Problems with Pioneer A03 and cheap DVD-RW media

[the_dRD]

Just got my Pioneer A03 and I'm already having troubles with it. I've managed to burn nice bunch of CDRs so far successfully and finally got first blank DVD-RWs yesterday (DVD-Rs were sold out).

Ok, I put the disc in and opened Primo Prassi in order to erase the disc for first time. Boom. Putting the disc in, it took 7 minutes until the Prassi/drive recognized the disc. Then I clicked on erasing and thing started erasing the disc ok, but after 2 mins, I received an error:

Data Disc Terminated with errors.

Error -10 at Sector 624 - Disc Write Error - Command: 2A Sense:03 ASC:0C ASCQ:00

...ok, I didn't quit -- ordered 10 of those discs, so I had plenty of more to play with. Went to Pioneer's Australian website (oddly enough, only Pioneer site offering enough info about their A03) and found out that sometimes W2k has issues with DMA. Ok, I went and switched Secondary IDE to use PIO and rebooted. Now, new try -- this time with Nero.

Selected "erase rewritable". Once again, it took over 5mins to recognize the disc. Then it started erasing the disc, but it took only 5mins or so (first erase should take like 1h, right?). Yep, after the erase, disc back in and trying again. Boom. Media not recognized.

Ok, go to sleep, wait the next day. Plan: maybe the discs are preformatted. Ok, open Primo again and stick yet another disc in. Took 9mins. Now it says, its ReWritable DVD with 4GB+ free space. Nice, let's burn good' ole' data DVD just to make sure it works. Selected data DVD and dropped appx. 3GB of files and hit the red circular recording thingy. Took 4mins, saying "Initializing disc..." yellow lights were on on the drive and everything was going smoothly. After 2mins, exact same error as listed above.

Reads DVD ok, read CDs ok, burns CDs ok. Just pretty damn expensive CDRW drive. Oh, I have 1.80 firmware (RPC-1 patched) on the drive and Windows 2000 Pro as an OS.

[Faustus]

There error you got has a specific fix, but I cannot find the document at this moment. I'll try to find it later, it involves making some device manager changes on your ide controller settings.

[ranmas]

I'm having a simular problem. I'm using a memorex rw disk and with primo dvd I get about 30 percent of the way done and get this error
error 10 sector 779520 command 2A Sense: 04 ASC: 08 ASCQ: 01

When I tried burnning with Nero it reported a communications failure fairly early in the burning process

I havn't tried any cd-r's yet but I have been able to burn small amounts onto dvd. I've gotten away with 100-800 megs on dvd-rw without a problem. A full dvd is out of the question though. I've only wasted on dvd-r. A peice of cheap media from esbuy, it came with the drive and was pretty scratched up.

[PhilipL]

Withdrawn

[pacoreguenga]

Hi there!

I hope this is not considered a warez-like post.

Guess you downloaded your RPC patched 1.80 firmware from >NIL´s page, did you?

If the cure that has been mentioned doesn´t work, check this out:

- In device Manager open the properties for your dvdr drive. If it shows a series of zeroes in place of the drive info, your firmware flashing wasn´t really succesfull.

As this happened to me, I´ll tell you what I did.

First, I had to search for the original firmware files. They were on a Japanese server, BTW.

Then I uncompressed every file to a new folder in my hardrive´s root.

I did the same from the floppy disk created for the upgrade. I extracted the .cab´s files to the same folder mentioned before...

... and applied them manually with the dvdr103 flash tool (the dos version actually contained in the 1.80 upgrade package)) like this:

dvdr103.exe /k r310001.140 r3100101.140

After clickin enter, it asks you to select from a list of drives connected to your computer, and you select Pioneer DVDR103.

After patching, the drive resets itself, and you are ready to apply (with the same tool) the new patch.

dvdr103.exe /k r310001.180 r3100101.180

After patching, the drive resets itself, and you are ready to reboot.

If you came across all of this before and you actually succeeded on patching your drive, CONGRATULATIONS! I couldn´t use the original procedure because my setup (and that of every DVDR equipped Compaq) differs from the one suggested by >NIL.

If not, use this mini guide and everything will be alright.

[ranmas]

I had the problem fixed the next day. The problem was with the Transfer mode that IDE was using. It was using a DMA mode and my computer wasn't liking it. I switched it to PIO and everything works fine now.

[Elisa L.]

In case anyone else with this error does a search and finds this thread (as I did), I thought I'd let you know what fixed my problem with my Pioneer A-03 burner.

This error code is a "Power Calibration Error" and could be the result of a failing laser, cheap media, etc. What it turned out to be in my case was dust on the lens.

I really doubted that this was the problem, since I could burn CDs without a problem- I only got the error when I burned DVDs. I don't know why.

I came across this post by "Lord Smurf" when I searched "Power Calibration Error":

This appeared at firmware-flash.com:

A "Power Calibration Error" is usually associated with a failing laser and starts first to occur at 2x speed. Power supplies have also been known to give this problem.

However, it may be simply just be an accumulation of dust or haze on the laser lens and it may just require cleaning which is quite a simple process. Take out your DVD-R writer.

These instructions are for the Pioneer DVR-A03/103 DVD-R burners. However, it should work just fine on other writers.

1. Unscrew 4 screws on both sides of writer, not the funny looking middle ones !
2. Take of the front mask and the top cover
3. unscrew 4 screw on top of the inside cover.
4. take of the inside cover.
5. Apply a small amount of Isopropyl Alcohol to a cotton bud.
6. Clean the laser lens GENTLY with the wet cotton bud.
7. Dry the lens GENTLY with a dry cotton bud
8. Reassemble the drive in the reverse order
9. BURN some MEDIA at 2X

Isopropyl Alcohol is a surgical spirit and is used as a cleaning fluid in the tv and electronics industry it is commonly used in tape head and VHS tape cleaning kits. It is commonly referred to a "rubbing alcohol" and can be bought for mere pennies at your local pharmacy.

Tryt to use a Q-TIP brand cotton bud. Others tend to be more coarse and can scratch your laser eye. The Q-TIP ones also tend to not be furry or leave cotton strings.


WORKED FOR ME!!