I'm sorry I was busy with another matter these last few days and didn't see your responses. I ended up buying two new burners a couple of weeks ago. At the time, I couldn't find anything local that could come close to the online prices, so I bought a Samsung SH-S203N and a Pioneer DVR-215D with a SATA controller from Newegg. I moved my old BenQ DW1655 to an external USB 2.0 enclosure for scanning only but the cheap chipset in the enclosure prevents decent TRT scans above about 12x from the BenQ now.

I really like the Pioneer. The only reason I bought the Samsung is that I'd read of successes burning RICOHJPN D01 media on that drive and I have some of those DL discs that I want to use because of their printable surface. They burn as well (not perfect, but acceptable) in the Pioneer as in the Samsung, so I may not have needed the Samsung after all. As it turns out, I think I'm only tormenting myself by trying to get very good scans out of those discs (I've a separate thread about that) and it's been recommended that I don't even bother quality scanning them. So maybe the BenQ wasn't in need of replacement, but it was a good excuse to buy some new hardware.

The window of opportunity is still open to exchange the Sammy for something that will do good scans without relying on the external connection.

@ pepst: If I were to do that, which of these would be the bext choice?

Optiarc AD-7200S-0B (I need at least one LightScribe drive, so the 7201x would be better, but I can only find the IDE version in the States)

Optiarc AD-7191S-0B (A little slower on -R DL, but it is SATA and LightScribe)

LiteOn LH-020A1L-05 (SATA and LightScribe)

Thanks.

Ray