Plextor 712A weird behavior -- will it burn playable DVDRs?

[bek]

I installed it to replace an old Sony DRU-500ax that finally died. It was giving me Buffer Underrun errors when used with RecordNow DX 4.5. When it did burn a good disk, the DVDR would still not play in my settop player (it played fine in my PC and the VIDEO_TS folder seemed fine).

After a lot of troubleshooting, I ended up reinstalling Windows XP (SP2). The very first thing I did was install RecordNow and burn a DVDR and see if it would play in my DVD player. No go. Just as before, I get what appears to be a good data disk, but it won't play in my settop player.

I've tried this with different media and settop players. One interesting thing to note is that when I try to play the disk in my Panasonic S35, it usually won't play at all, but sometimes it will play a few seconds starting around the 21-minute mark! My Cyberhome CH-300 plays it from the beginning, but just for a few seconds.

At this point, I am at a loss....

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

[bek]

Oh, I should add that the VIDEO_TS folders are DVD-compliant and never gave me trouble with my old Sony burner.

[harley2ride]

What is the brand/speed/media code of the dvd's you are burning to.

[bek]

Thanks for the response, Rob. I found the problem last night--I can't believe it. The burner was my primary device and a hard drive was my secondary device. When I removed the hard drive from the cable, my burner started working like a charm. That really stinks, because I had 3 hard drives in my PC, and that means I have to lose one. I may try to research the issue and find out why it won't work--maybe there's even some sort of solution out there.

[harley2ride]

You have a lot of options. You can use a PCI card to add more HD's, you can get an external enclosure, and put a HD in that (firewire or USB).

[bek]

I've already got an external HD and an another external burner via USB. I hadn't thought of the PCI card--maybe I will go that route.

It's a huge relief to have it working. I author DVDs for others (birthdays, weddings, etc), and have a backlog of work I've been paid for but so far, been unable to deliver. People have been pretty patient with me so far, but I am glad not to have to push my luck any farther.

[harley2ride]

You can also do multiple external enclosures, as long as you have the USB or Firewire slots available.