When buying my burner i thought to myself "I'm not going to buy a cheap name and get screwed"
So i decided on a Creative 6424, little did i realize....

ITS A PIECE OF CRAP

Lots of software cannot recognize the drive, and if it can it wont recognize the CD's as burnable.
If thats not the case, it will often screw up in the middle of a burn with some unknown errors, wasting my CDs.

I plead to everyone to examine hardware reviews, because big names can still make big pieces of ****.

Just sounds like a case of bad luck mate, send it back and get a new one, or get a refund and get a different model if you prefer.

I think it is more the case of buying a brand that actually makes the product rather than rebadged stuff.

I mean I think creative were selling Plextor's at some stage (12X's from recallection), but companies that rebadge tend to change supplier's often.