InstantCopy turned off my DVDBurner.

I've had no probs with my Pioneer. I even flashed it this week and made it mulri-region and also 2x burn on ALL media not just branded ones - was the scariest thing I had to do, worked like a charm!

Just a note: There were problems with early DRU500A's. I don't know if yours was one, the defective ones were supposed to be off the shelves (and into discount/surplus stores) a few months back.

Well, I bought it from BestBuy (I don't think they are surplus or discount), but it did have a MFG date of Dec. 18th, 2002... so maybe that was the problem, oh well.

No, BestBuy should have had good units, but who knows, mistakes happen. As long as you can get a refund or replacement. I had the opportunity to buy DRU500A's at less than half price from an online discounter. After a little reasearch I decided to pass on that offer.

Yep, I got an email confirmation of my refund earlier :) I thought the AX model was just an A with the 1.0g firmware? Are there more changes besides that? Or are you saying there are multiple revisions of the A itself?

Since I already have an HP 200i, I never researched it beyond the fact that those units at the discounters "had problems". Always looking for a bargain.