RW writing problem

[Demon Cleaner]

Oh my f**ckin god. I wanted to burn some movies to watch them (as I can't play GOW anymore), and my Pioneer 111 spits the DVD-RW out saying it's wrong media. Now even when I put a normal DVD into it, it won't recognize it at all and refuses access.

Have an idea what I can try? Or is it dead now, as it seems so. Last thing I burned was the copy of GOW now.

EDIT:I had to shutdown the PC, there was an I/O error, even my normal DVD refused to work. When I insert a DVD-RW with files into the burner, it recognizes them, but then again when I try to burn something to it (tried Nero and RecordNow), it says that it's a wrong media inserted, and refuses the burn. I tried with a normal DVD now, and that just works fine, but which is also annoying, as I also delete my movies after watching them, I don't keep them on DVDs too, always use rewritable media.

[Harrison]

Have you done any Windows updates today/this week? I've seen similar things happen after such updates occur. Another thing to check is looking in Device Manager and making sure everything is listed correctly in there. Especially the name of the DVD Writer and the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.

Failing that you could try updating the drive's firmware to the latest version, or changing the order of the drives on the cable and letting Windows redetect and assign the drives.

[Demon Cleaner]

- Updated firmware
- Changed IDE cabling + redetected
- Changed drive letter path

No changes, it doesn't want to burn RW anymore, plus I tested with the Commodore discs, which it also refuses to burn.

[Harrison]

Sounds like the drive is partly broken then. Is there another PC you could connect the drive to for testing to see if the drive is actually working or not? Because if you find the drive is working it could be the IDE on the motherboard that isn't working properly.

Have you also tried updating your motherboard drivers?

[Demon Cleaner]

Is there another PC you could connect the drive to for testing to see if the drive is actually working or not?

You know, for cheap money I can buy another one rather than testing it on several PCs with no results.

Have you also tried updating your motherboard drivers?

Nope. I have the P4P800 Asus board, with the latest updated BIOS, which is already very obsolete.

I don't think it has something to do with drivers or firmware or bad connectivity or whatever. I tried to burn a disc with a scratch, burn went fine, and afterwards it refused burning RWs, in my opinion, drive is broken. But this was the last time I bought a Pioneer burner, as it's the 4th and 3 of them died, not immediately in the first month, but finally it broke anyway.

I also found a working copy of God of War now, so I can now play.

[Harrison]

If you get a new burner I highly recommend NEC. Been using them for years without any problems.

And that scratching disc issue I had a while back seemed to be scratches on the actual discs when I checked through all of the blanks from the same spindle pack so the drive wasn't actually scratching the discs after all.