Amazing Stories

[Muppet Meat]

I have 2 Writers that recently started burning coasters of DVD-R and CD-R. One is a Plextor CD-RW and a Pioneer DVD-RW.
I burned at least 7 coasters already trying to find the issue.
I re-installed Windows XP, Tried DVD Decrypter, Nero, Record Now, and EncoreDVD and all burn coasters, Moved the files I burn to a different hardrive, installed adaptec aspi, updated firmwares on both drives, tried a lens cleaner CD, tried burning data CD-R and tried burning both VIDEO_TS on to DVD-R and tried burning data files on to DVD-R.
Could my new BIOS update have caused these problems or could it be something else like a faulty power supply unit ? Why would I have problems with 2 different drives on 4 different types of burning software?

[ViRaL1]

Ypu might want to double-check all your DMA settings in BIOS since you upgraded it.

[Muppet Meat]

Primary IDE channel was always set to DMA I have 2 WD hardrives on it.
SecondaryIDE channel was always set to DMA I have a Plextor CD-RW and a Pioneer DVD-RW on it.

This info was obtained from the device manager

[ThreeFatTigers]

Are you saying the problem coincided with a motherboard bios update? If so you could try reverting back to the last bios version. Make sure the bios is set to auto detect the drives, and replace the IDE ribbon cable, I've seen them go bad and cause many strange symptoms. It's also possible you may have a fault in the IDE controller chip, you might also try moving the HDs to the secondary and put the CDs on the primary..

[jimmalenko]

Thinking out loud...

A mobo bios update could conceivably result in the issues you are experiencing. If there is no combo of softwares that will work then you have to look at hardware.

First cab off the rank is the drive itself. As you have mentioned, a lens clean would normally do the trick. The next logical point would be the firmware of the drives. It is quite possible that the firmwares have become corrupted, although two drives at roughly the same time is possibly a bit too coincidental.

Then we move to mobo. I would think it is unlikely that a mobo bios update would cause two burners to burn coasters but everything else is peachy.

It is a much easier test to transport one or both of your burners into a friend's PC, and see if the same thing happens. Its certainly a more foolproof way of blaming/ruling out the drives themselves as the culprits.

[proxyx99]

How about rolling back to your older BIOS ver. plus reinstalling required mobo drivers?
Your ASPI could be causing that as well (just like bus mastering). Try NERO ASPI... if you want to use Adaptec then ver. 4.61 if I recall correctly would be a safer choice...but I also second the last post to test the drive in another machine as well.