pioneer 510H will burn but won't read unfinalized discs

[nixie]

My Pioneer 510H is having trouble reading some of my unfinalized discs. It will simply hang for a minute then say 'cannot play this disc'. I can hear the mechanism moving and trying to read. It reads finalized discs ok, both aluminized and -R. It will also burn a disc and finalize it ok sometimes if I do this right away.

I put the unfinalized discs into another 510H and they played ok. These unfinalized discs are from various batches of media and in good condition, so I don't think it has anything to due with the media. They are memorex 8x and 16x which have always worked ok for me. I tried a disc cleaner a couple times but that didn't work. I haven't yet tried doing a full reset.

Something has apparently gone wrong with the hardware in my machine. It would seem that if it was the burner that it would also have trouble reading finalized discs.

Anyone else have this trouble? Thanks.

[Frobozz]

Get a laser cleaning disc to see if the problem is dust on the read laser.

[nixie]

Another problem has showed up. I erased one title on the hard drive. Now an error message comes up: "The Hard Disk Drive info is incorrect. Use the Disc Setup Menu to reinitialize."

I can play titles still on the hard drive but all the other options such as chapter edit are grayed out.

[Brent G.]

Is it overheating? When my Pioneer 220-s couldn't read unfinalized DVD-R's it was because the burner was flakey and needed replacing ($265 CDN). If this were a computer I'd look at the controller or power supply since that is the only thing I can think of that the burner and HD have in common.

If it is still under warranty, get it repaired. You may lose the recordings on the HD though.

Brent

[nixie]

No overheating that I know of. This thing worked great for about 3 years. I've burned hundreds of discs on this thing using Memorex and never had one disc that wouldn't finalize and never an unfinalized disc that it couldn't read.

I tried cleaning the lens a couple times but it didn't have any effect. I'll re-initialize the HD and see what happens.

[nixie]

Re-initializing the hard drive fixed the hard drive problem. I had to re-initialize the HD about a year ago. The HD has worked well over a 3 year period.

The unit still doesn't read some of my unfinalized disks. I will take a look at the connectors and lens in the burner before trying to replace the burner.

[Frobozz]

You might also test with a different brand of media. Memorex is not good quality. If you are using newer 16X media on that older Pioneer burner it could be having trouble with the discs. Give Verbatim media a test. Also, test with DVD-RW discs.

[nixie]

I've been using the 16x media lately. The same batch of 16x discs still work ok on another 510 that I have which hasn't been used much for burning. It may be that as the burner ages, certain brands of media become more finicky compared with others.

I'll try some Verbatim just to see what happens.

[nixie]

Looks like this problem was due to a bad spindle of Memorex 16x. I went back to Memorex 8x and my Pioneer 510 works ok now. I also tried another spindle of 16x and they work ok but I prefer not to use 16x now in my 510.

Two other Pioneer 510, a 210, and my PC had trouble writing to the bad spindle of Memorex 16x.

Isobuster is a good program. I used it to recover all my unfinalized bad 16x disks. Video Redo is good for editing without a recode. I used Womble DVD to author the files.

[keithec]

Does anyone know where I can get the Pioneer DVR-510H service manual and the service dvd? I need to replace my hard drive in the unit and cannot find either items anywhere.

Thank you,
Keith
keithsigr@yahoo.com

[vgarambone]

Does anyone know where I can get the Pioneer DVR-510H service manual and the service dvd? I need to replace my hard drive in the unit and cannot find either items anywhere.

Thank you,
Keith
keithsigr@yahoo.com

There's an extensive topic on this subject. Briefly, the manual can be dled from edonkey, service DVD from BT (around 1.8Gb). You'll also need the service remote and the easiest way to get IMO is to load the Pronto codes (it's available here) into a Palm using Omniremote, or into a Pronto itself, of course. Instructions can be found here: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic253998.html?highlight=520