I'm working on Madagascar, and I read this whole long thread (http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/256443) about it, and I did take note of this warning: But I didn't have FabDecrypter installed - just an old version of Decrypter, so I installed Fab on top. When I rebooted, my Plextor just kept clicking ~1/sec, and wouldn't respond to the Eject button. Even when I forced the drawer open, it just kept clicking. The system didn't recognize either drive was installed, and DVD43 told me it couldn't work on a system with NO DVD drive. It probably took me a total of 5 min with it clicking to get both Decrypter AND Fab uninstalled, and the system powered down. Now, using DVD43, Shrink3.17, & Nero6 (like always) on a few different titles (not Madagascar), I can usually get a burn that will play, but it's FULL of errors. Pixelation, menus that hang, or sometimes an unreadable disc. Oh, and one of my 250G HDs crashed, but it's at least the second time for it, so I doubt it's related to this. WHAT HAVE I DONE????
Steve83 , Try uninstalling the DVD Burner in Device Manager. Then re-boot the computer and see if Windows installs it correctly. It might install correctly but it could still be toast. Hope it is under warranty. Burners do Die. Plextor Burners like Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden blank media so you might try those if you are not using that blank media as your symptoms of Pixels and hanging sounds like the problem is Blank Media I would upgrade Shrink to the last Version D/L a "free Registry Cleaner"( you can Google for one) and clean your registry. This can not hurt as it can cause OS Problems
Thanks for replying. No, I've already had it replaced under warranty once - it's LOOOONG out of warranty now. The kicker is that my old HP DVD200i in my spare system is dying, too (it was also replaced under warranty a few years ago) so at the moment, I'm DEAD in the water! I guess it's time to order the PX-740A that I've been eyeing for a few months. Maybe two... I have a pretty wide variety of media, and I get good results from everything: crappy StarLogic (who KNOWS what they really are?) to TYs & everything in between. I'm getting these coasters from my printable ProDiscs (yeah, I know, but they work fine for me) & printable OptoDiscs. Until I installed Fab, I could get perfect burns on both of them 80-95% of the time. Now, it's 0% off the same spindles. Are you suggesting Shrink somehow got "contaminated" by Fab? I have the latest version, but I didn't want to install it until there was a good reason. I like to stick (-in-the-mud) with what works. I use NSW2005 WinDoctor for registry cleanup, and I did run it a couple of times. NAV, too. I've gotten a BUNCH of wormy spam in the past couple of days, and even though I know better than to open the attachments, it surprised me that NAV didn't detect them in my Deleted e-mail folder.
No progress, so I ordered a PX-716a last night. I did find a free utility from Maxtor that tests hard drives: 3 of my 4 Maxtor 250s are dying.
Now, this was useful: I still think my 708 is trash, but this advice DID fix a problem I've been having with my R200 since August. Since a Windows update back then, if the printer was connected during Windows startup, I'd get a BSOD stop error. Neither MicroSoft's nor Epson's tech support could figure out what to do in the past 4 months, but when I started updating my BIOS, the utility showed me that NONE of the mobo drivers were installed. Odd, since I distinctly remember installing them when I built this machine. As soon as I installed the mobo USB2.0 driver, the printer problem went away. [bold]Thanks, JG!!![/bold] Yes, it's homebuilt, and no, none of the HDs are empty. Turns out, only one of the Maxtors is still safe to use, so I won't be buying any more of them. The OS is on one of the bad ones, so I have to empty M: & migrate to it before I lose anything important. Since I can't do any big DVD backups at the moment, I'm really stressing, but I think I have all my critical data safe.
all i'll offer at this point is i have DVD Decrypter/DVDFab Decypter/DVD Shrink all co-exisiting perfectly happily...