my panasonic lf-d311 all of a sudden wont recognise and blank dvd-r.i insert a blank and after a while (20 secs) it reports the blank as an audio cd ? properties say file system cdfs used space 1.99 gig free space 0 when i open it i see track01 which is 44 bytes.Someone help please
You are not alone, crazy-h. I have the same problem, but my LF-D311 has always done this. I got on to Panasonic support and was told that this is a common problem and is due to software incompatibilities. The first thing they had me do was re-install the ASPI layer you can get a file (aspi_v471.exe) from Adaptec's website. However, this did not help me. Next thing was to try booting from my Win98 startup disk so there is no additional s/w loaded, just W98. Again no go. Also, tried booting to DOS and no go. Finally Panasonic asked me to send drive to them and they said drive is OK. Only choice now is to re-install W98, then install apps one by one to see which one messes things up (assuming it works with just W98 and the s/w that came with the drive). Haven't got that far yet - I hate re-installing Windows. So far as you are concerned, did you recently install s/w and then the drive stopped recognising blank DVD-Rs? If this is the case, maybe you could try uninstalling it? Or doing the windows re-install, plus all your apps, up to a point where the new s/w is not on the system? If you have just installed s/w that messed up you drive can you say which it is? (That might help me and others in finding out a little quicker what not to install or what is upsetting our systems.) Good Luck
Drive was working fine,no s/w added.It suddenly started to struggle to recognise a blank dvd-r and within the hour it would'nt recognise one at all !.I have removed drive and tried it in another machine,did'nt recognise a blank straight way.tried with win 98 and xp.You sure the drives are not at fault ?
No, not sure other than Panasonic say they checked my drive on a couple of OSs, including W98, on one pc of theirs. When I get the time, I'm going to install W98 on another partition with only the software delivered with the drive (DVD Movie Studio package) and see if that works. I must admit that I have wondered if the motherboard I have has anything to do with it (KT7A-RAID). What mobo do you have? BTW there are a couple more threads on this site that refer to the same problem, but none of the messages have helped me. I think I found them by searching for lf-d311.
guess what ? i too have a kt7a-raid,i wonder ? think i'll try a format,i'll let you know how i get on ;-)
I have just tried a fresh installation of Win98SE on a second drive with latest VIA drivers and left adding any drivers over which I had control of installation. I have not installed any application. And the drive still sees blank DVD-Rs as Audio CD. So I fear you will have the same outcome. Have just e-mailed Panasonic. Have also tried disabling the RAID in the BIOS, to no avail. Could it be the motherboard and the VIA drivers? Will take a look at Paul's Unoffical KT7A FAQs site later on.
crazy-h, Have you changed any BIOS settings recently? Looking at Paul's Unofficial KT7A-RAID FAQs site some CD-ROM/RW problems are affected by BIOS settings. Wonder if they might have a similar effect on our LF-D311 drives?
