HankScorpio

NB - experts, not speculators

Is this error likely to be hardware or media related? Getting it consistently when burning but drive works ok for reading and installing other stuff.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Consistently erroring in any burnin app, or just one app? If yes to 1st question, I would say the drive is fubar

HankScorpio

I only use ImgBurn, all the other are bloat.

Ah well, at least they're cheap!

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

No an expert, so you can ignore the following

I had issues with my DVDRW drive when it was new a few years back. I was a little unlucky in that I suffered from several different issues over about 1 year. Still, I learned a few things. The error you are seeing could be.

1) BIOS, look on support sites for your mobo and see if others have reported issues with DVD writing. If so, get the BIOS update to sort it
2) Drive firmware. Some drives just never worked right until their firmware was sorted
3) Windows issue. There are drivers within windows that can affect lots of different burning apps. I forget the one that is the important one, some Scsi driver, even if you are using IDE drive.
4) The media you are using
5) The application.

No quick easy fix I am afraid, you just have to work through it. Took me ages, as I either got mobo BIOS that wrote DVDs, or one that did my Nforce2 sound, but not both for a long time

HankScorpio

Thanks for that, it's a new machine with the latest updates, the drive came out of an old machine so every chance it's just at the end of it's life.

I've used the same type of media for about a year (Verbatim printable glossies) and the same app (img burn) with no problems till this week.

Logically, it's the drive but I was kinda hoping someone would say "oh yeah, your media's gone off" or something

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Verbatim are really good, use them myself. Unless you can think of something that has changed, then yes, it does sound like it may be the drive. Given the price of them, maybe its a good time to upgrade?

Sonic'

A different laser is used for the writing, which will explain why reading discs is still ok

Sounds fubarred to me

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Those DVD drives can be quite sensitive too. I remember having issues with an old CD drive. It was really giving me grief with writing discs. Could not work out what was wrong with it, and then I diagnosed the issue in an instant. Issue was "user impact frustration" Never did find out what the original fault was

HankScorpio

Gives me an excuse to get a sata one too so not *that* bothered...

bob269

I've basically had the same problem, a phase where 9/10 burns were failing, then it cleared up, and now it's happening again, pretty sure its a windows driver issue, but i've ordered a new sata dvd writer to see if it helps

HankScorpio

Same system
Same data
same source drive
same app
same media
new drive (TSST S203N SATA) Samsung to you and me ...........

No probs, fully verified, IDE cable goes in the bin (as does the drive) Woo-HOO!

Thanks for the input chaps.