Please help. Cannot burn ANYTHING anymore.

Discussion in 'DVD / Blu-ray drives' started by msb1981, Aug 20, 2005.

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  1. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    Ok here's the deal, I know what I'm doing with computers. I work at a computer repair shop, but this problem has me stumped. It started a few months ago when I started having troubles burning CDs and DVDs. Well eventually I re-installed windows (xp pro) and installed a copy of Ubuntu Linux. Well I can rarely successfully burn a disc (CD or DVD, with either of my burners) in either XP or Linux. I have checked the IDE cables, I even replaced them. My burners (CD-RW and DVD+RW) both have their jumpers set correctly and both OSs are identifying them correctly. I have tried changing media, changing burn speed, changing every option available in almost every burning software out there, and still nothing. I have defragged my hard disks, changed the burning software's temporary cache location. There is nothing wrong with the operating systems, nothing wrong with the burners, and nothing wrong the the burning software, but I still have a problem.

    When I try to burn it messes up different every time. Some times it looks as if the whole disc is burnt successfully, but then you turn the disc over and nothing is written on it! And the OSs still say they're blank. Other times they get to about 94% then have a write error, other times it's a write error right away. Other times the machine just locks up completely (and I do mean completely locks up, both in Windows and Linux) There is no pattern to the madness, and as far as I can tell NOTHING is wrong, yet it's only about 1 out of every 10 tries that I can actually burn a CD or DVD.

    Please guys if you can think of anything I would appreciate it, but as far as I can tell everyone is working perfectly.My burners both used to burn perfectly even on cheap media at maximum speed, now I can crank out only coasters at minimum burn speed. Please what is wrong?
     
    msb1981, Aug 20, 2005
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  2. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    is your dma enabled??
     
    ddp, Aug 20, 2005
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  3. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    yes dma is enabled, I tried disabling with the same results.
     
    msb1981, Aug 20, 2005
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  4. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    can you try the drives on another computer to see if the problem follows or not. also try another psu to see what happens.
     
    ddp, Aug 20, 2005
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  5. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    i assume when you say psu you mean power supply? correct?

    I don't have any other computers around here that are modern enough to be capable of burning a CD.
     
    msb1981, Aug 20, 2005
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  6. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    power supply yes. right now it could be the motherboard causing the problem or the psu & unlikely both drives tho.
     
    ddp, Aug 20, 2005
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  7. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    think there is any way of just testing the secondary IDE of the motherboard since I don't really have any other computer to try them in right now?
     
    msb1981, Aug 20, 2005
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  8. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    disconnect 1 drive at a time to see what happens in burning. try putting either the cd burner or dvd burner as slave to the hd. switch the drives around so that the burners are on ide1 & the hd is on ide2.
     
    ddp, Aug 20, 2005
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  9. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    well I haven't tried switching primary and secondary IDEs yet, but I just hooked up my CD-RW burner only. And the same thing happens. It says it burns successfully, and it reads regular CDs just fine, but when I close the drive after the burn the newly burnt CD shows up as blank.

    One quick question, is there a specific windows service that needs to be enabled for CD burning to work properly? I optimized my system by disabling lots of services that were uneeded, and I checked on them fairly well. Also this would not explain why burning a CD locks up linux.

    (As a side not I just opened Nero and did Disc Info, it showed up with one session that was open, I tried to close the session and got a disc fixation error at the end. The one error that seems to happen the most often throughout all of this is that the burning process messes up with the fixation. What can I do to fix this?)
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2005
    msb1981, Aug 23, 2005
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  10. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Ddp asked me to have a look at this one. have read the thread, and good to see you've tried something different, ie linux, to try and sort this.

    However I'm guessing bad media, possibly old firmware, but sounds like a puzzler. How 'bout posting last section of your nero log, its in c:\program files\ahead\nero\nerohistory.log. Do not post your derial number which usually begins with 1a21 or similar.
     
    creaky, Aug 23, 2005
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  11. PJ2U2

    PJ2U2 Member

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    I do Electronics and computer repair as well. Sometimes the most simple thing gets by us. I had something similar once , the discs were bad. Let us know when you find it.
     
    PJ2U2, Aug 23, 2005
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  12. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    Don't worry if I ever get this sorted out I'll be sure to let everyone know how I did it.

    An update, I finally upgraded the firmware on my DVD+RW and tried to burn a DVD, burn went fine (although nero kept mis-reporting the remaining time and the drive's buffer jumped around a LOT). When I put the disc into my player, nothing, back into my DVD+RW drive, nothing. It doesn't pop up the blank disc thing, but nothing is on it.

    Here is a link to my nero history log, serial # has been removed, and it shows several attempts including some that were suppossedly successful and some that were unsuccessful.

    http://cajunads.panicnow.net/nerohistory.log.txt

     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2005
    msb1981, Aug 23, 2005
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  13. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    That link domt work, paste the log here...
     
    creaky, Aug 23, 2005
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  14. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    try now, the link is working fine for me. I didn't want to paste it here since it's REALLY big.
     
    msb1981, Aug 23, 2005
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  15. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    from last section of your logfile -

    - DMA's falled off again..

    - for info, you're burning to outer edge of disc, should set target size to 4300MB to stay away from edge of disc

    - burner isn't recognising the media correctly. the latest firmware's on there now but the firmware is about a year old, so can't recognise this media correctly
     
    creaky, Aug 23, 2005
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  16. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    well if it's from the last section of the logfile it should be from before I disabled DMA to flash the drive with the new firmware. So do you think that means it's an error or something?

    And as for your last comment I don't understand. It says media type: dvd+r, I am using DVD+R discs, so how would that be not recognizing the media properly. I don't think I understood you on this part.
     
    msb1981, Aug 23, 2005
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  17. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Trust me I know my nero logs. There should be 3 lines for the media description, you only have that one line so your media is too new for the burners firmware to rwcognise. I can't use the pc just yet to paste you an example as I'm burning a dvd. Am having to use my handheld to reply for now
     
    creaky, Aug 23, 2005
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  18. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    ah ok, well I've upgraded my firmware, so how would I tell if it's being recognized right now?
     
    msb1981, Aug 23, 2005
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  19. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    here's an example of one of my media -

    - fully recognised thus it can use the disc correctly.


    programs such as this will show more info about media - http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_tools/dvd_identifier.cfm

    ..but basically that particular disc just isn't gonna play ball properly cus the firmware in the burner is effectively out if date by a year. it happens, drives get left behind when companies bring out new ones.


    ...i am simply reportingf what i see in the logfile..



    ..just found snippet of log for a cd -
    - that's not fairing much better..

    - burner don't like that disc either..


     
    creaky, Aug 23, 2005
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  20. msb1981

    msb1981 Member

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    I guess I misunderstood. I thought the part of the logfile you got that info from was old. I just updated the firmware a few hours ago. I updated it from 0.89 to 1.50
     
    msb1981, Aug 23, 2005
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