I have a PX-755SA and recently installed a PX-712SA from another rig (was my friends, I assume it was still working in that box). Finally found an excuse to use it and discover it can't read any discs. It shows up in W7 fine, hardware manager says the drivers are installed and the device is working properly. Upgraded the firmware: no change. I click on its icon in W7 explorer and it doesn't tell me there's no disc in there (it does when there isn't) but refuses to display the contents. Shows up empty in Properties with disc inserted. I went to Plextor to download the latest PlexUtilities software and both of the latest files download corrupted every time. Finally Googled it off their China site and when I ran it an error popped up saying no Plextor drives were detected, and the app shut down. Mind you I have two, and one works just fine. So I dug out my old Plextor CD to install Plext Tools Pro (since apparently the site is now offline) and it recognizes both drives but did not list any DVD read speed setting option for the PX-712SA. So I stuck in a CD instead and the disc read fine. But a DVD fails to read (although Plex Tools has DVD read/write capabilities checked in the drive info window). So I guess W7 isn't allowing the drive to read DVDs? It's labeled in W7 explorer as a DVD RW drive, just like the other Plextor. Any suggestions? Delete the driver and force a reinstall? W7 installed the drivers when I booted up the machine after originally inserting the hardware, and a driver update through Device Manager finds no newer drivers. I wish I could ask my friend if the drive was still good in his machine, but unfortunately he's not around anymore...

In my experience this sort of flaky behaviour means the drive is either dirty or dying.
You could try airing it out.
There is also a small chance that the PX-712SA is incompatible with the chipset in your computer. But if the 755 works fine with your chipset I don't see why it wouldn't like the older 712?
Plextor has a matrix on their website which lists the problem mobo chipsets.

Did some more scrounging around and found a blink code FAQ for the drive. I get an amber light blinking twice which is:

Auto adjustment failed;
Cannot read a stamped disc or initialize a CD-R/RW disc because the drive cannot properly configure the focus and track adjustment settings

However no where on the FAQ does it give any help on correcting this issue, so I assume it can't be? Seems the laser lens could perhaps use cleaning?

Quote:
There is also a small chance that the PX-712SA is incompatible with the chipset in your computer. Plextor has a matrix on their website which lists the problem mobo chipsets.

Couldn't find this. Have a link? I found this link through Google: http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_712SA.htm but seems Plextor has since re-arranged their help system cause it just dumps you at the main Plextor site

Drive is toast.
I've owned a couple of plextor burners and if you get that message it means the internal laser isn't working anymore.
You would have to send it in to Plextor to get the laser fixed but I doubt it's still covered by RMA.
And yeah it looks like they got rid of that chart I was talking about.


[Edited by - daviangel on May 3, 2010 3:39:04 PM]

well that's a damn shame. Thx man. ratings++