pages are sparse, they don't point out any of the negative aspects of the drive so that you know you need different burn software, or workaround other problems.

If I had to do it over again, I probably wouldn't.

Also, this is curious:

48x16x48 Internal CDRW Drive. Price shown includes a $40 Instant & $30 Mfr's Mail-In Rebate

The price, including both IR & MIR as stated, comes to $50...not $20.

 

[mindless1]

Disk Fusion Tech doesn't make drives, they are 3rd party support for Polaroid (well, perhaps "support" is being generous, they couldn't be bothered to answer emails i sent a few months ago).

Although the faceplate may change, all Behavior Tech, Top-Glory et al. (BTC/Top-G) drives I've seen (of recent manufacture) share a similar metal casing like THIS, which happens to be a pic of a CDROM drive, not CDRW, but looks the same beyond the model numbers, etc.

 

[Defender77]

guess I'll wait for the next CDRW deal then. The ones for Office Depot don't work for me because I live over 3 hours from the closest one.

 

[MOONKEY]

I can be wrong.

Since Polaroid had filed some kind of Chapter 11 (??), is there a chance they can not pay rebate when company goes even south?

 

[Ring]

I took a chance and ordered this drive. Have it sitting here unopened. Box says it includes NTI software but it does not indicate that it incorporates burnproof technology on the box. The support website identifies lower speed models as burn proof but doesn't list the 48x. Anybody have any info on this?

 

[Richardito]

I got one of this from my local OfficeMax Sunday. After looking at it it doesn't looks like THIS, I started digging a bit. I also noticed that it had a sticker stating that the Model # was 48x12x50 WTF?? Wasn't it supposed to be a 48x16x48?? I did more digging and I found that mine is probably this CDRW. Notice how it clearly states in the website that the badged/labeled speed is 48x12x50, but that the actual speed was 48x16x48 (interesting, no?). I also saw the same model in another store. So I'm thinking that this drive is actually an AOpen drive. So I'm going to try flashing the firmware with AOpen's firmware. I'll let you guys know later if it worked or not.

OMFG, the flashing utility recognizes that the firmware version is 1.02 (the latest is 1.04) but it will not flash it. It gives me this error:
" Cannot update for different Type Code.

*** NG ** NG ** NG ***

Make sure Selected Source File."

Is there a 'generic' flashing utility I can use to force flash this drive? I hate it when hardware does not cooperates. I'm 99.9% it is an AOpen.

 

[Chucko]

There is a program called flashfix.exe that you can run on your flash.exe file. It removes the device detection of most firmware flashing apps. I believe it works with most drives. I have successly used it with Lite-on rebadged drives marketed by Pacific Digital. Search google.com for flashfix.exe or try www.cdfreaks.com forums.

Btw.... I bought a Polaroid 40x cdrw a few months ago and I am still waiting on the rebate and I think the drives sucks, I sold it to a friend who uses the burning capabilities rarely.

 

[rickmannow]

I was thinking hard about buying this unit since I thought it was a Liteon. But if they are mislabling the speed and not honoring the rebates, this is BS. I tried calling Polaroid today and they make you wait a long time on hold. Once the automatically cut me off when they decided the wait time was too long. They also have multiple numbers for their various products and I was given several different numbers to call since I kept getting the wrong people. The last number was a toll number, 510-580-2478. The guy who gave me this claimed that they were out of Chapter 11 and operating "normally". But if they stiffed you on rebates before, they can do it again.

I could not find this model mentioned on their web site so I sent them an email. I did get a reply, but they don't seem to be able to give out any information. So they don't seem to even know what drive they are selling.

Polariod has hemarhoids.

 

[Richardito]

01/22/2003 1:14 AM



There is a program called flashfix.exe that you can run on your flash.exe file. It removes the device detection of most firmware flashing apps. I believe it works with most drives. I have successly used it with Lite-on rebadged drives marketed by Pacific Digital. Search google.com for flashfix.exe or try www.cdfreaks.com forums.

Btw.... I bought a Polaroid 40x cdrw a few months ago and I am still waiting on the rebate and I think the drives sucks, I sold it to a friend who uses the burning capabilities rarely.

-------------------------
Rig

Edited: 01/22/2003 at 1:15 AM by Chucko


I'm curious, did yours looked like THIS?

 

[mindless1]

LOL... i just glanced over at a LiteOn drive and noticed that the casing top on it looks very similar to the BTC/Top-G Drive I linked. The BTC/Top-G has a wider indentation in the top-rear but otherwise the BTC/Top-G casing may be too similar to use as an ID example.

 

[huesmann]

Was Polaroid in bankrupcy or something?

 

[mccall]

To their credit, Polaroid does offer a download of the whole Nero CD, but of course it's OEM for their drives only, and it's not "really" appreciated since they failed to put any software in the box with the burner.

Does anyone know where to find this free OEM version of Nero? I checked the Polaroid and DFT websites with no luck. A google search was also fruitless. I have one of these drives sitting around and I hate the NTI software it uses. If I could find a Nero version for it I'd use the damn thing.

Thanks.

 

[mindless1]

Polaroid Nero 5.5.9.8? Download

I never tried my prior Polaroid drive with this OEM version, though it was still installed on the system when a Cendyne CDRW drive was added, didn't work with it.