DVD A-104 A Waste of Money

[Eyenovation]

I have nothing but problems with Pinoeers DVD A-104. I always encounter the same f*king error and have wasted too much money on DVD coasters. It is always:

Error - 10 Sector xxx? - Command 2A Sense: 04 ASC:08 ASCQ:01

Which is a basically a timeout error.
I am about ready to throw this thing out the window.
What a pile of garbage.

[marvel2020]

Sorry to hear you having problems m8 with your Pioneer.

I'm using the OEM verison of the same drive, Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-104
and so far i have not had one single problem with it, and that include's upgrading the Firmware to the Latest 1.32 from the Pioneer site.

Just a thought, you didn't by any chance upgrade you firmware with that
bogus firmware 1.31 that was floating around. ?

[Eyenovation]

No, I didn't -
Where can I grab the latest firmware version?
Is this on the Pioneer website?

[FooManChu]

Good luck with that Pioneer A04....I sent mine back after having the exact same problems you are having and have now ordered a Sony DRU500A....Hopefully the SONY won't give me half the problems that piece of shit DVR-104 did! IMHO I would send that piece of shit you have back as well!

[jim]

I have a drv 104 and hane already backed up over 35 dvd.I have had no problems with it .I am using the current firmware.

[Rickyblaze]

I have had no problems with mine and have found it to be a solid cd and dvd recorder ,but I guess there are such things as lemons . I guess you have tried the dma settings on and off as well as different recording programs? By the way what are you using to record?

Good luck,Rick

[a_wax]

Care to sell it?

[jinx1591]

I have nothing but problems with Pinoeers DVD A-104. I always encounter the same f*king error and have wasted too much money on DVD coasters. It is always:

Error - 10 Sector xxx? - Command 2A Sense: 04 ASC:08 ASCQ:01

Which is a basically a timeout error.
I am about ready to throw this thing out the window.
What a pile of garbage.

With the dvd A-04 from pinoeers if u look where u bought it from u will see it said ugrade firmware. I have been seeing this on most site that sell this A-104 with no logo on the front

[P@iNKilleR]

I've honestly backed up over 60 dvd's but not without failure, I've never had the error U describe but a completely diferent one!!! The disk writes perfectly but it just wont play in a standard dvd player & the data is corrupted but the disk has written!!! dodgy eh! I've used loads of progs to rip dvd's eg dvddecryptor, Nero & Vob & can honestly say I think it all comes down to media for me! but why should I pay for expensive media if its gonna screw up.

[sue denim]

Hi Eye!
I had to send my first 104 back because the DVD laser burnt out
And I've heard of many people having problems with certain batches of drives ....... my second 104 is working perfectly however.

I know you've probably tried lot's of methods to get your drive to work, but could you give us some details of your setup ...... you never know, we may be able to help

For example:
What OS you using?
Is the 104 the only device on the IDE buss?
Is the IDE buss in DMA or PIO mode? (check your BIOS, don't trust Windows!)
Have you got the latest firmware installed?
(go here for firmware: http://www.pioneer-eur.com/eur/download.jsp?dir=/files/support/dvrup&filename=R4ta133....hod=attachment )
Do you get this error only when burning?
What burning software and which version?

Hope to help you soon ....... Sue D. xxx

[Faustus]

My DVRA04 is the most effeciant use of money I've ever spent... Sorry you had a bad time with yours... likely it sounds like the PIO/DMA thingy again. Did you ever check you settings in device manager?

[Anonymous65]

I had the same timeout SCSI error messages running the drive under WinMe. There was NO way to make it work using normal installation procedures.

My accident, I discovered a fix. When booting the PC, leave a blank DVD-R in the drive. It might take several minutes to boot, but eventually the PC will boot and see the drive as a writable drive, and you can actually burn DVD-R with the drive. It also works if you reinstall the OS or IDE drivers, leave a blank DVD-R disk in the drive when instaling the OS or IDE drivers. It worked for me.

[Vizcaya]

I had a A03 and the laser burned out. But this was after burning over 100 DVD's. Pioneer replaced the unit with a A04 drive, and I am happy. No problems at all. I was impressed on how Pioneer handled my warrany replacment issue.

Vizcaya

If you all are having problems playing DVD's in your standalone player, then you should use better media, and burn at 1X speed.

my 2 cents

[mark328]

I have a 104 and burned over 1000 DVDs I must have got a good one

[SingSing]

I have a 104 and burned over 1000 DVDs I must have got a good one

Are you distributing ?

[solarfox]

skittlesen -- Windows ME is known to have "issues"... (among those of us in IT, it's commonly known as "Messed-up Edition", among other considerably less complimentary names ) You would be much better off either shifting back to Windows 98SE, or biting the bullet and moving to Windows XP. WinME has a lot of strange errors lurking below the surface, especially when it comes to "non-standard" hardware.

There's a reason why you can still find dozens of copies of Win98SE on the shelf for sale, but hardly any copies of WinME.

As for the Pioneer 104/A04 debate -- all I can say is that I've owned mine for about five months, have burned over 40 discs of various brands in it, and not had a problem yet... (other than the fact that my Philips 711 DVD player didn't like them, but that's the Philips' problem. )

[BodyMaker]

Ive had my A04 for a couple of months now and made several disks with no issues and i'm using Region Free firmware RCE1 version 1.33.

Unless you have a faulty drive i would look elsewhere for the problem

Like Solarfox says ME is Shite at the best of times

[eatin sammiches for lunch]

sorry bout your pioneer.......my pioneer 104 has given me NO problems ... i have copied probably more than 50 backups and authored more than 30 dvds with various videos