Guys,
I have been using a Yamaha F1 internal drive for almost ten months now under both Windows 98 first edition and XP and have not had ONE SINGLE problem! I use Sound Forge 6.0, CD Creator Platinum 5.0, CD Architect 5.0, Cool Edit Pro 2.1, and Nero 5.5 with this burner and everything works perfectly. It also rips CDs and CD-Rs very well!
I bought the last version of that burner, made one year ago, updated the drivers and installed the updated firmware and all is good. I also do not burn any faster than 16x, ever! High speeds produce heat and heat kills hardware. Maybe that is why I am lucky so far.
I stick with major brands of blanks and NEVER use those no-name CD-Rs from Comp USA or Wally World.
Yamaha did produce some buggy drives before, but they must've gotten the last run of these right. The one I got retail came in a box with the white background. Aparently, the bad drives came in the grey box.
Granted, this has been my first experience with a Yamaha burner, but it has been nothing but positive, so far.
Don't get me started on HP burners, now...