Post your DISC quality scans here 2

The samsung burner is connected to the more typical NON hotswap Southbridge sata channels. Where as the Optiarc is connected the Gigabyte Sata Hotswap Chip. Note that Imgburn labels it a Raid device. What setting must I change to make this normal? Has anyone ever seen anything like this? Robert? I get the feeling you may have some idea whats going on here LOL! It most certainly is NOT a Raid device LOL!

 

Oman7,
I'm with you! As soon as it says raid and I'm not doing a mirror, I get the hell out of there! I don't know a damn thing about it when it comes to Raid, except making a mirror drive, and I don't want to screw things up! LOL!!

Russ

 

Well...my new burner may be trashed. I tried flashing to 1.02Bt and now windows won't acknowledge the drive. The bios does, but im uncertain how to proceed from here. Its pretty obvious to me that the way they're ran now, is probably the culprit in a bad flash! 30$ down the drain. I used the same flasher as before.

LOL! I plugged it into a free Southbridge Sata port, and now it appears to be fine. Im really itching about sending this board back now *Angry beyond belief*

 

LOL! You guys must think me quite the oddball Planned to send the board back, Rma already in the works, and i'm still fiddling with the board.
7241S 8X T02. Well...it almost redeemed itself. If not for the first 1/2 Gigabyte of the dvd, it would have been the Best optiarc T02 burn for me thus far. The 3Gb area spike is fairly typical with this batch. Can't wait to see the next batch... I'll post some TYG03 scans tomorrow. Im gonna bust its butt tomorrow LOL! See how it does at HIGH speeds.
Unfortunately, the 102Bt firmware won't allow more than 8X on these discs. No biggie.

 

Oman7,
Bet you a dollar that if you plug it back into the port you removed it from, the drive will work! I think you might be angry for the wrong reasons! Let me take a SWAG here, and bet that when you thought you fried the drive, it wouldn't even open the tray until you changed the port. I'll bet it just sat there with the drive light blinking on and off. I had a similar problem without even flashing the drive! My problem wound up being Nero! If I use Start Smart, it hangs the drive at 99% when I do a burn, and won't write the Lead Out. The Drive light just blinks on and off, and the tray won't open! I have to shut down and switch the two drive cables, fire it up, and it works fine again. Same ports, just switching the data cables between the two drives! Works perfectly using Nero Express. There are two different Nero Burning Rom files, and the one in Start Smart was my problem. I changed it to the Nero Burning Rom file in Nero Express, and it now works perfectly! I believe that the problem was caused by a Windows Upgrade! Some kind of software incompatibility, which started right after a semi automatic upgrade! I guess I allowed something to upgrade that I shouldn't have!

Oh well, I'm switching back to XP-Pro 64 bit soon anyway! The only program I have that absolutely will not work is Alcohol 120%. Even though it's much slower than Alcohol, I can use Imgburn, so it's not a big deal! I have to say that I don't like Sata for Optical drives. The drive addressing is just too flaky! I never had those kind of problems with IDE. I personally think it's those lame cables they use for Sata. I just don't think it does the drive a whole lot of good if you get a bad connection and it tries to change drive letters while in the middle of burning! In spite of what some people here have told me, the ports do not conform to any special order. I get real annoyed having to disconnect everything but my boot drive and then have to add everything one drive at a time, shutting down with each drive to get them all in order again. Especially when a bad data cable, can change your drive order in the blink of an eye! Changing drive letters is not an option! Eventually you will screw things up doing it! To my way of thinking the Sata ports should match the drive letters! Someone said the other day that I should name my drives. If they are not always in the same place, I still have to look for a name, instead of a letter, so it's a totally ridiculous point! Just consider that a bad data cable connection can change your whole drive order, depending on which drive the bad cable is on! Sata drives seem to have a problem of disappearing from windows when a cable or connection is bad. Imagine what can happen when you are burning with the drive, and it loses it's address! I've sent back two motherboards that had the same problem, and was ready to send this one back too, until I discovered the problem wasn't the MB! Think about it!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Oman7 ... oddball yes but hey you're on AD so it fits... hehehe.

Russ... maybe you're right but I think he needs to search out all options and then make an educated decision on the road he needs to take. I think it's a BIOS designation or a cable issue.

Here's an oldie but goodie.

MCC 001RG20 (DVD-R 4X Verbie)
IMGBURN 8X

 

Oh, there's definitely something unusual about the mainboard. When it spontaneously restarts itself in the bios, you know somethings not quite right LOL! But whats really unusual, is ever since I adjusted the Northbridge/HT frequency back to 1800, I haven't had any serious issues relating to the mainboard. I read somewhere yesterday that flashing firmware from an external USB source is not recommended LOL! I wonder if Hotswap is similar. It mentioned something about addressing. And actually, after flashing, it seemed to be fine. It was only when I restarted, and reentered windows, that I knew there was a problem. Something very unusual going on with the Hotswap ports. Im now wondering if a fresh install of windows, while using the drives in AHCI mode would help. Thats what the ports are designed for...unfortunately Windows could be the problem. I read that somewhere too. But given how adaptive windows 7 is, im just not sure...

 

One of these days, someone needs to teach me how to get AHCI to work! I've played with it a couple of times, without success. The minute I switch from IDE mode, it won't boot, even using the Boot Manager! Do you have to install it in that mode in order for it to work? It works fine with the Purple GigaByte ports, so why can't I get it to work with the Intel ports?

Russ

 

LOL! Still trying to tackle the situation myself. And since my windows 7 drive is getting rather cluttered...It may just benefit from a complete reinstall. First though, I gotta find a way to backup one of my games!

 

AD-7200S
IMGBURN 8X
MCC 01RG20 (Verbie DVD-R 4x)

 

Ha ha! This is the best Verb its put out so far. @ 16X no less

 

This actually isn't too bad...

16X TYG03 7241S. If not for the blocky areas, this would have been the best TYG03 scan ever! The majority of the failures are located there. I'll be watching this disc tonight, to see how well the burner is doing The jitter sure is unusual though...

 

I was burning the 4X discs at 8X so there.. How does it do at 12X or 8X?? I know you wanna go fast but sometimes it's just not gonna work as well as you would like it...

 

Cds used to be burned at 1-4X, Now they burn both well and better at 24X+
Actually, 12X seems to be my happy medium. But I was considering both 4 and 8X, So far, higher speeds are best with TYG03. Even on my older burners.

 

AGreed on the TYG03 discs... I think that mine was 12X as well.... I haven't burned a TYG03 in quite some time.. I have some but NOT using them for give-a-ways... I've been using the heck out of these MCC 003's. The ones that look like movie reels. I've got a few of the MCC 004's and TYG02's so decent media left....

 

LOL! Yah, the TYG03's are a little to spendy to be giving away LOL!

Here's a 4X Verb+R. Jitter's looking better. The blocky area was over 400 failuress. Better, Im still wondering though...

 

8X Verb+R. Jitters looking pretty darn good. Failures are acceptable, but are still almost alarmingly high for the media, and speed burnt at. I suppose as long as its playable LOL!

 

Oman7,
I missed this the other day! My rule of thumb with USB flash drives, is never install or run anything from them! Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't. When it doesn't work it can cause terrible problems for you. If I want to install a program on my flash drive, I copy it to the desktop and install it from there! same exact software, but the Flash drive doesn't always install things properly, and I have no desire to have to replace a bios chip or motherboard, because the flash failed! You can get some very strange errors installing things directly from a Flash Drive. I've never tried to flash the bios from one either, and I never will! I think it has something to do with the timing, lack of error correction and the slowness of Flash drives! Another good reason for keeping a 3.5" floppy around! Besides, my last few motherboards would all access the bios files directly from the HDD, which makes bios flashing pretty much painless! I've never had one fail, yet!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

OK just returned from visit in Houston. A friend has a dead DVD burner and wants to replace it. It has IDE interface and not SATA. What do you guys recommend from newegg. I found the Optiarc 7200 in IDE. Everything is going to SATA it seems. So what say you gurus of ODDs. He'll be reading this thread I hope. Thanks

Edit: BTW I have this drive in SATA and also the 7240S and Litey LH 20A1S which I would also recommend in IDE. I would give him one of my extras if he could use a SATA drive.

 

I have 2 7200A's. EXCELLENT burners. In fact, I think one of them is better than the 7200S. Luck of the draw after all.