My burner used to burn fast enough...but now it doesn't

[Auto Ford]

Hello everyone, my first post here and shamefully a help request post. Anyway, i hope some of the bright minds in here can assist me. I couldn't find anything that brought a solution on this matter just by googling

So, I've had a Sony DW-G120A burner for about a year and a half i think. I don't know how, but when i first mounted it in my pc, it showed really nice results (for me, at least). It used to burn DVD's at 8x (and i think the burner's limit is even higher, but 8x is fine).
Until some months ago, when i had to format my hard disk. I installed Win2k pro again, set up everything but the burner never again caught a decent speed. Ever since it's been around 1.5x to 2.3x.

I have to say that i've done no hardware changes at all. The only change was the HD format. Which leads me to think the issue is on the soft side... right?
I've always burnt DVD's with Nero (either fast or slow). But i also had Easy CD/DVD Creator before the HD disk format. Could that have anything to do with it? Perhaps some dll that was thrusting my burner?

I've noticed my burner has its DMA setting off. Does this have anything to do with it? Still, I don't know how to enable it (should i?).

Anyway, i've been bearing with the slow speeds for some time, but i thought it might even be solved yesterday, when i formatted again. Well yes, i am silly: it didn't. It still is burning at very low speeds.

I hope someone can shed some light on this issue. Thank you in advance.

[redwudz]

To check DMA/PIO mode within Windows:

Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

From there, right click on one of the channels and choose 'Properties>Advanced Settings'. All drives should be DMA mode. The 'Current Transfer Mode' for Hard drives is usually DMA 4-6 and DVD burners DMA 2-4, DVD ROMs usually DMA 2. If you see any in PIO mode, that can slow things down.

Changing them back may be easy or complicated. First see if you can change them in that window. If not, I usually uninstall the channel the drive is on and let the OS reinstall it. This will usually take a reboot. This will not damage any files on the computer.

From there, if no luck, get back to us.

It's a common problem. The OS does it when there are 6 consecutive read failure from the drive. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you and it doesn't reset the drive.

And welcome to our forums.

[handyguy]

That usually happens when you are using cheap disks, so use some better media after you reset it.

[Auto Ford]

That usually happens when you are using cheap disks, so use some better media after you reset it.

Yes, i suspected that when this problem happened once or twice during that period of time which my burner actually recorded fast. I noticed that different DVD brands give different burning speeds. That is why i've always bought verbatim or sony (which could indeed burn at 8x). My apologies for not pointing this out on my first post.


And thank you redwudz, i am going to try your advice right away.

[Auto Ford]

Hello. I just enabled DMA on every channel, like noted.
Also did a test with Nero's CD/DVD Speed tool, and it went really good. Started burning from 6x and it rose up to 16x!
Weird thing: when the graph got near the 16x, the program showed an error message and stopped.

Will it be ok if i start burning dvd's at 16x now?
Thanks lots for the help.

[solarfox]

Will it be ok if i start burning dvd's at 16x now?

Only if you have media rated for 16x burn speed.

Also, if nero showed an error near the 16x speed line, I wouldn't trust it; it might mean your burner, your media, or your system in general is pushing its limits at that point. Stick with 12x or 8x.

[redwudz]

I use 12X most times with 16X media. It's not that much slower.

I would recommend ImgBurn most times over Nero for burn quality. But that depends on what you are burning. For compilations of many files, Nero is a bit easier to use.

[Auto Ford]

Allright solarfox, i'll follow your advice and stick to 12x. As i said, i used to be happy enough with 8x before so it's an improvement indeed. Thanks very much.

And redwundz, thanks again for the tips. You've been most helpful.

Later.