Pioneer DVR-109

[steveluscher]

The 108 has been recently discontinued, the 109 is not yet in stores in my neck of the woods. Sigh.

 

I'm interested in getting a 109; Has anyone successfully used this drive with Retrospect and DVD-RW media?

 

Dantz, have you ever heard of ordering early production models from the manufacturer for free and having the drivers ready, even before the release of the hardware? Do you have any people on staff over there?

[rsfinn]

I purchased a bare DVR-109 and an external FireWire case, figuring the 109 was probably enough like the 108 that I could get Retrospect to configure it. After wasting six 16x DVD blanks trying to do this, I gave up. Yes, I know, leading edge and all, but the whole point is being able to use the 16x media. It takes forever with 4x, which is what I have now. I even flashed the firmware to the latest version with no avail.

 

Finally I did what I should have done in the first place -- I checked with Other World Computing (one of the two vendors listed with compatible FireWire cases for the 108). They now show their drive with the 109 (like everywhere else, the 108 seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth); they also explicitly list Retrospect compatibility, but I thought I'd better make sure so I called them up. The person I spoke to claimed it was supported as a "generic" device, and after checking with someone said they'd just sent a case to Dantz and in about six weeks it would be certified with builtin support. (He implied that the problem I was having with the configuration process was due to the case I was using, but of course he'd say that. I also didn't raise the 16x issue with him.)

 

So my guess is that if you're willing to wait a few weeks, things will be fine. Unhappily, I didn't want to want and also wanted to save a few bucks, and now I have a drive in a cheesy case that apparently works great with everything *except* Retrospect -- the one thing I wanted to use it for. Let my life serve as a bad example for others.

[cpragman]

I installed the Pioneer DVR-109 last week (firmware 1.09). Bought it specifically for backups (don't need DVD's for much else). I chose the 109 because of the many reviews saying how compatible it was. Installed internally.

 

Retrospect can't configure it for DVD (does configure for CD-R).

 

I too am waiting for new drivers from Dantz. Sigh.

 

 

Mac G4, OS X 10.2.8

[rsfinn]

Well, it looks like today's RDU release supports the DVR-109 (both bare and from OWC). I'll have to give it a try when I get home. (Means putting the drive back in the cheesy case, though.)

[steveluscher]

So what's the word rsfinn? Does it 'barely work' or is it actually 'supported'? I've heard of some people's drives working, but being very very slow and featureless. Is this full support? It hasn't yet shown up in the list of approved devices.

[cpragman]

Here's the weird thing. I have 2 boot partitions on my Mac. The main one is OS X 10.2.8. When I'm booted from that one, Retrospect with the March 2005 RDU 6.2.102 works like a charm.

 

 

 

I've also got Panther 10.3.8 installed on a seperate partition (I'm checking to see what programs Panther "breaks" before changing over to it completely). When I boot from Panther and Run Retrospect (again with RDU 6.2.102), Retrospect sees the DVR-109 drive, but is unable to burn to it. I've run thru the auto-configure process, made a few coasters, and still can't burn under Panther.

 

 

 

EDIT: I was able to successfully backup from the Panther partition today, after deleting the RDI files in the /Library/Preferences/Retrocpect Directory, as this post suggests Delete RDIs