ILO HD04 Not reading own disk

[carter2004]

I have had my HD04 about 8 months and upgraded the firmware with all new firmware. It had been working like a charm, but recently the disk it has recorded refuse to play on it. The disk will play on other players but not the Ilo that created it. It says "Invalid Disk". I cleaned the dvd lens but no change. Anyone else have this problem or a solution? This could be the last straw as far as buying a cheap recorder again.

[Racer2x]

Congratulations on entring the club of people who are having problems with their Ilos recognizing discs. I went through 3 of those things, and they ALL started to do that, after a while. Over time, more and more people are coming forward, complaining about the same thing. One person claimed success, by using a Qtip and Windex, and actually physically cleaning the laser head. Give this a shot. If it doesn't work out, I would take it back. I did do some diagnostics with my three, and felt it was temperature related, in some way, so I resorted to blowing a small fan into the back of the chassis, but, ultimately, even THAT stopped helping. I cracked the case of the last one, open, and found nothing out of the ordinary, so I don't know what it could be that's failing, specidically. I only hope that YOU have greater success than I did. Let us know how you do, and good luck.

[coolj1]

http://www.techolio.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1322

[carter2004]

**Thanks for the sympathy and advice/forum link *** One other weird thing is I put in the Scooby doo movie backup and it wouldn't see it, then I used compressed air to spray in it and put the same movie in and it saw it. Then I opened up the case and cleaned the lens with alchohol and a qtip. The case was pretty clean inside, no visable dust. Anyway, put it back together put the same movie in and now it wont see it again. It will record but will not play its own disk. Also it does see "store bought" DVD's but not copies...It makes no sense. I will attempt to return it and if that doesn't work, try to replace the drive. But I wonder if its the drive if it still plays commercial dvd's and records. I know I can use another dvd player but whats the point if I can not use all features of one unit?

Again, thanks for the input any other suggestions are welcomed! I will keep you informed on how this all plays out.

[Racer2x]

Toward the end, mine wouldn't even see storbought ones. I CAN get THAT bad. Soem say it's temperature, some say it's a dirty laser head. I don't know, but the last one I had, I opened, and saw zero dust or fried components. No bulged caps. Nothing. Everything looked as it should. Probably is the actual drive, itself that's crapping out on these.

[lordsmurf]

Those are LITEON drives, I seriously doubt that.

It's more likely environmental, and can affect all optical drives, CD, DVD, ROM, burners. Smoke, dust, moisture, etc.

And then it could always be the disc. I don't see any added disc info.

[Racer2x]

Smoke-free home. Little to no dust found inside unit. Unit semmed to run more reliable when I had the whole-house air on, or if I blew a small fan into the rear colling fan vent. Stock fan still worked, too. Toward the end, even THAT and the A/C didn't seem to help at all. I tried Khypermedia, Maxells, Memorex. All seemed to work, just fine, and still do.....in other people's players. They even play just fine in my Apex. I seriously don't think it's the media.

[lordsmurf]

Khypermedia, Maxells, Memorex

You just named two crap media vendors, and the Maxell is only good if it's from Japan.

[carter2004]

Same thing here, popped the hood with no dust, nothing burned etc. Media I have been using reliably Phillips, Sony, Ritek. The thing will not even prepare a disk anymore either. For a moment yesterday it saw a DVD I made when I first got it, but that was short lived. I thought maybe it could be a firmware problem so I updated/reverted to every firmware upgrade with no change whatsoever.

I can not even copy the hard drive contents to dvd because it gets stuck on preparing, then says its in an invalid disk.

**Question, fight now I have the hard drive hooked up to my laptop via usb to ide cable. Does anyone know how I can read these files/back them up before I head over to Walrus world? Their are five directories with files on the drive. The files have extensions like bup, ifo, db, pgo, fli, vbm, pgc, but no .VOB files. The drive is fat32. I have some video on the hard drive I really hate to lose.
Any ideas would be extremely helpful.

[Racer2x]

You're going to try and blame this on the media? Dude, I'm telling you, it's NOT the media. They are perfectly fine, in all the other machines, I've played them in. They are good burns, trust me. It's the machine.
I have a freiend who has a video service, and he uses the Khypermedias, almost exclusively, and it is very rare that he gets a complaint from the customers. He just did a senior prom, and put out over 800 discs, all on Khypermedia, and he didn't get ONE call. Say what you want about them, but there are some who use them, just fine.