Home > Consumer Reviews > Hewlett Packard DVD300i 4x2.4x8 Internal IDE DVD+RW Drive

The setup was easy &took me about 2 minutes. The software installation was easy too. Veritas's RecordNow, SimpleBackup, DLA &ArcSoft's ShowBiz DVD authoring softwares are included.

I cannot install the DLA because I already has Roxio's Easy CD Creastor 5.3 installed. From reading others' reviews about HP DVD200 (predecessor of this DVD300), there seemed to be many problem about with DLA. I guess HP fixed that. The installation would not allow to install another one of DLA when it detected there was one already installed. But that is no problem with me as I use Roxio's DLA. DLA allows one to use the drive like a harddrive. One can click/drag from Explorer or save from applications the files to the drive. (too bad Microsoft does not include this as part of the OS, so that there would not be so many this DLA conflicts out there)

Veritas RecordNow is probably the best software included, I am so impressed with it now I use it exclusive, drop my old favorite Roxio Easy CD Creator.

So far I am very happy with this burner, no coaster burning with Memorex +R or +RW discs. I hear Ritek, HP (of course) &Verbatim discs work fine with this burner too. I did not bother try other discs as I can get Memorex disc for $2 and $3 respectively.

Get this burner!

Hewlett Packard's 300i improves on the 200i with faster write times and better software. The ArcSoft ShowBiz DVD software integrates the functions performed by a couple of software applications that shipped with the 200i resulting in a single software application for capturing and editing video and producing a DVD.

Nero, Gear, Deepburner or Roxio....

none of them work with this drive. The included software is terrible. I get a "There is a firmware update on the net for this drive, connect now?" Message a few minutes after booting up the drive. There are no firmware updates for this drive. The great thing is when it checks the drive it blows up any burn you are in the middle of and kills a disk. Tech support never got back to me.

I am never going to by an HP burner ever again, on the topic of HP drives, all of our HP DVD200 drives at work failed, were replaced under warranty and then failed again out of warranty.

I wish I have some good things to say about my experience with this drive...

I got this drive two months ago and am still having problems with it. First of all, the software "RecordNow" is a very limiting wizard-like, step-by-step process. Come on... At some point, your users will grow out of the "novice" stage, right? Why not give us a drag-and-drop GUI for users who know what they are doing? Like in Nero Ahead. This drive automatically "fixiate" my dvd-r disc when I was trying it out... How frustrating! I never had this problem with Nero software before!

Secondly, the DLA software would not install side-by-side with Roxio. Unfortunately, Microsoft's Windows Media Player 9 automatically install Roxio and it is very very difficult to uninstall Roxio. I Googled. I need to get a different burning-ware that will work with this drive.

Lastly, the DLA provided is not compatible with Nero's DLA. And frankly, this drive is a little slow in recognizing a disc when you insert a dvd+rw or cd-rw disc.

I am very frustrated with this HP drive...

I've had nothing but problems with this drive. i've been unable to make back-up copies of DVDs & CDs because it will not let me through the copyright protection from the movies or music disc. Has anyone else had this problem & if so please tell me how you corrected it or if i'm stuck with it?