Sony DRU-500AX Will Not Burn +R

[crdesignprod]

I'm having a very odd problem with my Sony DRU-500AX not burning +R discs. I purchased this burner last March (2003), and have had excellent results with it. I have probably burned over 200 +R discs and 50 -R discs over this period.

The problem first occurred last month when I went to make a backup. It refused to burn onto a TDK 4x +R disc. I have burned over 80 of the exact same discs. Only producing coasters from errors I made. I use RecordNow Max for burning and kept recieving a COMMAND SENCE error on every disk I tried. I tried TDK, Memorex, and Maxell. None of them would burn.

I then decided to try other formats with the following results...
-R discs, no errors.
-RW discs, no errors.
+RW discs, no errors.
+R discs, errors everytime.

After trying 3 other programs to burn +R discs (Nero, DVD Decrypter, and Diskjuggler) I tried Sony's drivecheck program. Same results with all formats. I then started looking at my drive settings even though nothing had changed in over 6 months to my hardware configuration.

I decided after much frustration to on a whim try changing the drive from DMA to PIO mode. And immediately I was able to burn +R discs again.

Now all was good untill last week (2 months of successful +R burning, nearly 20 discs). Then again, out of nowhere the drive has now decided to not burn +R discs anymore. Unfortunately now though changing it back to DMA did not correct the problem.

The firmware is version 2.0c and I'm a little hesitant to upgrade the firmware because this is the second DRU-500A I have owned. The first one I bought I upgraded the firmware after 2 weeks of owning it and it stopped working right after the firmware update. I ended up taking it back to Best Buy because of the problem. So I'm not real crazy about the idea of updating the firmware since I will not be able to return the drive if something fails now. And I find it a little bit hard to believe the firmware update would help since it has worked flawlessly until about 2 months ago.

So here are a few questions for everyone....

1) Has anyone else experienced a single format ceasing to burn?
2) Are there seperate lasers for each format that would justify this problem?
3) Does anyone have any other ideas for troubleshooting this?

I am completely stumped at this point. Especially since I can burn +RW but not +R which really has me all confused as to how that is possible.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[crdesignprod]

Update for anyone interested...

I tried Sony's tech support. I ended up with the normal support suggestions (update everything on your system and the firmware for the drive then call us back).

But I did find out one answer. The drive only has one laser (which I suspected). So the fact that it is only not writing one format has me even more baffled.

[Popee]

WRONG about the one laser. I know, because I had a 500AX that would read and burn CD's, but not DVD's. After conferring with tech support, they agreed that one laser was burned out (also found the same problem in another thread).

I have since returned the unit under warranty and received it back with a firmware upgrade to 2.0H and everything is working fine again.

I wish I had an answer for your particular problem, but I am sorry that I can't help you there.

[crdesignprod]

Thanks for the insight. I guess I should have taken the "tech support" persons claim of one laser with a grain of salt. But I wonder if he meant one laser for DVD burning.

That would make sense to me to have a laser for DVD reading/writing and one for CD reading/writing.

I'm guessing I must be the only person who has ever experienced this type of problem. I knew I should have bought a lottery ticket the other day my odds of winning must have gone up since I'm one in a million to have this experience.

Anyway, I'm planning on rebuilding my system in the next week or so and update eveything (software) and do the normal Windows housecleaning that must be done on occasion. So I'm hoping the problem will then go away since I see a lot of people here have reported errogenous errors with thier DRU500's that dissapeared when they moved the drive to a new system, etc.

I guess I'll just have to cross my fingers.

Out of curiousity how long was the turn around on sending the unit back to Sony? I think I have about a month left on my warranty, but I am really not thrilled with sending the unit back if it means months of waiting.

[spiderman2k1]

I had two DRU500AX both had problem's sony make's junk I have a Pioneer and LG no problem's

[Popee]

The unit was at Sony for about 10 days. I then called to inquire about return and they said it was tied up for parts. I was asked how long I would have to wait for parts, and the very nice lady on the other end told me to hold for a moment. When she came back, she said that they would send out a replacement unit right away.

I guess I was just lucky to get the right person on the phone. Although, I am sure it did not hurt for me to be pleasant instead of having an attitude.

[mob]

i have this drive too, i am having other problems with it, but not the one you have.

I have burned about 90 Verbatim DVD+R discs and had no coasters.

Only problem i have is that this drive wont burn any dvd past 2X...

And i cant burn a regular CDR past 4X

this drive sucks!

[crdesignprod]

Yeah I have noticed the drive is very picky about what will actually burn at 4x. My TDK disks will start off saying 14min 56secs in Record Now but will change to 30min after about 4 minutes of burning. I know I have had it burn at 4x several times but I don't remember what media it was.

I'm not as concerned about the speed as most I guess. It's nice to have a full disc in 15 minutes but I usually just set it to burn and then forget about it for about an hour anyhow (I have a computer just for burning).

I have yet to ever burn a CD with the DRU500AX though. I have a nice TDK 40x burner that I've had for well over 2 years now that works so well I can't bring myself to not use it.

I do agree that in the future I probably will not buy another optical drive of any sorts from Sony. The only reason I bought this one was at the time it was the only dual format burner on the market. Of course if I had waited about 2 more months I could have chose from atleast 4 different companies making dual format burners.

My next DVD burner will most likely be a Lite-On. I have 2 other Lite-On drives and I love them. They're cheap and they work great from my experience.

Popee, I agree also a sweet tone when dealing with business problems will get you much further with a good company. Of course though at times it is still necessary to just climb the chain of command until you reach the person who doesn't have the time to deal with you and will grant your requests. Unless of course it is MacMall, they'll never get another dollar from me ever again (doesn't hurt that I went from Macs to Windoze though either, lol).

Oh well I should be trying to solve the problem later this next week and hopefully will have something to report back.

[spiderman2k1]

"crdesignprod" I have heard bad report's about liteon DVD burner's. LG are very good I got one I now have a Panasonic DVD recorder and have found out that DVD-RAM is one of the best format ever made. DVD-RAM works just like a hard drive. So i download all my software on DVD-RAM I had a really bad hard drive crash one time and lost about 110gig's most of it video file's I I record from satellite dish but I lost all my software. Once you start using DVD-RAM you will always' use it. I also like Pioneer I have a AO4 love it no problem's. My LG is 4081 no problem's.

[crdesignprod]

I know it's been awhile but I thought I should post the solution I found. I used a $10 CD cleaner disk (the kind with the small brushes on the disk) and my burner works fine again.

Used the cleaner once and have successfully been burning disks for the last month no problem. I guess it was just too simple of a solution

[RottenFoxBreath]

Sony dont make dvd writers.
so its a generic third party piece of shit.
stick with LG -for RAM extras,and pioneer106/107 etc for compatibility