DVD Burner Issues

[su root]

Well, I got my dad a DVD burner about a week ago, and a spindle of DVDs. I burned a few, but they all burned fine, but when I ran them through a verifier, they all had CRC errors. :(

I figured it might be the media, so I got different stuff, + and -, but same problem.

That was a Sony DW-U18A. I returned it, and got a LG HL-DT-ST GSA-4082B.

With this one, so far, I've burned one successfully, and I burned another one last night, which, if I put it in the DVD burner, shows no errors, but if I put it into my regular DVD drive, it shows CRC errors on half the files :-/

Has anyone run into this before? It's two different computers I've tried the burners in, several programs, the latest one is Nero 6. I've tried different media (on the old burner).

I just don't see how this many corrupted files is acceptable... is it just me and bad luck?

[JCLW]

That's weird. I've never had a frisbee that wasn't my own fault.

Is the drive on it's own IDE channel? Is it running in UDMA mode? What kind of controller is it plugged into? Some burners have an alternate UDMA mode jumper on the back on the drive, but this is usually to force compatibility with older controllers (ie: for people like me with BX chipsets).

Does the burner always read the discs even if your reader won't? What about a firmware upgrade for your DVD reader?

Have you tried brand name media (Fuji, Sony, Pioneer, 3M/Imation)? Have you tried slowing down the burn speed (2x or 1x)?

I don't know...

But if you go looking for another drive I'd recommend the Plextor 708A.

[su root]

For the first burner, it was on a regular IDE channel. With the second burner, I tried it on my ATA100 chain, but for some reason it defaulted to PIO mode (very very bad), so I moved it to my IDE chain.

Both burners don't have any extra jumpers or anything on it.

With the first burner, it would see the same errors. With the 2nd burner, it doesn't see the errors.. I can put a DVD into the burner, copy a file off of it, and put the same thing into my other DVD rom, and it'll CRC error when copying the file off.

There was a deal on the media when I bought the drive, so I got a 25 spindle of Pine -R media, since then I've picked up some Memorex -R media, and some Memorex +RW.

So far, the count is:
First Burner:
6 Pine dead
1 Memorex dead
1 RW works fine

Second burner:
1 Memorex with CRC errors in one drive, but not in the other
1 Pine with CRC errors in one drive, but not in the other
1 Pine works fine
1 RW works fine.

I don't know what's going on.

[JerMe]

First - make sure you have quality media.

Download a program called DVDinfo or DVDidentifier, and run it with the media in your DVD drive. You'll need these proggies to find who the disc Manufacturer is. Not the "brand name" labeled on the top of the disc (Memorex, Imation, Sony, Fuji, etc.), because close to none of these companies manufacture their own discs. Rather, they buy them off of a select few manufaturers.

You'll want to look for the "Media ID", and hopefully you do not have discs manufactured by companies like "CMC Magnetics" or "TBI". CMC Magnetics has a HORRIBLE reputation with the CD-Rs, and not so great of a time with the DVD recordables. In addition, their longetivity is questionable (lasting longer than 1 year, 2 years.) So archiving files with CMC discs is hit and miss. BTW, CMCs won't burn in my Sony burner. TBI is a relatively new company based in India, so I wouldn't really trust them just yet.

If you can get your hands on Ritek media, those are considered the best, and most reliable of the bunch. Meritline.com is a great place to get these discs. Newegg also offers Ritek media. RICOH is pretty good as well - Most of the big label companies (like Memorex and Fuji) used RICOH for a long time. All my media is RICOH burned with a Sony DRU-510A, and all of the burns are still good until now (1 year plus some.)

Are you having Nero verify the burn immediately afterwards? Are you sure you trust your 2nd DVD drive? Have you actually tried running/playing the files on your freshly burned discs? Just questions. :)

[JCLW]

All my Fuji's are Ritek G03 media.

Have you tried reading the discs in another computer or standalone player?

[Xaotic]

This probably doesn't apply, but, the GSA-4082B is an ATA-66 device and often will generate errors on a ATA-33 cable.

Using another device to verify both devices is a good idea. Running diagnostics on both drives would be good as well. I'm not sure which diagnostics to run, as the ones I use are proprietary.

I have the same LG burner and it's been very stable for me.

[su root]

Well, I got a chance to test one of the DVDs that was working in my DVDburner, but had CRC errors in my DVDrom in another box... it wouldn't even read the disk. :( I have verified with Nero's verify, and I use a program called CDCheck (http://fusion.zejn.si/) to do verifications later.

I have no idea what it is with me and DVD burners. Bad luck I guess. I will attempt moving it to my ATA100 chain again, see if it will work in non-PIO mode on that, but this will eventually be moved to my dad's box, which only has IDE.

I will do the media check tonight, although I will be surprised at Memorex for using such lousy disks if that's the problem. Both Memorex and Pine are my top two favorite CDR manufacturers, who havn't given me as much as a bad disk in years.

I just tried using RecordNow MAX with this 2nd burner, and it doesn't recognize the burner. I'll have to go find another burner program. Any suggestions?

[JCLW]

I use Nero 6 for burning.

Do you have the drive on an 80 pin cable or a 40 pin cable?

What do you mean by ATA100 chain? A Promise/Highpoint/SilImage controller?

You could just try the drive in your dad's computer to see if it works there.

What kind of motherboard do you have? What kind does he have? I know that Plextor drives someties have problems on nVidia motherboards because of buggy nVidia southbridge drivers.

[diehrd]

I would slow the write speed down and see if the exact same data gives an error after writing.........

[su root]

I use an 80 pin cable, on any connection.

ATA100 = onboard promise on my a7v133 mobo.
Don't remember what my dad's mobo is off-hand.

On the Pine media, it seems to only want to burn the pine stuff at 2x, so all the pines are burning at that speed (and only that speed... it doesn't let me run them at 1x). I will attempt to burn something at 1x to see if it's better tonight.

[su root]

Ok, the Pine disks are LONGTEN disks, and surprisingly, the Memorex disks are CMC's... I'm honestly surprised by that. The Memorex RW's are PHILIPS disks.

PINE
====
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unique Disc Identifier : [DVD-R:LONGTEN 009]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disc Type : [DVD-R]
Manufacturer ID : [LONGTEN 009]
Disc Application Code : [Unrestricted Use : Consumer Purpose]
Recording Speeds : [1x - 2x - 4x]
Blank Disc Capacity : [2,298,496 Sectors = 4,489.3 MB = 4.38 GB]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

MEMOREX
=======
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unique Disc Identifier : [DVD-R:CMC MAG. AF1]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disc Type : [DVD-R]
Manufacturer ID : [CMC MAG. AF1]
Disc Application Code : [Unrestricted Use : Consumer Purpose]
Recording Speeds : [1x - 2x - 4x]
Blank Disc Capacity : [2,298,496 Sectors = 4,489.3 MB = 4.38 GB]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

MEMOREX DVD+RW
==============
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unique Disc Identifier : [DVD+RW:PHILIPS-041-000]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disc Type : [DVD+RW]
Manufacturer ID : [PHILIPS]
Media Type ID : [041]
Product Revision : [Not Specified]
Disc Application Code : [General Purpose]
Recording Speeds : [2.4x - 4x]
Blank Disc Capacity : [Not Supported By Method 2]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to go and try burning some more stuff.
Thanks for the replies so far, they have been helpful. My dad has basically said to just burn off the media I have, and if I can't get it fixed, return it and get a DVD-rom... he's not sinking any more cash into this fruitless venture.. ($60+ on media alone so far :-/)

One of my friends is bringing over some of his Pine media tomorrow, it's possible that I just have a bad spindle.

In the mean time, any ideas are welcome, also, I'm looking for prefered burner programs... I'm using Nero, and want to rule that out. The timeline is friday-ish before it needs to be returned.