Optorite DVD Burner

If you have this drive, DO NOT flash to the 2.17 firmware. I've flashed mine everytime a new version of the firmware has come out with now problems. I just flashed to the 2.17 version and my drive is now unusable. My computer won't even boot if the Optorite is attached.

Anyone have any suggestions on how I can get my motherboard to recognize the Optorite so that I can flash it back to 2.16? Otherwise I have an expensive paperweight.

 

Same thing happened to me lmadern. I now have a uselss DVD burner in my PC. I have emailed OptoRite about the problem. I have not heard back from them.
[bold]REPEATING ---> DO NOT USE the 2.17 firmware flash.[/bold]

 

Well, only thing I can suggest is disconnect your drive, and go get the previous version firmware (or whichever firmware you updated from) and then flash it from DOS using their instructions. That's the only thing I can recommend. Unfortunately, I did flash mine to v2.17 and have not had any troubles.

 

BlkPanthr, trying to flash from dos won't work because my motherboard won't recognize the drive. It hangs up when initializing the ide drives and won't boot any further until I unplug the optorite drive from the ide chain. I've tried just having my boot drive on the primary ide channel by itself and the optorite on the secondary channel by itself and the computer still will not boot with the optorite plugged up.

Can we all say, PAPER WEIGHT? I'm not waiting for a response from Optorite; I'm going to take care of it. Unless someone has any suggestions.

 

I had the same issue (well sorta). I upgraded my Optorite to 2.17 and it would reset my computer when the drive would seem to get stuck doing something very minor. The last time it reset it would not allow my computer access my harddrives and I kept trying to reset it over and over. Well finally I just shut it off instead of resetting and it worked. Then I flashed back to 2.16 and haven't had any issues since. 2.17 is really screwed up! Use with caution. Good luck Imadern. Let us know how it works out.

 

You guys are right the 2.17 BIOS release sucks. I had a couple of instances where it would just hang my system.... and like others are posting here I'd have to power my system down in order to get the DVD drive back online. I downgraded back to the 2.16 and life is good (also sent Optorite a scathing email

I'm trying to use the B's Gold 5 to do HD-Burns to CD-R and I must be missing something very simple, as I can see that the drive is capable of it in the 'Drive Settings' tab, but how can you tell if your media supports it? I'm not seeing a knob to tell it to use HD-Burn over non-HD-Burn????

I've tested the Sky and Princo DVD-R recordings in a variety of home DVD players, and so far I haven't found one that doesn't work.

Also if anyone's looking for this drive, you can get it for as low as $143 delivered:

http://www.maincomp.com/shop/product.jsp?id=396&pw=

This is the outfit I ordered mine from and I had it in a week from the east to the west coast.

Happy burning - CalCobra

 

Nevermind on the HD-Burn, I see it now ... DOH!

 

Calcobra,

I recommend using Nero 6 for the HDBurn it works much better than that sorry software that comes with the drive.

FugiFilm CD-R is the best I used so far with HDBurn

 

My optodrive messed up too with the 2.17 flash. It appears that the power isn't working properly on mine because when I hit the eject button, nothing happens. I can't flash the old firmware because my computer can't recognize the drive. I even tried to flash striaght to the ide port, but again no power means no recognition. HELP

 

Isn't funny how when I go back to the Optorite site, it shows 2.16 firmware. What about us that used 2.17? Will we be compensated?

 

I read on another forum that 2.17 was a release for DD0201 not DD0203 and that it was an error that Optorite made on it's site. That might be why they changed back to 2.16 on the site.

Again this is just what I read on another site, I have no proof, but it sure explains a lot of these problems everyone is having with 2.17 and why it's gone now.

 

That's pretty unbelievable. They must have recognized that they screwed up with the firmware release and had the time/inclination to post the 2.16 again. But they didn't have the inclination to let those of us who are screwed by their mistake know what/if they are going to do about it. I sent them 2 e-mails already and haven't heard anything back. It will be interesting to find out if they do anything for us.

 

The Optorite site recommends 6 brands of +R media, 7 brands of +RW, 5 brands of -RW, and only 2 brands of -R. Why are so few -R media compatible with this drive?

 

[bold]For Blkpnthr[/bold]
Better Late Than Never. To enable "DMA" mode:

In Windows 9x / ME:
Go to "Device Manager" -> "CD-ROMs" -> find your CD-RW drive and check its "Properties". There should be a check box for "DMA", make sure it is checked

In Windows 2000 / XP:
Go to "Device Manager" -> "IDE Controller" -> find the correct IDE channel where your CD-RW drive is connected -> check its "Properties", it should be set to "DMA if possible" and NOT "PIO Only", you may also see what mode the CD-RW drive is running in, even if it is set to "DMA if possible" the CD-RW drive may still run in PIO mode.
Also, verify that DMA is enabled for the other CD / DVD devices and hard-drives. Remember to "Reboot" the PC system after having enabled DMA.

 

I have just installed Nero 6 to try out my optorite and have had no problems until I tried to burn a dvd data disc. My dvd-r will not read on any other dvd drive but can be read on dvd burner. I haven't really had much experience with nero 6, but I thought burning a data disc would be the same for a dvd-r. Has anyone used nero 6 to burn data discs in the iso format? I have read somewhere that this problem occurs with burning data discs with avi files (which is what I burned) and the discs end up in the cdfs format(linux?).

 

Has anyone used Sony DVD-R with this burner? I inserted a blank disc and the drive won't even recognize it.

 

sync, many other brands of DVD-R media work with the drive outside of the ones listed on their website. I have tried 4 brands of DVD-R media with the drive, including Ritek and Princo and have not had any problems with them even though neither are listed on the Optorite site. Optorite has stopped updating the media on the website and now just adds support for more types in the firmware releases. Which they then don't tell you what they update!

In short, you unfortunately don't buy this drive for the support. You buy it because it's cheaper then the others and supports both + and -R.

 

Crap, I was about to upgrade to 2.17. So I'm wondering if it worked fine for most people? Could some people have a different version/revision of the DD0203? You know like, motherboards have revisions: 1.0, 1.1 etc.

Personally, I don't buy the posted the wrong firmware excuse at all, and I'm wondering what will happen to the people who got screwed by it? Sounds like Optorite should ethically replace the drives, but legally, may not have to since I remember clicking some disclosure when I downloaded and installed 2.16.

Let us know how it turns out.

 

There is a comprehensive DVD/CD media list for version 2.16 compiled by Optorite Taiwan in PDF format and posted by someone in the following link:

http://jan.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~csieboy/DD0203V216.pdf

Not sure if everything listed is correct, but a good reference point.

 

That's an interesting list. It doesn't have several of the media that are listed on Optorite's site.