Laptop DVD Burner suddenly only burns small portion of DVD

[hydrurga]

Hi guys,

I've come across a small problem. I have a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li1718 laptop with a built-in Optiarc DVD RW AD-7540A ATA writer, running Vista Home Premium. A week ago I was writing data DVDs with no problem using Nero Burning ROM 7.10.1.0. However today I tried writing an almost full data DVD with Nero and it appeared to go smoothly, no errors reported, taking the time it would to write a full data DVD, although there was a strange bit at the end where it had appeared to have finished according to the software but carried on writing for a very short while. The resulting DVD showed that data had only been written on say a quarter of the DVD. The disk was pretty much unusable although some of the data was there. Subsequent re-tries with Nero and CDBurnerXP have had similarly weird results, with one showing that the DVD had been written to about 80% but with an inner circle of another shade, as if the inner circle had been written to twice. When using CDBurnerXP, the burner spent a good five minutes doing some sort of burning after the burn had ostensibly finished.

Should I have my drive exorcised, could this be a DVD media problem, or are the Vista DVD burning drivers screwed?

Any advice would be welcome.

[aedipuss]

most likely a bum dvdr blank that the software tried to "repair" using burn-free or whatever bad sector recovery the drive uses. toss it and try to only use superior media like verbatim or t.y.

[hydrurga]

Thanks aedipuss. The DVDs that I've been trying were all from a 25 spool of Philips DVD-R that I bought yesterday - should I avoid this brand in future? I'll try another brand of DVD tomorrow and post the results. I sincerely do hope that it is a media problem.

I should have added in my original post that my drive is still capable of reading CDs and DVDs (or at least, as far as I can tell). Also that the only significant thing I have done since my last successful burn is install and uninstall various video conversion tools in my search for the one I like.

[hydrurga]

Just a quick update - I tried another brand of DVD-R this morning (no idea of the brand - it was on a friend's spindle) and the burn worked ok. It's quite incredible that a whole spindle of Philips DVD-Rs should be dicky but I ought to be glad that my burner's working ok. I'll give one of the Philips DVDs a go in someone else's machine to see if it is a burner/media combination that is causing the problem. It will also be interesting to see if the shop will take back a semi-used spindle of DVDs - is this a common problem, I wonder?

[noki]

All Philips DVDRs...bad stuff in my experience. go with Verbatim. $19.99 after rebate, no tax, free 3-day shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc..._-NA-_-NA-_-NA

[hydrurga]

Thanks Noki. I've also noticed elsewhere on this forum that Verbatim (and TY) get a lot of support from posters. So, Verbatim it will be. This guy has learned his lesson, a cheap one at only £10 lost on a spindle of defective Philips DVDs that turned out to be useful only as coffee cup coasters and bird scarers.

[oldandinthe way]

Optiarc DVD-writers do not yield good results on many brands of media. You can blame the media or blame the drive but you are liekly to get your best results with TY or Verbatim, or any old stock low speed Made in Japan Disks.

[hydrurga]

Thanks oldandinthe way - I actually tried one of the dodgy Philips DVDs on another laptop (with as it happened a Philips burner) this morning and it produced an error. Not conclusive evidence, and I see what you say about Optiarc DVD writers, but TY or Verbatim is certainly the way I'm going to go - just wish I had known before.

[lordsmurf]

There's nothing wrong with Optiarc drives.

[Erniemac]

My External USB DVD writer is a Sony DRX-S70U, which uses a Optiarc RW AD-7540 A. As Sony DVD blanks are really cheap in Australia, I use them exclusively in both the Mac internal and USB burners without any problems. I can burn up to 50 DVDs a week of video takes of the athletes I train.

Hope helps,
Ernie Lee