I'm purchasing a new iMac this fall. However, in the meantime I need a DVD-R for my Dell to back-up my 120 GB of music and ultimately transfer it to my Mac. I want to spend as little as possible on a burner, as I will only be using it for 4 or 5 months. I found this Mad Dog Dominator on sale at CompUSA for $70. My question is - is it acceptable? Will it make reliable DVD-Rs my MAC will be able to collect data from? I don't want to lose my audio files forever.

http://www.mdmm.com/products/optical/dominator6in1.asp

If anyone has any information on this brand, it would be greatly appreciated. Or any other sub $80 DVD-R recorders I should explore intsead. I'm not looking for a Plextor for 4 months, my Apple SuperDrive will be my burner from December forward.

Thanks!

Go for a NEC 2500A ... you can't get better write quality and media compatibility for the price.

Thanks Jeanluc. I bought one today based on your advice. for an extra $4 I actually upgraded to the NEC 2501 for $67.

LOL....that Mad Dog is a rebadged NEC 2500A. NEC doesn't sell retail drives in the US, just OEM through sites like NewEgg. Go to the forums at CD Freaks and do a search on that Mad Dog and you'll see it's a rebadged NEC 2500A.

Nevertheless, you made a wise decision.

My NEC drive showed up today. Unknown to me (I'm not a techie), its an OEM drive which means no product installation manual and no additional parts came with it. Does anyone have any advice on how I properly replace my CD-R drive with this new DVD-R drive? And do I need any additional cables, screws, etc that would not already be present with my CD-R drive?

Thanks!

http://www.acmehowto.com/howto/pc/hardware/cdrom/replace.php

You will probably also have to update your burning software.

Didn't know that the mad dog dominator is an OEM NEC but remember that TDK and HP are OEM NEC's, too ... with own firmware revisions and lower (or better) writing quality on some media, compared to the non-OEM device.

Thanks Dreamliner. Great site.

I use iTunes and Nero 6 for burning. You think I will have to uninstall and re-install?