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-W4824A drive and then read the same disc with several other recorders for comparison. You can see the result of 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-W4824A 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 various drives we've previously reviewed. You can see a screenshot of the Plextor PX-W4824A drive reading the low quality disc below:

Plextor PX-W4824A 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 and the low quality disc the Plextor drive gets an average place. It's certainly not the best drive we've seen when it comes to reading scratched and low quality discs but it's also not the worst drive we've seen. Perhaps this performance can be improved via a firmware upgrade.

That concludes the reading part of our review. Now it's time to see how the Plextor PX-W4824A performs when writing discs...