I've begun to notice problems with my DVD Writer. The model is Sony DW-U18A and I've had it since 2004. It's been working fine until now where it would not detect my blank DVD-Rs. It requires me to eject the disc tray several times. No, more like many times before it would burn! However, it would still detect my DVD+RWs instantly. Plus, the disc tray is faulty in that it would close by itself. Occasionally when I eject it, it would go back in before I can put my disc in.
It still burns pretty fast at 8x and I've had very little write errors. So my problem lies just in detecting my DVD-Rs. Does anyone know how to solve this problem? In TMPGEnc DVD Author (this is my primary program for burning DVDs), it lists the drive as "Sony DVD RW DW-U18A UYS1" if that means anything. Thanks.
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sounds like you need to buy a new dvd burner. what's the media id of those DVD-R discs? hope it's not crap media like TDK, MEMOREX, OFFICE DEPOT APTIVA or OFFICE MAX junk.
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Originally Posted by budz
It's actually one of the last bunch of good TDKs I have left over. I've just tried inserting the Sony DVD-Rs you told me to buy from Best Buy. It's still saying "Drive not ready" and I'd have to eject over and over.
But once I get it burning, there's no problem in writing to disc.
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You got lots of patience which I don't have so I would just buy a new dvd burner if I was in your situation. Dvd burners are cheap these days at $30.00-$40.00 for a brand new one.
I've seen craiglist ads for honolulu with people selling dvd burners brand new and used. -
But it's always detecting my DVD+RWs immediately. How long do DVD writers usually last? I find it annoying that store-bought PCs usually never have any problems with their parts while my personally-built PC recently started having problems everywhere from memory loss to case fan and now the DVD writer.
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Originally Posted by Sakuya
Do yourself a favor and just buy a new dvd burner. :P Sheesh! Today a new dvd burner cost anywhere from $30.00-$40.00 which is cheap compared to when the first generation computer dvd burners/cd burners that were $300.00 - $600.00. -
Originally Posted by budz
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Originally Posted by Sakuya
I'd suggest buying from BEST BUY if you wanna buy it locally since they carry PIONEER dvd burners. But it's expensive since they only carry the "RETAIL" drives from PIONEER.
My suggestion is to stay away from SONY since they no longer manufacture their dvd burners. They use rebadged drives from NEC & LITEON at the moment. I'd suggest getting a PIONEER 112D or LGH62L. If you have SATA on your mobo then could get a 20x SAMSUNG S203B drive. -
Originally Posted by budz
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=BROWSE&N=500458+200765&product_code=346350 -
Originally Posted by Sakuya
You'll have to check your motherboard specs to see if you have SATA ports but if you don't you could always use a PCI SATA CONTROLLER CARD. But beware of compatibility issues as well because some older motherboards SATA controllers don't support DVD BURNERS! Also if you have NVIDIA ide controllers they may not work with a SATA DVD BURNER. You'll have to use the MICROSOFT IDE drivers. PCI SATA CONTROLLER cards that have the VIA CHIPSET will not work with some SATA DVD BURNERS. Check out the SAMSUNG forum at Cdfreaks.com. -
Damn, sold out already? I found the post elsewhere that I made and they told me that I have an ATA burner.
So no Samsung burner for me.
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Originally Posted by Sakuya
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Originally Posted by budz
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Originally Posted by Sakuya
BTW when you go to those websites don't use a Hawaii zip code, use a mainland state like NYC or Maryland. That's the only way you'll be able to see what's in the Sunday ads! -
I just got my DVD drive. :P I've been reading up on installing DVD drive tutorials but I was wondering, would I have to go to Device Manager or somewhere in the Control Panel to uninstall a DVD drive before I remove it from the computer?
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Originally Posted by Sakuya
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Originally Posted by budz
DRU-8410A, it was on sale at CompUSA.
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Originally Posted by Sakuya
Yikes! You do know SONY doesn't manufacture their own drives. It's probably a rebadged LITEON or NEC drive. The SONY firmware support is terrible. Good luck on your new drive!
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Originally Posted by budz
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Originally Posted by Sakuya
:P
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Hey!
You have good luck your SONY drive is a rebadged Samsung SH-S202 PATA drive according to the SAMSUNG FORUM at Cdfreaks.com.
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Originally Posted by budz
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Take a look at the SAMSUNG FORUM at Cdfreaks.com. I can't remember what SONY rebadged drive you had. Dvd burners can't last forever so depending on how many dvd discs you burn should or would determine the longevity of the drive. The latest SAMSUNG dvd burners seem to be great drives especially the SATA S203B drive.
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All right, I installed the new DVD writer fine and it detects all my DVD-Rs and CDs. When I try burning, the data is burned onto the disc and on the computer I can access the video fine. But none of my discs can be played back on my DVD players. These discs are DVD+RW that I use for testing before writing to DVD-R and they're the same discs I've used since before I installed my new DVD writer. So it's not the DVD players' fault.
I have not been told in the install instructions to install a new driver. It said that once I installed it, Windows should automatically detect it. But it didn't give me such notice on startup. But still, I found that it worked by reading discs all right so I thought it was successful. Until now.
The DVD project I just burned was just authored in TMPGEnc DVD Authoring and burned using its burner. Then I tried burning a data disc of AVIs using Nero 7 and playing it back on my DivX player, same thing, it doesn't detect the disc. -
what brand is that DVD+RW discs that you're using w/your new SONY dvd player? there's no drivers to install when you have a new dvd burner in your computer. what brand is your standalone dvd player?
don't use TMPGE's burning program, use IMGBURN. if you wanna burn AVI files then use CDBurnerXP program instead of NERO. -
Originally Posted by budz
I just checked out ImgBurn and for some reason, it makes an ISO image out of what I already authored in TDA. Why can't it just burn the VIDEO_TS/AUDIO_TS folders.
Edit:
I burned some AVIs using CDBurnerXP and it works! But I don't see why Nero, which was included with the new DVD writer, won't work. I just find having to author and then to further convert that to ISO time-and-space-consuming. And ImgBurn takes hella long to erase a disc. Even when I erased it before using TDA, it prompts me to erase. -
LEGACY media is crap. Your new dvd burner probably doesn't support that MEDIA ID. Buy VERBATIM DVD+RW discs if you want it to work correctly in your standalone dvd players. You could check the SONY website if LEGACY DVD+RW media is supported or if there's a firmware upgrade for your drive. But my bet is that LEGACY media isn't supported. Use DVDINFO PRO or CD/DVD SPEED to find out the MEDIA ID of those LEGACY DVD+RW media.
IMGBURN is the best FREEWARE burning program to use for dvd burning. I hardly ever use NERO BURN for my dvd burning. -
Originally Posted by budz
If it means anything, Nero InfoTool says that the drive's region code is set to 2. I wonder why that is since I haven't changed it and the US code should be 1. Could that be the problem? I can only change it 5 times for some reason.
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if the drive is set to region 2 it could be why the discs can't be played back on your standalone dvd players. go ahead and change the drive to region 1. yes the region can only be changed 5 times. do a search if your SONY drive has a region free firmware then you won't have to worry about the 5 region changes.
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post the firmware of your drive by using CD/DVD SPEED or use DISCINFO. i wanna confirm whether or not your drive is the SAMSUNG rebadge.
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