Sony DW-Q520A-11 in a Toshiba Satellite Notebook Won't Write at Full Speed

[cutthroat_jake]

Hi Guys,

I recently installed a Sony Slim Dual Layer 8x DVDRW Model No. DW-Q520A-11 in my Toshiba Satellite Notebook.

It works fine burning DVDs of all formats including Dual Layer discs, but will not write at full speed.

Currently, it will only write a DVD-R at 4x instead of 8x.

It also reduces the max burning speed for other DVD formats.

I know you guys are well "Savvied Up" on this kind of thing, and wondered if you had a solution to my problem?

I would imagine that it would entail some firware tweaking?

Thanks in Advance,

CJ

PS I forgot to mention that I also get "IDE 1 Error" message on rebooting my notebook. It seems that the Toshiba BIOS does not recoginse the drive.

[yoda313]

Well certainly using the latest firmware will help.

One thing I noticed when I upgraded to a pioneer 111 recently is that some older burning apps won't burn at higher speeds. You need to have a more recent burning app to go up as high as 16x.

So upgrading your firmware and your burning software is a good place to start.

[cutthroat_jake]

Thanks yoda,

I can't seem to find ANY information on firmware on this particular DVD writer. Maybe it's too new?

CJ

[yoda313]

An 8x burner is not new. Though maybe thats the highest internal laptops go these days??? I don't know I only burn on my desktop.

[cutthroat_jake]

Got is sorted now guys.

Used XSF to flash the dead drive with firmware from a new drive.

I would appreciate some advice too. I want to patch the firmware so that I don’t get “IDE#1 Error” on my Toshiba notebook every time I boot up. What app should I be looking at to do this?

Thanks for your help up to now.

CJ

[LinhVKW]

Hello, the IDE message at boot time let me think that your DVD burner is set as Master.
Toshiba satellites series requires your DVD drive to be set as Slave.
This issue can prevent DMA mode activation restricting your drive to PIO modes and locking some burning software to slow speeds compatible with PIO modes.

Hope this info can be helpful.

Linh

[rockie67]

I have just bought a sony dw-q520a slimline dvd writer for my dell latitude c840 but when i install it my laptop wont boot into windows.It just says cant find boot device.Anyone got any ideas what could be causing this