Opti Drive Control

When the system takes too long to read a CD or DVD, it is hard to tell if the optical drive is to blame or if you inserted a faulty disc. In situations like this, you can use Opti Drive Control to evaluate the optical drive's capabilities, as well as the disc's quality. The software can perform various tests, at different speeds and it can provide you with a rich set of information about your drive or the inserted disc.

Opti Drive Control works on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 and it provides support for CDs, DVDs as well as Blu-ray discs. It can be installed fast, without any kind of difficulties. Alternatively, you can download a ZIP archive, extract the software's files and launch it right away. Its system requirements are not high, so you can use it even on older computers.

Each test can be prepared and executed in its own section of the interface. You may test the reading and writing speeds, create and verify test discs, view information about your drive, the inserted disc and more. You just need to select a speed and tick a few options, according to your preferences, and click a button to start testing.

In most cases, the program allows you to start a full or a partial test. If you opt for a partial test, you have to specify the start and end points in minutes, decimal sectors or hexadecimal sectors. The results are displayed in a graph and in numerical form, beneath the graph. You can export the data in HTML format and save the graph separately, in CSV format. Alternatively, you can take a screenshot of everything and save it as a PNG file.

Additional tests can be found in the last section of the interface. You just need to click one or more check boxes, depending on which test you wish to start. You can test your drive's spinup and spindown times, its ejecting and loading times and more.