Yamaha CRW2200E IDE CDR-W - Page 2

Supplied Package:
The package supplied was a special pre-release version and included: The drive itself, an ATAPI to SCSI-3 converter (converts 2200E to 2200S), 50 CD-R (Taiyo Yuden 20x certified media) and the necessary CDR software: Nero OEM 5.5.1.8, Ahead InCD v2.11 and NeroMIX v1.208 (works only with Yamaha 2200E series).

The retail package will include a well printed manual, among with Yamaha's 80min 20x CDR media (again from Taiyo Yuden) and one piece of Yamaha's 4-10x (HS-RW) media.

Let's take a look at the drive itself. The drive is the same (more or less) with the 2100x series. Most users will notice immediately the "20/10/40" logo that gives the drive's specifications in a short look:

The drive has only one LED (orange indicates writing; green indicates reading) and the usual controls: eject button, headphone input jack and volume potentiometer. On the back of the drive we find the usual connectors (IDE interface and Power), the jumpers for setting the drive to Master/Slave option, analogue and digital audio output connectors and a hole (to be used with the SCSI connector):

As we said earlier we got also an ATAPI to SCSI converter. This can be used and convert a Yamaha CRW2200 drive in the CRW2200S. The SCSI converter has in the back the jumpers for setting the drive's SCSI ID and termination/block size and a big screw for secure the connection between the drive and the connector. Of course there is the SCSI plug-in interface and at the right a smaller power connector:

I know what you are thinking: Does this converter work with other IDE devices except Yamaha CRW2200E? As we was informed from Yamaha no. Even if you attach any IDE device, it will be recognized as Yamaha 2200S! We haven't tested this issue yet but we will do in our upcoming Yamaha 2200S review :-)

Installation:

ATAPI CDR-W drives are very easy to install. Just decide what the drive should be, master or slave, set the appropriate jumper and you are all set! After booting up your system, the CDR-W identifies itself as the "Yamaha CRW2200E". We unchecked the Auto Insert notification, checked DMA and rebooted. The drive was a April 2001 model with firmware revision v1.0B. After some problems we found with a specific media, Prodisc 80min, Yamaha send us a newer firmware revision (B.0C) which corrected the problem. Actually last week Yamaha posted officially the final v1.0c firmware revision and in case your 2200E drive doesn't have it by default, we advise to go for it…

For most of our tests we used: Nero 5.5.1.8, Ahead InCD v2.13, Padus DJ v3.00.780 and CloneCD v3.0.0.17. Note that CloneCD doesn't recognize yet that Yamaha CRW2200E series supports DAO-RAW. However we managed to force CloneCD writing at DAO-RAW mode with Yamaha 2200E and our test results were very good - DAO-RAW does work :-)

Here are the full specifications for the Yamaha CRW2200x series:

External Future packages:

Interface	Front	Back
SCSI External
USB 1.1/2.0
FireWire External

Test Machine:
WinMe OS
Soyo 7VCA
Celeron II 566 over clocked to 850 MHz
128MB SDRAM PC 133
WD 18GB UDMA 66
Quantum Fireball EX 6.4 GB UDMA 33
DAWI 2975 - PCI (ULTRA) SCSI Host Adapter
ATI AIW 128
PleXWriter PX-W1610A firmware v1.02
Sanyo CRD-BP1500P firmware v6f.34
Ricoh MP7200A firmware v1.10
Yamaha 2200E firmware v1.0B/ B.0C / v1.0C