DVD Writer won't write

[hcs]

I had a faulty DVD writer and bought a new one, Samsung SH S-202J and it installed OK as it seems but it won't burn. I have uninstalled it, updated F/W but to no avail. I can play a DVD in it but cannot burn. TMPGEncAuthor asks me to 'insert media' but it will not recognize an inserted DVD. If I click on my CD-ROM in Explorer it says 'Please insert a disk into drive K:' but when I click on my DVD-writer it doesn't say anything. Could this be an indication that something is wrong with the motherboard?

[redwudz]

First thing is to make sure you have a 80 conductor cable to the new drive. A 40 conductor cable may have worked on the old drives, but not newer ones. It should be the same appearance cable as your IDE hard drives use. In fact I would install a new cable anyway, and not use the old one. If it is new and 80 conductor, try another one. Sometimes they are bad from factory.

Next make sure you have the burner jumpers set correctly, Master, Slave or CS. Some burners like the Master position, so if you can try that, do. Also if you have a second IDE channel/cable, try that, even if you have to set the burner as Slave for a test.

Lastly, it could be the motherboard, but they are more likely to die completely, not just have problems with one IDE channel. You could add in a PCI slot IDE (PATA) controller if the IDE channel is the problem.

EDIT: One last remote possibility is the DVD media itself might not be compatible with the burner. You might try a different brand if you have tried the other ideas.

[ozymango]

EDIT: One last remote possibility is the DVD media itself might not be compatible with the burner. You might try a different brand if you have tried the other ideas.

It may not be that remote of a possibility -- I once spent an entire day fighting with a recalcitrant DVD burner only to discover it just did not like TY discs. Imagine that! It rejected great media!

[guns1inger]

EDIT: One last remote possibility is the DVD media itself might not be compatible with the burner. You might try a different brand if you have tried the other ideas.

It may not be that remote of a possibility -- I once spent an entire day fighting with a recalcitrant DVD burner only to discover it just did not like TY discs. Imagine that! It rejected great media!

Been there, done that. My last burner, TY was the only media that gave me coasters.

[hcs]

Problem solved. The woman who tested my faulty DVD had changed the strapping to Cable Select and that was what I set on the new one and it didn't work with the CD-ROM also being set to the same. Changed it to Master and everything is now fine. However, TPMGEncAuthor 1.6 still said 'Insert media' so I tried TPMGEncDVDAuthor 3.0 and it now works. I don't know why 1.6 didn't work but I don't bother to find out. Thanks for your help.