Optorite Burning Issue

[agix]

Optorite FW : 2.50
MB : ABIT NF7-S
Media : Ritek 2X media
S/W: DVDShrink

Just lately I have been noticing bad burns. Let me detail a little bit. Normally a blank DVD has a nice uniform purple color. After I burn a full (4.35GB as seen in explorer) DVD and you look at the disc, you can tell that the inner portion is a different color (to indicate data) and about half way it goes to a mid color for about 1cm and then it looks like nothing was wrote for a bit and then more data. So a total of 3 different shades of purple. Usually it should be only 2 various colors. Needless to say, the disc is garbage. I have attached a pic showing this.



Possibly the only correlation is a new MotherBoard and a fresh install of XP Pro and Norton 2004. Since then I have noticed this issue, prior to that I must have made over 100 DVDs with no problems.

Does it sound like the laser is dieing, no other applications are being used?

Any ideas?

[indolikaa]

I have some Memorex DVD-R discs made by CMC that look just like your discs! My Optorite DD-0203 produced them. They don't work, either.

The drive has never done this type of thing on any other disc, so I wrote it off as poor media. I had burned some DVD+R and TY DVD-R discs in-between those CMCs so I can't imagine mine was caused by the drive.

[agix]

Maybe it is a bad group of my Ritek Media, but this is the middle of a 50 pack spindle. My other 50 packs have been fine.

Odd

[jimmyenglish]

I'm having the exact same problem w/the same drive. You guys have to let me know if you figure out what's going on with this?! I'm using generic media that's always worked flawlessly in the past. Now I'm getting these partial burns. Some witht the squirrly tiny second line, some just halfway and last night the thing never burned past 63% in DVD Decryptor. Was still "burning" this morning. Is the drive cashed? Thanks in advance.

[agix]

I ended up giving up, all I could seam to do anymore with the drive was about a 1 in 3 chance of having a good disc.

I got rid of it and bought a NEC 2500a.

Good Luck

[tig2002]

I don't think that there is something wrong with your burner. The difference in colors usually means that your Optorite was burning with buffer underun. You can confirm that by looking on the LED of the burner (changes color from time to time) or on internal buffer indicator of the burning software during the burn process.

Buffer underrun usually kicks in either because of bad media or software conflicts. I had the exact same problem with my Optorite when I installed Alcohol 120% on my computer after installing Nero. The internal buffer indicator of Nero was jumping between 99% and 0% like crazy during the burn. The problem was resolved after uninstalling the Alcohol software, and the internal buffer now stays at 99% during the entire burn process.

[agix]

That is interesting, I do have both alcohol and nero installed on my system.

I don't seam to have an issue now with the nec2500a though.

[888888]

I have burned quite a few DVD Shrink full disc backups using my Optorite with fw2.50 on Optodisc 4x media. I have luckily had no such problems. May I suggest upgrading your firmware and trying other discs. Although it seems like a media problem, I wouldn't put it past the drive.