maddmike

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Seems to work great. Only problem was that originally, K3B can't set the drive speed with DVD+R media (works fine with DVD+RW). After updating dvd+rw tools to the latest version and uprading the unit firmware it worked.

Firmware update from Sony website requires Windows to install.

Linux recognized the drive and connects to it with no problem. All I had to do was put a line into /etc/fstab. (I installed this drive after installing Linux). At this point it worked, but burning was slow (about 45 minutes per 4.4GB DVD.) After enabling Ultra-DMA access in the system BIOS and YAST, it works properly.

On Memorex DVD+R media, I can burn at 4X (15 minutes), but not faster.

syncomm

I just picked this up a few weeks ago and compatibility was excellent. The firmware out of the box was BY02, but I had no problems burning w/ dvd-r and dvd+r media. I also had no problems creating Video DVDs, DVD Roms, or CDROMS.

Tip to upgrade to firmware BYX3 w/o running Windows:

If you don't have Windows on the same PC grab a copy of BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) and the latest firmware from Sony (http://sony.storagesupport.com/dvdrw/firmware.htm).

Reboot w/ BartPE in the drive and wait until it loads you into the Windows environment.

Select Go->Run and enter D:\710A_BYX3.EXE

It will give you a Warning screen. Hit "Yes"

It will then detect the BartPE disc in the drive and eject it for you. Remove the disc at this point (not before).

Hit update, wait for it to complete, reboot and you are gold.

a cdrecord -scanbus should now show:

0,1,0 1) 'SONY ' 'DVD RW DRU-710A ' 'BYX3' Removable CD-ROM