BurnAware Premium (formerly BurnAware Home)

1.0 stars

"Be Burn-Aware and buy something else."

August 2, 2012  |   By brainout

Version: BurnAware Premium (formerly BurnAware Home) 5.0.1

Pros

Fast installation.

Cons

1. Makes everything ROM, doesn't preserve the rewritability, no matter what disc you use.
2. So it's really a WRITE ONCE ONLY software program, despite the instructions.
3. Can't read DVD+RW and keep the same capacity, turns a DVD into a CD-ROM.
4. Help doesn't help, as the product doesn't do what's advertised.
5. NO REFUND, so the minute you buy it, before you even know its flaws, you're stuck.

Summary

BURNAWARE is worse than Roxio or Nero (see video). Be aware that if you buy burnaware, you will be burned worse than Nero and Rome. The first burn is that you can't get a refund, which you must agree to up-front. The second burn is that the software instructions guarantee you sleepless nights trying to figure out what the options mean, since the help is no help.

The third burn: if you use RW-type media and don't fill up the disk because you properly checked the burn options to ALLOW later re-writing -- well, it ignores you. For not only is your DVD with RW or CD with RW turned to ROM, but your computer can't read it UNLESS you reformat it or extract the files through Burnaware or some other proprietary extractor.

In short, those files become invisible to Windows, AS WELL AS the CD or DVD becoming read-only, never mind you didn't finalize the disc! (I used Verbatim DVD+RW, unilayer 4.7GB and Memorex 700 MB CD+RW.)

Weirdly, another computer you have can read those files (I used Acer Aspire One to test read, but burnaware was on my Dell 8400). But when you mass copy using Windows Copy, it keeps bombing. You must then manually copy JUST that bombed file, and resume where you left off. Very annoying.

Fourth and fifth burns: burnaware is SLOOOOOWWWWWWWWW to burn the first time: average for a non-damaged disc is 7 minutes for CD+RW, 15-30 mins for DVD+RW. But burnaware DAMAGES discs in formatting. To its credit, it can repair what it wrecks.

Example: first, I asked burnaware to make a Bridge DVD from my DVD+RW; it 'produced' a 522MB with no files added and it changed the RW into ROM! So, I had to reformat it via Erase Disc.. 20 minutes later, I gave up and just exited the program. What solved the problem for me, was to reinstall my old Roxio Sonic MyDVD 5.3 LE and RecordNow 7.3 LE software. It FULLY reformatted the same disc within 3 minutes. And is readable on my other computers which also have Roxio. Same result obtains from Nero, though the latter is a pistol to use and I ended up uninstalling Nero.

In short, burnaware burns, alright; in all the wrong ways.

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