Reading Bad CD-ROM Discs

The drive read the test disc through in 14 minutes and 56 seconds and couldn’t read 8 data blocks. This is a poor result if we compare it to full-featured internal IDE drives. As you can see, portable optical drives for notebooks have a weaker optical system and a worse error-correction mechanism than their desktop counterparts.

Reading damaged discs isn’t a strong point of the ASUS SDRW-0804P-D, but only when the disc is really very bad. The drive handles medium-quality discs quite well.

So, the CD tests give us positive results: the quality of writing and rewriting is highest. The only thing I may complain about is the rather poor error-correction mechanism. On the other hand, this is natural for a portable optical drive.

This done, we can proceed to DVD media.

Reading DVD Discs

 
Reading single- and dual-layer molded DVD-ROM discs

The drive read the single-layer medium quite well, save for the very end of the disc where it lowered its speed from 8x to 6x. Thus, the drive reached the maximum declared speed but couldn’t keep it to the end. Reading the dual-layer DVD-ROM was not accompanied with problems – the graph is clear and straight, without any fluctuations of speed.