No "erasure" protection for LITEON LVW-5006 ?

[ttony_at]

Hello,

I've been using the LITEON LVW-5006.
I finally made the switch from VHS tape to DVD two years ago and what a
difference it makes to be able to access programs immediately without the
need to fast forward or rewind. Plus there's no tape to ware out. But
once in a while it has problems recording. And the problems that occur are a
major headache. Here's just one example:

I had a FUJI FILM DVD+RW disc that had been half filled up with TV programs
recorded with the same LITE-ON LVW-5006 DVD Recorder. Yesterday I tried
adding another program to the disc, something I've done several times to
other discs with no problem. For this disc it would be the 8th time. There was
plenty of room left to insert a 30 minute program at EP quality. After
recording was finished I pushed stop and waited. The word "Stopping"
appeared for a long time and didn't go away like it's suppose to. After ten
minutes, I held the stop button on the player to finally stop it. When I tried
playing back what I had just recorded I couldn't get to the page with the
newest recording. I could only see and play the oldest recordings but not the
newest. So I played the most recent-oldest and fast-forward through it to
get to the end where the new one should have started. It played it one
second and just froze.

I ejected the disc and noticed it was still clean (no dust or scratches) and
then put it back in. After inserting it, the machine informed me that it
was "preparing" the disc. I tried to stop it but it wouldn't let me and the next
thing I knew, the disc became unplayable! It seems everything I had taped
for the past several weeks is gone forever! Now it won't play or record on
the disc saying that it is a "Data Disc" whatever that means and can't play it
or record on it. It ask me to change the disc for another one. Other discs
play and record fine. But now I'm afraid to insert any already-recorded
DVD+RWs for fear that the same thing will occur.

How is it that a disc with several programs that always played perfectly well
on this and other machines, is suddenly erased or made to not play or record
any more? Why aren't there more protections put into these machines

When I made the switch from Beta Max to VHS and now to DVD I thought
the least of my worries would be to accidentally erase a disc, let alone
PREPARE an *already* prepared/recorded disc!
Impossible! I thought. Surely DVD machines would have to be TOLD to
prepare or reformat (what ever you call it) a disc before it does it, right?

All these problems just makes me want to return to using Super-VHS VCR
machines (with excellent picture in my opinion) using Super-VHS tape
cartridges that actually have "recording tabs" you physically remove to prevent
errasing!

[oldandinthe way]

I NEVER use RW media on my LW-5005. Disappearing data is far too common, and my Lite-On burns the cheapest clearance +R or -R media reliably. At about a dime a disk I can record on it, rip it to hard disk, edit and burn a new disk.

[lordsmurf]

Your disc was bad. Simple as that.

It could not write data to the end of the disc, historic trouble area on DVD media, and it destroyed the disc table of contents because it could not update the disc properly. So you lost it all.

PLEASE NOTE! There is a slight chance the older data can be recovered in ISO Buster, if you did not blank the disc with a full format (partial format still would not hurt). You need the PLUS version, for UDF recovery.

The way a quick erase works is it destroys the table of contents, not erase the data. So you basically had a quick format done to your disc. The data is still there, and can be recovered.

The other issue is DVD+RW really do not last long at all. If your discs are 2+ years old, you're well past their life expectancy (according to users, not the manufacturer BS).

Sorry to hear about the loss. At least you know how to avoid in the future.

I would stick to DVD-R, DVD+R or DVD-RW only, when using DVD recorders.

[gsh]

This is a well known problem with the LiteOn 5006 drives - I have just had to return one for repair this week with the same fault. I'd check any other RW discs you have previously used, and also check if the drive will recognise a brand new RW disc correctly now. Mine didn't.
Most likely the data is still there - try ripping the disc in your pc with DVDDecrypter.

[ttony_at]

I NEVER use RW media on my LW-5005. Disappearing data is far too common, and my Lite-On burns the cheapest clearance +R or -R media reliably.

Does this mean problems are less likely to occur with DVD+R and DVD-R dics?

[ttony_at]

I tried another RW disc and was able to add something ok.

But later I tried the RW disc that was included with the unit and played the two half hour
test recordings I had on there with no problem. I tried adding two minutes of recording
to see what would happen and then pushed Stop. I waited almost 5 mintues while the
word "Stopping" flashed on the sceen. But then it wouldn't play the disc at all calling the
disc an "Invalid Disc". And, like the first disc I mentioned in my first post, this disc was
not close to being full.

So now I'm afraid to check or add anything to other RW disc with this machine!

I'll try recording with DVD+R discs from now on and see what happens. I don't know which
would work better DVD+R or DVD-R?

[ttony_at]

PLEASE NOTE! There is a slight chance the older data can be recovered in ISO Buster, if you did not blank the disc with a full format (partial format still would not hurt). You need the PLUS version, for UDF recovery. The way a quick erase works is it destroys the table of contents, not erase the data. So you basically had a quick format done to your disc. The data is still there, and can be recovered.

Too late. But what happen is interesting. I got so fed up with it I activated the "Erase" to start over. The funny thing is that when I recorded something (after errasing it) and played it back in another DVD player, that player told me there was 8 sessions - the same number of sessions there originaly were - and the times for each sessions, but only one was visible on the page. And that one wouldn't play. I had to errase the disc another time for the disc to get rid of those invible 8 sessions and to work normaly again.

The other issue is DVD+RW really do not last long at all. If your discs are 2+ years old, you're well past their life expectancy (according to users, not the manufacturer BS).

Really? this news to me! They're less then a year old. Why don't they last as long?

I would stick to DVD-R, DVD+R or DVD-RW only, when using DVD recorders.