Burner problem

[bioboy]

Hi,

I wonder if anybody can help me with this problem that's got me scratching my head?

I have an NEC DVD burner that burns DVD-R and DVD+R. A couple of days ago I found that when I tried to burn an Alcohol Image (mdf and mds) that was on the hard drive to a DVD-R disc it kept causing Alcohol to hang or not boot up at all. I converted the file to bin/cue using Ultraiso and attempted to burn with Nero, but the same thing happened.

In fact i found that when the program wouldn't boot at all if I ejected the disc the program booted up. I then tried to burn an image to DVD+R and everything worked fine! The other funny thing is I can copy from a disc to a DVD-R even when the program creates an image from the disc and then burns to DVD-R. This hasn't been a problem before.

Does anybody have any idea why this could be happening?

Cheers,

Bill

 

[cdogg]

Believe it or not, I have seen more problems than I'm able to figure out when the Alcohol software is involved. In fact, I've created a separate partition and Windows install solely for the purpose of using unreliable apps like that.

It doesn't make sense that it works for DVD+R, but not for DVD-R. But I am willing to bet that if you were to load a clean install of Windows on a spare drive without installing Alcohol, it would have a good chance of going away...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[bioboy]

Thanks for the reply. I've never had a problem with Alcohol in the 3 or 4 years I've been using it tbh, and I'm still at a loss to see how the other burning apps don't work on images either if you use DVD-R, but they'll copy discs using DVD-R.

I wonder whether it's worth uninstalling and re-installing all my burning apps? Oh, I did install DVDXCopy Platinum recently (for ripping DVDs), but haven't used it yet. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Bill

 

[cdogg]

I wonder whether it's worth uninstalling and re-installing all my burning apps?

No, it's not worth going through all that trouble.

The easiest solution, like I mentioned earlier, is to use a "spare" hard drive. If you don't have one, you can find them dirt cheap these days on eBay or maybe even in your local mom&pop shop. Do a clean install of Windows (with your old drive disconnected so you don't accidently corrupt it) and test the burn in that environment instead.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[bioboy]

Didn't know how to do what you suggested, so uninstalled and reinstalled Nero and Alcohol. At first I thought I was in business , burning a downloaded image seemed to be working with DVD-R, but at 45.9% it failed (cyclic reading error or something like that). Tried DVD+R and exactly the same thing.

I then created an alcohol image of a DVD I have and burned that on DVD-R no problem! So it's only downloaded images I can't burn. Maybe just a coincidence that a couple of images have been dodgy? The thing is if I mount them and play them on the pc they look okay. Very confused!!

Anymore ideas anybody?

Bill

 

[cdogg]

Bill,
I understand this can be frustrating. Keep in mind though, that a problem like the one you're having is unusual. You have to determine whether or not the problem is within Windows, or if it's a problem with the drive itself. Uninstalling/reinstalling applications isn't enough if the Windows registry is at fault.

I'm not sure what is confusing about my suggestion which calls for only two things. One, that you have a spare hard drive. Two, that you install Windows from scratch onto the spare.

Perhaps you want to continue to fish for other things to try, but you could end up wasting weeks or even months. A reinstall of Windows takes less than 2 hours after applying all the updates.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[firewolfrl]

fix problem....there is really no price difference any more between using a DVD+R or a DVD-R

so stick with what works and buy players that play that format....I have one that plays both.


so in a nutshell
1) use DVD+R disks
2) clean the laser on the DVD burner....I pull the drive apart and use eye glass cleaner cloth and a corner dipped in cleaner to clean the laser eye and I also clean the track bars for the laser
3) buy a new drive...their cheap

or follow Cdogg's excellent post that will follow this one when he sees it on cleaning an optical drive. he has very good suggestions.....LOL

 

[cdogg]

4)  Spray out the inside of the drive using a can of compressed air
5)  Load Windows on a spare drive (as discussed) to see if it is a hardware problem

There firewolf, how's that?


~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[firewolfrl]

Looks great Cdogg....have a happy new year