Problem with Burning DVD-Rs using Emprex 1004IM DVD Writer

[spmrebel]

Hi all,

I bought an Emprex 1004IM 4x DVD Writer just after the 1st of this year. I am a newbie here so don't flame me if I don't exactly do things as they should be. Anyway, the problem I am having is writing to DVD-Rs. I am using DVD Xpress Copy to create backups of my DVDs. I am using Ritek 1x/2x DVD-Rs (RITEKG03). I constantly make coasters with this media when my drive is set to DMA mode. However, when I put the drive in PIO mode I can use this media and I don't create any coasters using the Ritek DVD-Rs (RITEKG03). So I thought that perhaps this drive has a problem with the Ritek media so I bought some cheapo 4x DVD-Rs made by Fornex (FORNEX4X002). Exactly the same results as the Ritek DVD-Rs. Writes good (but slow!) in PIO mode and coasters galore in DMA mode but faster. I then decided to buy some DVD+RW (INFODISCA01) from Maxell. These always work regardless if the drive is in PIO or DMA mode. I then bought someCompUSA brand 2.4X DVD+Rs (OPTODISCOP1) and these work in both PIO and DMA mode. I then decided to buy some Princo 1x/2x DVD-RW (PRINCO) and this works in either mode. HOWEVER, they are useable up to about 5-7 times and then after around the 8th time or so the DVD writer can never write to it again even though programs such as DVDinfo, Roxio Disc Backup can erase/format the media. I do have the latest 048 firmware for the drive.

My machine specs are:

AMD Athlon XP 3200+
1 GB DDR 3200
WD 120 GB HDD 7200rpm (master IDE channel 1)
IOMagic DVDRW4D (master IDE channel 2)
Biostar Ideq 200N (Nforce2 chipset) Small Form Factor
Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
Windows XP with latest NForce chipset drivers

Any help/ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks
_________________
Happy Computing

[ccbadd]

I have one of these drives and the only thing that seemed to fix the -R media problems is using the 1008IM firmware. I am curently using fw 56 and things works fairly well. Using this firmware does not get you the 8X capability, but it does get 4X and under working much better for me. Look at this link to see what is required:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83788

[fluffster]

I also have this drive that I bought from Fry's in January 2004.

It's been flashed to the latest F/W (048?) and in checking my XP hardware info, uses Ultra DMA mode 2. I have my DVD reader as master and the Emprex drive as slave on the secondary IDE, my hard disk drives are on the primary IDE.

I initially used the Fry's Generic 4x (LONGTEN01) and Optorite 4x DVD-R media with mediocre success - a 15 - 20% coaster rate using DVD Shrink and Nero to back up DVDs. I then tried and have been having very good results with some house-brand media from shop4tech.com. It is the Matrix 4x brand but for some reason, my Emprex/BTC loves it. I have had a 100% success rate through almost 40 of the original 50 pack; all play flawlessly on my old Toshiba SD-1600 and PC.

I would agree that the Emprex/BTC seems to be finicky about media and it is fortunate that mine likes this inexpensive brand.