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.

[Demon Cleaner]

So NEC is the way to go, I thought I'd buy an LG as Oz uses them a lot. Never had a NEC, perhaps it's time to get one Should I buy the newest model, or is there any particular good older model?

[Harrison]

Newest NEC model is always the way to go. NEC have recently released a new range under the name Optiarc. This is a joint venture with Sony, so both NEC and Sony drives are using the same NEC Optiarc drive units.

The NEC Optiarc drives are available in both IDE and SATA versions and both come in silver, black or beige and both are 18x drives.

I've PM'd you some model numbers of current NEC drives. Model numbers may vary slightly in other countries.

[Demon Cleaner]

Going off topic again here.

[Perplexity Mode ON] Now I bought the NEC drive and just installed it, it runs just fine. Problem is, when I try to burn an RW disc, it makes me the same error than the Pioneer, so I guess, in reality, my Pioneer isn't broken, there is something else not working [Perplexity Mode OFF]

This is the message I get when running DVD Identifier:
Disc Identification Requires DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW or DVD-RAM Media And Matching Writer

EDIT: When I try to flash the NEC, I get errors.

- First I tried with the AD7170A_GN_103.exe which opens a window, then you can flash your drive, but after 2-3 seconds it says upload failed.
- Then I used a bin file and tried to flash with Binflash, I get the message "error submitting checksum".

I'm trying with the original 1.03 flash, I have the 1.02 on mine. And I never had problems flashing a drive.

[Harrison]

Very strange. Could be your IDE interface on the motherboard is damaged.