detail information

It happens to all of us sooner or later: a disc is scratched and cannot be read properly anymore... In this test we took a CD-Recordable and (heavily) scratched it with some fine sandpaper. We then did a surface scan with Nero CD Speed and you can see the results below. First off let's start with the ATIP information from the used CD-Recordable:

• ATIP: 97m 15s 11f
  
• Disc Manufacturer: Ritek Co.
  
• Reflective layer: Dye (Long strategy; e.g. Cyanine, Azo etc.)
  
• Media type: CD-Recordable
  
• Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
  
• Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f / LBA: 359849)

Now for the achieved results. We read the disc with the Plextor PX-W4012TU and then read the same disc with a VisionTek Xtasy 48X (firmware VS06), a PleXCombo PX-320A (firmware 1.01), a Yamaha CRW3200E (firmware 1.0d), a TEAC CD-W540E (firmware 1.0B), a Mitsumi CR-480ATE (firmware 1.0E) and a Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM (firmware 1012) for comparison. You can see the resultof the Plextor drive in the screenshot below. Please note that damaged sectors can still be read. The important percentage is the one of the unreadable sectors. Of course the less, the better:

Plextor PX-W4012TU reading scratched disc

In the table below we've summed up our test results comparing them to other drives we've previously reviewed. Again, keep in mind that the important percentage is the one of the unreadable sectors. Of course the less, the better:

Low Quality Disc:

To add a little more to our scratched data reading tests we've added another test for you. We wrote a low quality 74 minute CD-Recordable using the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive and Nero Burning Rom. We disabled its SMART-BURN feature so errors would probably be created. The ATIP information from the used CD-Recordable:

• ATIP: 97m 31s 01f
  
• Disc Manufacturer: unknown
  
• Reflective layer: Dye (Long strategy; e.g. Cyanine, Azo etc.)
  
• Media type: CD-Recordable
  
• Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
  
• Nominal Capacity: 656.69MB (74m 45s 00f)

We then scanned the disc with Nero CD Speed using the following drives; the Plextor PX-W4012TU, a VisionTek Xtasy 48X (firmware VS06), a PleXCombo PX-320A (firmware 1.02), a TEAC CD-W540E (firmware 1.0C), a Mitsumi CR-480ATE (firmware 1.0E) and a Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM (firmware 1012). You can see a screenshot of the Plextor drive reading the low quality disc below:

Plextor PX-W4012TU reading low quality disc

In the table below we've summed up our test results again, comparing them to other drives we've previously reviewed. Again, keep in mind that the important percentage is the one of the unreadable sectors. Of course the less, the better:

Conclusion:

When reading the heavily scratched disc the Plextor PX-W4012TU performed very badly. The drive could read the least amount of the disc and gets the last place. When reading the low quality disc it was the other way around. This time the Plextor PX-W4012TU could read the entire disc and reported the least amount of damaged sectors. So overall, a mixed result.

That concludes the reading part of our review. Now it's time to see how the Plextor PX-W4012TU performs when writing discs...