Optorite DD0203 burning problems

[aaardvark]

About a month ago I bought an Optorite DD0203 DVD writer, I tried it with various different media and got through about a dozen DVD'd without a single successful burn. It made DVD+/-RW's unuseable made coasters of every DVD+R and DVD-R I tried burning with it.

I have tried using Nero6, CopyToDVD as well as the B's burning software supplied with the drive and had no success. I even tried putting the drive in my daughter's system, and the results were the same. So, after consultation with Optorite I returned the drive for a replacement.

Today the replacement turned up, and I am getting exactly the same problems. The chances of having 2 drives with exactly the same fault I would have thought would be very rare and unlucky, so can anybody advise what I might be doing wrong?

Any help would be much appreciated as I am getting very frustrated and running out of blank DVDs to trash, and my cats want to come out of hiding from DVD dodging.

Thanks

Trev

[indolikaa]

Trev,

I have two Optorite DD0203 drives and have had almost no problems with them. The only initial problem I had was recording in HD-Burn mode, and that has been solved.

Can you provide a more specific example of the process you use to burn a disc?

.indolikaa.

[aaardvark]

I have tried no end of methods to burn a disc, I have used Clone DVD to try to burn a DVD rip, I have made an Iso using DVDshrink 2.3 to compress a DVD and then burning it with CloneToDVD.
My last attempt was using CloneToDVD to burn a DVDshrink image to a DVD+RW it went through the motions of burning fine, but when it got to finalising the DVD it just kept going and going, the progress bar would reach the end and then jump back to about half way and continue from there, after about 10 minutes I stopped it. I now have yet another DVD+RW that I can't do a think with, if I put it back in the drive now I get the busy light flashing and lots of HD activity, but the disc is not being opened.

Even just burning a small collection of files to a DVD+RW using nero6 caused exactly the same problem, the only way to stop the busy light from flashing durin finalising is to turn off the computer and eject the DVD on boot-up.

As I said, this is the second drive that I have had this problem with, so the problem must be with my system rather than the drive.

I might try rebuilding the system later with fresh IDE cables or maybe swao which ide port I have the drive connected to, but I am getting very, very frustrated now, and, although I could probably get a refund for the optorite drive, what is to say I won't have problems with another DVD writer.

By the way, my CD writer is working fine when connected to the same IDE cable, and I have removed the CD writer from the system to try to stop any clashes that might be happening.

Cheers

Trev

[aaardvark]

Jus tried burning a CD-R in the drive, and that worked fine, so it only seems to be DVD's that are causing problems.

The media I have tried are Packard Bell DVD+RW, Packard Bell DVD+R, Memorex DVD-RW, That's DVD+R (supplied with drive)

Is it possible that all these media brands (including the one that came with the drive) are no good for this drive. If so could somebody suggest some media that I could try in this drive that will work?

Thanks again

Trev

[indolikaa]

Well the Memorex DVD-R disc won't burn well. I've tried them, and others have said they have problems with this disc in other burners as well. This disc is apparently pure garbage.

I've never heard of Packard Bell discs. Given Packard Bell's reputation, you might want to run DVDInfo and see who actually makes them. I would bet they're also garbage; I can't see a company with Packard Bell's history using anything but the absolute cheapest media they could get their hands on, but I could be wrong.

The That's DVD+R that came with my drive worked perfectly.

Here's a short list of other media I've used with complete success...

Memorex DVD+R and DVD+RW
Maxell DVD-R and DVD-RW
Sony DVD-R and DVD-RW
Verbatim DataLifePlus (all formats)

.indolikaa.

[MOVIEGEEK]

@aaardvark,
Try these tricks:
1.Set drive as Master on second channel and make sure DMA is enabled.
2.Make sure you have the latest chipset(ie Intel,VIA,SiS)drivers installed.
3.D/l latest firmware at www.optorite.com
4.Try other brands of media

[indolikaa]

MOVIEGEEK beat me to the punch.

Optorite just posted firmware revision 2.17. This is supposed to be a significant firmware update...

[djjangelo]

MOVIEGEEK beat me to the punch.

Optorite just posted firmware revision 2.17. This is supposed to be a significant firmware update...

What do you mean significant?

[albertr]

Don't flash DD0203 with that 2.17 firmware! It's BAD. Quite a few got burned when flashing stopped half-way and now our DD0203's are dead, not recognized by PC's BIOS. Beware! See this thread for more details:

http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?p=71321#71321

-albertr

[BlizZ]

That's interesting. I really hope that this firmware thing gets straightened out... I got the drive a couple of days ago and it came with firmware 2.09 onboard. I updated to 2.17 without a hitch (knock on wood) and it's been working pretty good so far (but my PC's other cd-rom drive won't recognize the DVD's I burn - but everything else does, including a different PC cd-rom drive.)

But back to the issue of the firmware itself, if there ends up being a problem with this firmware or there is another firmware posted, will I be able to flash from 2.17 to something else or am I pretty much stuck with this firmware?

[albertr]

You should be able to re-flash to the other firmware just fine. It's just 2.17 that made quite a few bricks out of DD0203s. You are lucky that yours is not. Good for you.
-albertr

[indolikaa]

I flashed both my drives with 2.17 and there has been an improvement in drive performance with DVD+RWs. All other functions appear normal, so I guess I got lucky that the flashes made it through to the end.

And who says WindowsME is such a bad thing?!

[RabidDog]

but my PC's other cd-rom drive won't recognize the DVD's I burn

you see the problem? Mr Blizz

[BlizZ]

but my PC's other cd-rom drive won't recognize the DVD's I burn

you see the problem? Mr Blizz

The drive in question is a SM348B, a 16x DVD + 48x CDRW drive. That is the one that couldn't read the DVD's. Sorry for any confusion, I just said CD-Rom and not DVD-Rom/CDRW out of habit. 8)

[aaardvark]

Well, this post went slightly off topic, but no worries, I have finaly resolved my problems and am successfully burning DVD's

The problem was purely due to the media I was using. I was recomended to utry some Datawrite media by a friend and it works perfectly, and at 96 pence per disc I am more than happy to keep using those.

Thanks to everybody that posted to try to help me out, it was very helpful and really appreciated.

Best wishes to you all

Trev

[mrhata]

I've had no problems with any media I 've used.
From a cheap spool of no name(literally no labels bought from PCClub) to Memorex, Apple, GC(Great Quality from Fry's). I've made no coasters. And no firmware added either.