What's the prognosis...

[neomaine]

OK...I've had my Creative 8/4/32 drive now for about 18 months and burned over 400 cds with it. The problem is that I'm starting to get a few coasters coming out, almost 1 out of 3....and it seems to be getting worse.

My question to everyone, given the following error messages:

- 'No Seek Complete. Could not perform end of Disc At Once.'
and then
-'Invalid Writestate. Could not perform end of Disc At Once.'

is, do you think this is media related or the drive crapping out? I'm in the middle of a batch of a 100 spindle Memorex that seems to be good otherwise. It seems to happen regardless of the size of the movie so I tend to think its not the media. I really don't want it to be the drive though, its been so good to me....

So, am I just not excepting the inevitable, or, is there something I can do or check?

[tenders]

i am also having a problem with mine. in my case i think its either software or media related as my drive is not that old.

have you tried different burning software? updated drivers?

[neomaine]

Not yet. But I just went from WinME to Win2k Pro about 2 months ago and am about 40 discs into a the first stack of a double 100 spindle of Memorex cds and everything was working fine up until this weekend. So, I'm leaning against any software or media issues. At about 5 cents a CD I'm not too worried about the media.

The problem happens at the end of virtually all the coasters when its trying to write the 'lead out'. Why it can write the whole video and not the lead out has me stumped. The more and more I think about it, the more and more I'm thinking its the drive. Still tough to accept though...

Guess I don't want to have to make the choice of whether to go CDRW or DVDR on my next drive. Figuring on 5 cents a disc x 2 plus the cost of a drive ($50) for 100 movies, on the one hand you can make a VCD for about @60 cents a movie. Not to mention the experience to getting them to the point they are looking very acceptable.

On the other hand I could go with a $250 DVDR drive and media for about $1 apiece (from what I've seen mentioned here...) and get DVD quality movies on DVDR for about $3.50 a movie. But, that would seriously hamper my funds to get a Panasonic Q.

Hopefully Santa is listening and he'll put a DVD+/-RW drive in my stocking this year as I've been a very very good boy. I'll have to have the tooth fairy put in a good word...

[kitty]

Prognosis - retarded patient from brain dead company. If heart stops, RIP & buy a unit from a more reliable company.

Doctor - me? What do you expect from a Kat?