[MikeD]

Well, after being on backorder since November, I finally got my 8x4x32 FireWire CDRW!!! I would like to emphasize the FINALLY! Setup was really easy. Packed just like the USB version as well. Installed Toast 4.0.1.1 which came with the drive. Some funny stuff though, there was the orange piece of paper "Quick Installation for the FireWire Drives" The interesting thing I noticed was that I had to install a separate extension. This extension is known on the quick installation guide as the Que!FireSim but when I checked the CD, it's really known as "Que! Fire" and it had the same icon as our normal apple branded firewire extensions. The next interesting thing I noticed was this...

"To mount the Que! Fire Drive you must first launch the Toast software and then choose the Recorder menu and Mount CD-ROM. This will allow the Qui! Drive to be mounted even after the Toast software is closed."

I just did as it said, and it was fine.

Now on to the important stuff. I first tried mounting CD's, both audio and CDROM. I had problems with the audio CD stuff though. What happened was that it would mount but the sound wouldn't come out through the computer speakers. I used the CD control strip to select SCSI ID 1 (firedrive) and it showed all the tracks on the CD but i couldn't hear anything come out of my speakers. However, plugging headphones into the headphone jack on the CDRW unit itself revealed where the sound would come out... That is only through that headphone jack. The volume control controls the volume of that output. Why it won't go through the Mac's speakers... I don't know. I then put in one of my "You Don't know Jack" CD-Roms and it too mounted just as well as through the built in DVDROM drive. However, when I first launched the game from my HD, it took awhile for it to get the game up and running. I think though it was because the Mac was first checking the internal CDROM and then going to SCSI ID1.. The game ran extremely smooth and all was well. I quit YDKJ and launched again. This time the game was up and running very quickly! So from that, I'm pretty sure it was just the computer checking the different places for the CDROM. Reading is A-OK! with the exception with that funny audio CD thing.

Now for writing, I went out and bought some 8x recording media and began my test. We already see in the HUGE main thread on firewire CDRW's that someone made a DATA CDR just fine.. Well, I made a fully loaded audio CD, about 73 min, in 9 minutes as well. This thing is really writing at 8x!! YEAH! I had no problems whatsoever! I first did the write in simulation mode just to make sure the computer and drive were communicating properly on my first burn and it worked so I did the "real" burn and yup, just as expected, 9 min!! (well really 8 min 45 sec) but whose counting?!

Now, the only thing that's bothering me is that I can't find out where this ISO 9660 option is. OH well. The drive is great, the software works fine. and my first burn was a success! Any questions? let's discuss the new drive here! Now, does anyone know what the drive is? Is this a Mitsumi 4802? How can I find out? I'm asking because there is another extension for download but it's only for the que drives with a mitsumi 4802... Does anyone know??

Mike

[This message has been edited by MikeD (edited 03-07-2000).]

[blizaine]

Mike, that's great news! Seems that it is well worth the wait. Hopefully mine will be in soooon (ordered in Dec).

I've used 3 different burners in my life (1 mac external, 1 PC external, 1 PC internal - the PC's were at work)and found this: the external's on both Mac and PC would not play audio, but the internal would. I believe it has something to do with external drives not having an audio pass-through connection like internal drives do. Audio CD's don't use the CPU to play audio. (someone can correct me in I'm wrong)

You may not have ISO 9660 because (I think) QPS is only shipping toast 4.0.1.1, and not toast deluxe) but I'm not sure.

Never the less, sounds like you got an AWESOME! drive, and I can't wait to get mine.

[MacMatvei]

I haven't tried it yet but there is an apple script in the toast folders that is a drag and drop hybrid cd maker... Anyone know if this could be the elusive iso burning utility? Anyway, burned 5 cd's, all 80 minutes (700mb.) 8x ACER platinum series. 3 Data and 2 audio. The 9 minutes is for a 80 minute (700mb.) burn, a 74 minute 650mb. (regular) burn would be under the 9 minute mark for sure.

Oh, by the way, the program's cache memory preference settings (in the preference menu) is not set at the maximum available (64Mb.) but at the 2x speed. If you plan on burning audio, you better set it yourself at the maximum your mac can handle. I have 256 Mb. so I use a 64Mb. cache.

This is a wonderful product and am really happy with the purchase.

Do you all use Soundjam MP to convert MP3's to AIFF files? Works great but would like opinions on alternatives.



------------------

mike, you should be able to check the mechanism type through the apple system profiler. there should be a screen that details device types (hard disk, floppy, dvd/cd, etc..). hope that helps.

have you had any problems booting with the drive plugged in/powered on? i know this isn't supposed to be a problem, but they said the same thing about usb.

meow..

[MacMatvei]

No booting problems on my end whatsoever...


------------------

[Kbee]

If it's anything like my 4/424 Que!Fire, it will be a Mitsumi 4804.

[tooki]

Originally posted by MacMatvei:
<snip>

Do you all use Soundjam MP to convert MP3's to AIFF files? Works great but would like opinions on alternatives.

I use SoundApp (http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=4124 and http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~franke/SoundApp/) for all audio playback/conversion. It doesn't have any funky graphics or anything, but it is fast and reliable and free.

tooki



[This message has been edited by tooki (edited 03-09-2000).]

[blizaine]

Mike,
Any more burns lately? How's the drive? sorry for sounding desprate for any info, but I'm sure you remember what it was like waiting for your's

[MikeD]

Yeah, yesterday I burned 3 full audio CD's one at 4x. one at 6x and another at 8x.. No problems. Soon, I'll start burning some data CD's to see how that goes. But I just had to get some fresh tunes for the car for now!

Mike

[Krusty]

I'm thinking about buying one of these things and have a question for those of you who have one. Can you record data files that are readable by PCs? I have no idea if the included software allows you to format the CD in PC data. I ask because I'd like to save MP3 files to play on my machine at work -- is this possble with the QUE! I know audio format can be played on PC/MAC/Stereo equipment -- but can data format?

[cejones]

Well, I am glad to hear that SOMEONE had one of these drives.. I am still waiting for mine to show up at the egghead warehouses... Funny, my lime colored front and side panels for it already showed up.... so I guess they have plenty of plastic parts available... just no drives...

[blizaine]

You know what's weird? I've called outpost 4 times since I heard a couple people got their 8x drives from there and I've talked to 4 different people and all of them insist that Outpost has not gotten a single drive in. They keep telling me that not one drive has shipped yet. What's up with that? I told them that I "Know" of several people that got theirs and outpost keeps telling me it's impossible. Why would they lie to me like that? It's not like I'm going to get mad at them becuase they shipped drives out to people who ordered them before me.

That's weird!

[This message has been edited by blizaine (edited 03-13-2000).]

[MAlan]

MikeD...about the audio thing on my EZquest firewire drive I found the same thing. I can't put the audio through the iMac unless I use the RCA sound out jacks on the CD burner itself. That way you could take the audio from the CD burner and into the sound in port of the iMac.

Does your drive have RCA style sound out ports? Also I was wondering if the new Que! firewire drive was hot pluggable. The EZquest one is not.

-Mike

[cejones]

I wonder if people who work at QPS are posting bogus messages telling us how great their new drive is that they ordered from Outpost...

That would suck. But from how they push ship dates up every week... I wouldn't put it pass them. I don't understand why the online stores put up with the QPS antics... I am sure Outpost and Egghead do not appreciate QPS when all of us calling them every other day to check on the shipment status of the QPS products...

Frustrated in Austin

ARGHHHHH

[MacMatvei]

Euh... I'm not a QPS employee... and I DO love the drive. I haven't made a hybrid Mac/PC disc yet but have seen an applescript in the toast folder that aludes to do just that... will try latter along with retrospect.

I did order it from outpost (Nov99)

------------------


[This message has been edited by MacMatvei (edited 03-15-2000).]

I received my Que!8x4x32 cd-rw today and have spent the last few hours trying to get it running properly. (I have a Pismo 400 MHz with 128 meg of ram.) No matter what I try the Toast CD reader extension will not load. The cd-rw appeared to burn some data OK on a cd-rw disk, but when I tried to 'read' this data, Toast re-opened to the usual screen and I still don't know if I actually recorded anything or not (verification was OK). What am I doing wrong? Thanks,
Sharon

I think I just answered my own question. I backed up a large portion of my hard drive this a.m. (without creating a disk image) and everything copied fine. I also made my first audio cd, and that too came out great. It works on my Apple DVD drive, my stereo, car stereo and my Panasonic CD player (only after disabling anti-shock). So far, so good! This seems to be a good product, but be prepared to do a lot of fiddling, restarts and such, to get the thing working properly.

[blizaine]

Got my drive and it works great! I've burned 3 audio and 2 data CD's at 8x and they've all worked great! Man this drive is cool.
A few questions though.... The front of my drive doesn't look like the pictures on QPS' website or in the catalogs. The pictures I've seen on the website, the front looks 'Ice' colored and says "Que!Fire 8x4x32x", on the front of my drive it is just plan beige color with no logo or anything... did they forget put a face plate on mine or something?

My other question is, how do you use the CD-RW funtions?

My only complaint isn't with the drive but with Adaptec.... When is Toast Deluxe going to support Firewire?!?! I have TD 4.0 and can't even use it!! what's really stupid is that if you go to the "internet" menu and go down to "Deluxe Info" it says that one of the features of Toast Deluxe 4.0 is that it Supports SCSI, USB, and Firewire. But Adaptecs website says that toast deluxe does not support firewire :/ hmmmm It also says that they 'may' consider it in the future! can you believe that.

Ok, enough with my venting... This drive rocks!!!

[This message has been edited by blizaine (edited 03-17-2000).]

[MikeD]

Blizzaine,

Glad you finally got your drive! And who said that Outpost didn't have any?! My drive is blueberry colored and not graphite colored also AND it doesn't have that faceplace! I don't care as long as the thing doesn't burn audio CD's at 2x, I'm happy as can be! But it did shock me when I opened it and saw a blueberry drive that looked like the USB version! What color is yours?! MAlan, I'll try the hotplugging thing in a sec...

Mike

[blizaine]

MikeD,
My drive is graphite but the front is beige, like the front of a normal internal PeeCee drive

Your's is Blue? that's really weird! I guess maybe the very first batch had Blue berry shells and the batch mine came in had graphite. who knows, maybe the next will have Ice, faceplates.... All I know is the drive still looks and performs great! I've email QPS about why their product picture had the faceplate and not my drive, I guess we'll have to wait and see what they say or if they say...

[This message has been edited by blizaine (edited 03-17-2000).]

[GORDYmac]

What color is the drive? More to the point, is there any beige on this drive?

Being the shallow person that I am, this is important information before I place my order.

I realize that you can buy replacement side and front panels, but I am concerned that the actual drive (where the drive tray sticks out) is beige. If so, I'll have to buy something else.

I haven't spend over $2000 on a system to have it compromised by BEIGE! That's so 1997!

[blizaine]

My drive is Graphite and Ice (and it's looks awesome!) but the front is a real light white/beige. It doesn't look bad and in normal room lighting you really can't tell. It just kinda makes me upset that I pay $399 for a drive and it doesn't look like the advertised picture on their website. I've email QPS about this (3/17/00) with no response. Regardless, you can't get a better looking external CD-RW solution than the 8x4x32x Que!Fire.

[GORDYmac]

Thanks for the info.

[blizaine]

well, MacNN says that they heard from a reader that Adaptec will be releasing Toast Deluxe 4.0.2! This is good news indeed! finally a little firewire support! (Hopefully) I'm checking the "Webcheckup" function of Toast deluxe every so often, I'll let people know how it goes....

I will be nice to go from only being able to burn:
- Mac Files and Folders
- Audio CD's
- Disc Copy

to:
- Mac Volumes
- Mac Files and folders
- ISO 9660 (windows/dos)
- Hybrid (Mac/windows)
- Audio
- CD-i (what's this?)
- VCD
- Enhanced Music CD (Data + Music)
- Disc Copy
- Disk Image
- Multitrack CD XA
- Ability to burn MP3's as audio CD without decoding first.
- Probably some more stuff that I forgot.

I included the above for those who where wondering what Toast Deluxe was.

[blizaine]

I'm wondering if who ever told MacNN that they recieved a notice from adaptec that Toast Deluxe 4.0.2 was coming out on the 20th was just kidding around. It's still not out yet... hmmmmm

[MikeD]

all I have to say is that I love my drive!! Toast Deluxe 4.02 better be firewire ready as well because I need to start making my cross platform CD's!

[Sturat]

Help! I received my Que! 8/4/32 and have had nothing but problems. I have it hooked up to my iMac Special Edition and can get it to write for a prayer. Every time I put in a blank and go to write it asks for a writeable disk. When I check the Task bar under "Recorder" it says there is no disk?! Now I might be getting old but I know there is a disk in there! I have tried 3 different brands and get the same answer. I've tried contacting Que, Yeh right. No one will respond. System Profiler sees it. Toast sees it. Reloaded the software 3 times. Getting ready to ship this boat anchor back to the Zone. Anyone have any last words?

This is a little off topic, but I had the same problem with a SCSI recorder. I would put a blank CD in, and the recorder would give me the same problems you have. The drive was recognized by the system etc. I bought the drive from APS, and they sent me a new one, which solved the problem. It sounds like you might have a bad unit.

It sounds to me that it is either a hit or a miss with these Que drives, well as far as quality goes anyway. Also, is customer service from these folks really that shoddy? In these days internet sales need to be represented with good customer service or we, as consumers, aren't coming back. I, myself, am not willing to risk buying one of these Que drives (I'm looking for an efficient USB CD-R/RW right now for Mac AND PC). Any suggestions?

[Sturat]

This is the 2nd Firewire CD-R I have been involved with that does not work. The first was a Sony Supressa that after a week we found out that it was compatible only with a Blue & White, not our new G4. Can't recomend them either. I was amased to find out that USB CD-R can only write at 1 speed even though they rate the drive speed so much faster. From the instructions it appears this boat anchor is not much better. It says to set the write speed at 2x! Maybe USB is going to be cheaper and about as fast.

[blizaine]

Well I've had nothing but success with my 8x4x32x Que!Fire. I've tried 4 different brands of media. Generic silver no label 80min media, Memorex, Sony, and some old CompUSA media that I've had for about 2 years. So far all has worked perfect. All together I've burned about 17 discs... all perfect. I'd send back the drive if you haven't gotten the same results....

[cejones]

Well, I ordered my Que Fire drive from Egghead a month ago and have found that the ship date that QPS tells Egghead is bogus... Six ship dates have passed with no shipment of the drives. And now, Egghead tells me the new date is April 15th... Jesus.

Why is it that I can go buy the Boa 8X Firewire drive that is in stock at Bottomline right now... but find myself REALLY wanting the cool looking Que drive... It's all about the looks! And damn egghead for shipping the lime colored panels for my non-existant drive three days after I ordered it...

I called QPS to bitch at them, but they are smart and don't actually answer the phone... they must realize how screwed up their company model is...

And they sure make a big deal about being a minority owned company on their web site... Does this mean they get federal funds or a tax break from the government or something? I hope they use it to speed up their manufacturing plants!

[Sturat]

Going Going Gone. It may "look" cool but its not worth the trouble if you have a problem. Maybe you'll get lucky and get the one I just returned! Besides, as a slave to fashion this doesn't quite cut it. The beige basal looks really out of place on this drive. Kind of like a pig in the poke! I think I'll find a cheap USB or just wait for a better unit to come out. Good luck cejones.

[blizaine]

Does any one know how to use our Firewire Drives as Re-writeable drives (after all they are 4x re-writeable)? or is it just not supported yet?

[This message has been edited by blizaine (edited 03-28-2000).]

WoooooooHooooooo!

Just got a notification from Egghead that they shipped my 8x4x32 Firedrive! It's got a UPS tracking number and everything! Should be there when I get home from work today.

I ordered it on March 10 after cancelling a 3 month old order with MacMall. Not bad only 3 weeks wait.

I'll let you know how it works.

kEn

[cejones]

egghead is shipping the 8X firewire drive? I don't think so... I have had mine on backorder for over a month from there and they told me the next ship date is April 15th. Concerned that you are getting one ahead of me, I called Egghead and found that they have not received any from QPS and still show a ship date of April 15th.

I just thought I'd let you know...

cejones,

uh...ya...I really did get notification that egghead shipped the Que!Fire from their New Jersey warehouse. According the tracking info at the UPS site, there really is a package from egghead set to arrive at my house today. Egghead also gave me the 4/15 date a week ago. Not that I'm not skeptical like you. I could open the box and find....who knows? Anyway, I'll confirm that I did or didn't get the drive in about 2 hours.

Until then, preparing myself for more disappointment.

kEn

UPS claims they delivered my Que!Fire today but no package when I got home. They delivered it tp the wrong house I guess. They are trying to find it. Can anything else possibly go wrong with getting one of these drives? It better install and work without a hitch.

Remember the lion from the wizard of oz? "I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks"

Replace "spooks" with "Que!Fire" and repeat...

kEn

I ordered a QPS Firewire 8x4x32 on from Egghead on March 2nd.Here is the answer to my customer service request I received today:

Quote:
Here is an update to your customer service request:

"Thank you for your inquiry. We have checked on this order and the
item you ordered is on back order. The vendor's estimated time of
delivery into our warehouse is on 07/06/00. We understand that time
may be of the essence for you; therefore, if you wish to cancel your
order, simply let us know and we will comply expediently. We
apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
End Quote

So, I'm real interested in whether Ken received his drive.

Ray

[cejones]

One possible answer to this... did you also order different colored side panels for the Que Drive? When I ordered mine, I also ordered the lime green side panels... Within two days, I received an email message telling me my order was on the way and gave me a tracking number. Of course... it was just the panels that arrived... no drive. I suggest you call Egghead and confirm that the drive actually shipped and then ask them why they are screwing everyone else on the back order list....

ce,

No I only ordered the drive. No side panels. The drive is the only item I have EVER ordered from egghead. The UPS tracking info says it is a 10lbs item. Sounds like a drive to me.

Also, UPS figured out who they gave the package to. A neighbor down the street from me. The UPS policy is to send the driver back to the dropoff place, retrieve the package, and re-deliver it, hopefully to me.

Also, I may have an explaination as to why I appear to be getting my drive before you. Egghead does not have one master backorder list. It has a list at each warehouse of which they have many. Your order goes to the warehouse in your region. If there are a lot of orders in your region, the backorder list for that warehouse is longer. I may have been on a backorder list (Eastern region)with fewer names on it than whatever region your in. Also, Egghead is based in New Jersey. My drive was shipped from the NJ warehouse. Maybe NJ got a nice shipment of QPS drives that the other warehouses didn't get. This scheme minimizes shipping costs for them and may be why shipping is free when you order from them.

I had asked Egghead when I placed the order where I was on the backorder list. They couldn't give an answer. My explaination may be the reason why. They actually don't know!

By the way, I still don't have the drive because of the UPS screwup so I may still be in the same boat as you or worse. If UPS doesn't find the drive, then I have to file a claim and order another drive. Hope you get your Que!Fire real soon.

kEn

Does anyone in this subject have one of these drives and use it with a Lombard/Wallstreet PowerBook with a FireWire PC card? I've got one but am afraid to use it because the requirements on the box say you need to have built-in FireWire.

Curious...

Well I have the Que!Fire in my hands exactly 3 weeks after I ordered it from Egghead. I guess I made the right choice in canceling my 3 month old MacMall order.

By the way my wonderful neighbor, who UPS accidently delivered the drive to, tried to keep the drive! Nice. He denied having it when UPS called him. The driver went to his house with my wife and he said that a package was delivered but that it was his. When UPS asked to see the package he coughed it up. Nice guy.

Anyway signing off to install and try out the drive I'll give you the details when I'm done.

kEn

That tears it! Yesterday I get a message from Egghead to expect mine in July. Today I get a message from them saying if I want to extend beyond the 30 day order limit I can expect it mid-April. Then Ken gets his.

I called Egghead customer service to confront them with this confusion and I am told that I am in error. There is no record of any of their warehouses receiving/sending this product. Do I believe Egghead or fellow forum posters? I cancelled my order.

I've also had the same drive on order at Clubmac since January. They also state they have received none to ship. I changed my order to their brand (Clubmac Clear 8/4/32 firewire CDRW). It's in stock and will ship today.

Sorry to get off subject.End of Rant.

Ray

I have no idea how I managed to get a drive from Egghead ahead others. I spent almost 4 months getting the runaround from MacMall before I canceled my order with them. Try to hang in there, the drives are worth it.

I have an iMac DVSE running OS9. I installed the drive and Toast 4.0.1.1 in about 15 minutes without a hitch. I have already burned 4 audio CD's at 8x speed. Only 9 minutes a burn. No coasters and fast. I didn't do anything special with my startup like disabling extensions. I was amazed to see that I could burn with 0 secs gap between tracks (except the first which requires a 2 sec intro gap).

The packaging and accessories are generous for the $379 egghead price. The drive has graphite panels and front so it matches the DVSE nicely. The front of the drive is beige as a previous post stated. The drive comes packed in a neat lunchbox sized carrying case w/shoulder strap. Included are power cables, a firewire cable, a micro slot security cable w/padlock, a blank CD-R, a blank CD-RW, and of course Toast 4.0.1.1

No bad news to post yet.

kEn

[blizaine]

I love my 8x4x32 Que!Fire as well, I just wish we could make use of the CD-RW, not just the CD-R. Sometimes I have stuff that I would like to put on a Re-write CD but I can't. Any boby know when we are going to beable to do this and what software is used. Is it Adaptect Direct CD?

I'll be on a business trip all next week so I won't be able to try anything except the 4 audio CD's I burned tonight. Can't burn CD-RW? That sounds odd. I'll have to try it when I get back.

kEn

[robjmurphy]

Hi there fellows.
Just wanted to add my experiences with this debacle. Like Ken I'd had my drive on order with MacMall for months, getting the runaround etc etc. I also ordered side panels which shipped priority overnight shortly after the order was placed. MacMall fleeced me on that one 'coz the overnight delivery cost more than the blasted panels. Anyhow after this & the constant fobbing off I told them where to stuff their order & went to Outpost.com.
Not only was the drive $60 cheaper but they offered free overnight shipping (a $20-25 value) & despite a few false starts with ETA slippage I received my drive less than 2 weeks after order.
& boy! It is cool! 'Specially in it's green shell next to my LiMac. Had no trubs installing it. Already had Toast 4.02 on my HD so just dragged over the Que!Fire extension & rebooted. Burns successfully @ 8x Data & CD-Audio. No hitches. One issue tho' is Toast images. Even under 4.02 these still fail. But under 4.1b1 all's well that end's well. Now if only I could get Retrospect 4.2 to recognise the drive I'd be right where I wanted to be!
BTW haven't tried CD-RW yet. What's the issues with that?
So to sum up. to MacMall, 2 thumbs up to Outpost, to QPS, :/ to Adaptec, to Dantz.

[blizaine]

I guess I'm just not quite sure how you burn re-write CD's. My old SCSI 2x burner couldn't re-write so I never used to worry about it. I have always thought that in order to re-write cd's you had to use Adaptec Direct CD. (am I wrong?) I was under the impression that with Direct CD installed you could pop in a CD-RW disc and it would format it and you could drop stuff into it like a HD. However, I didn't see it on the CD that came with my 8x Que!Fire Drive. So (for educational purposes) I barrowed Direct CD 1.0.4 from a friend and it didn't work.

Am I just really confused as to how this works, or does it just not work at all. And wasn't our drives supposed to come with Direct CD? It even says it on the CD itself...

[robjmurphy]

As far I understand it you need Adaptec DirectCD to write to CDRW discs through the finder or any other app. Yes you had to format the CDRW to be DirectCD savvy which took somewhere in the region of 100-150MB off the size of the CD (overhead!)but essentially you should have been left with a sort of 500MB removable hard drive. In practice tho' with my old SCSI Yamaha 4260 this worked sporadically. I encountered frequent times when the disc would continue to fill up in the background. Adaptec acknowledged this as a problem & patches were released. After applying the patches I could never get it to work satisfactorily so never bothered. Adaptec's support of Mac products has been sketchy at best. Same is true with DirectCD alas
I did however use CDRW with Retrospect for backups & that worked fine. Okay so when doing a new backup it would take upwards of an hour to reformat the disc prior to backing up but as this was scheduled overnight it didn't case any hassles.
But as Retrpspect doesn't currently support QPS drives it's difficult for me to test this out & at the moment I'm having to backup manually via Toast.
& yes! DirectCD was supposed to be included with the QPS products (most CD burners in fact) but I'd have to check my software to see whether I got it or not.
I love my 8x4x32 Que!Fire but just reiterate my earlier post that until Adaptec & Dantz get support sorted out for it, it ain't gonna be perfect.
Nice hardware, shame about the software