DVD burner problems

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I’m hoping that someone here can help! I am having problems with my dvd burner…

Last February, I bought a Digital Research dual format 8x burner. It worked fine for several months, and I burned 100s of dvds with no problem using Nero. At some point over the summer, halfway through a spindle of blanks, the burner quit burning at fast speeds; now, it would REPORT that it was burning at 4x or 8x (depending on what kind of blanks I was using), but it was actually burning at a much slower speed (it would routinely take between 50-70 minutes to burn a dvd-r). During this time, it continued to burn cd-r’s at a fast speed. Then about a month ago, it started taking an hour to burn a cd-r. I spoke to Digital Research’s online tech support, but they were really of no help – they suggested I upgrade to Nero 6.6 and use only TDK, Ritek and a few other brands of blanks. So I upgraded Nero, and I was already using TDK blanks, and there was no improvement.

A week ago, my roommate gave me an early Xmas present – an I/O Magic double format dual layer 16x internal dvd burner. I installed it, and burned a dvd at 8x speed and it seemed to work (Nero projected it would take 6-1/2 minutes, it actually took a little over 7 minutes, but hey, I wasn’t really concerned about that minor discrepancy). I thought my troubles were over.

The next day I tried to burn another dvd. Once again, Nero reported that it was burning at 8x, but I immediately noticed that based on the completion rate (2 % after 1 minute, ~ 20% after 10 minutes) that the new burner was burning as slow as the other one had been. Furthermore, after burning 38% of the disc, it just stopped burning. Task manager indicated that the program was Not Responding. I uninstalled Nero, and reinstalled it from the disc that came bundled with the new burner, and tried a new burn. Same result.

I tried burning some cd-r’s, and had no problem – although Nero reported it was burning them at 48x, it clearly wasn’t going that fast, but I think that’s because the Fuji cdr blanks I have are 8x blanks, and it burns them at about that speed (6-7 minutes per cdr). After burning several cd-r blanks, I tried again to burn a dvd, with the same results as before (slow burning, despite what Nero was reporting, and then hanging up at 38% completion). (Thanks God the cost of DVD blanks has come so much these days!).

This morning I downloaded CDBurner XP Pro 3, thinking perhaps it was the Nero software. And the same thing happened – the s/w reported that it was burning at 8x, though it clearly wasn’t, and at 39% it stopped burning altogether and reported the following error:
Writing Error (3).
Error occurred writing data to disc.
A NT disc I/O operation failed (1054).
Error Sense Data: SENSE KEY: FF ASC = 0 ASCQ: 79

So, does anyone here have any idea what’s going on?? And more importantly, how I can fix this problem? BTW, I’m using Windows XP o.s.

much obliged,
Chris
 
Dont' have a great answer for you but the first two places I'd look is the IDE cable that your burner is on and the hard drive you are burning your source files from. You can only burn as fast as you can get data to your burner so it's possible there is a reason your hard drive can't provide the data fast enough. Is your drive nearing it's capacity? Perhaps a defrag? (I'd save that one as a last hope thing.) Did you put your new burner on the same IDE cable that your last burner was on? If so can you switch it out with another cable?
 
maybe its a memory thing,check for buffer over runs,your memory may need defraged. I doubt if it's the cable as you burned 1 time all right
second thing I would look at is power suppy may be going bad
 
The fact that you were able to burn at a good speed in the begining ,would imply that ,page file setting,temp files and available drive space are affecting your reduction in speed. As you have seen DVD are touchier tha CD.
Update your burner firmware,and stick with the brand of Media that works.
-Check the temporary storage file Nero is using ,I make sure it is not on my O/S drive (reduces the effects of fragmentation)You can move where you like .
-If Nero is burning from an image on a drive (not a Rom) you should check to erase these files after a Burn. Erase any Temp file that has been used.
-I have had better reliabilty by not using a Dynamic Page file. I set a fixed size Page file (Not on My O/S drive) make sure it is lage enough.
-Confirm the use of a Drive that has lots of Free space.

Also you said you loaded another CDBurner. You should uninstall it" Completely".Nero ( and other Authoring software) do not work well together.
Check Nero info tool and error log to make sure there are no conflicts. If there are Nero has a General cleanup tool you can use to re-install cleanly.
 
I have the same dvd problems too

I just bought a dvd external burner from a online website. I bought a Liteon 1633s external USB 2.0 dvd rw....... but it is taking 90 mins to write a dvd....

any one who knows anything please help......

i got a lead in the box ??? a small wire with 2 ends....... is it useful???


help is appreciated
 
Liquidlen said:
The fact that you were able to burn at a good speed in the begining ,would imply that ,page file setting,temp files and available drive space are affecting your reduction in speed. As you have seen DVD are touchier tha CD.
Update your burner firmware,and stick with the brand of Media that works.
-Check the temporary storage file Nero is using ,I make sure it is not on my O/S drive (reduces the effects of fragmentation)You can move where you like .
-If Nero is burning from an image on a drive (not a Rom) you should check to erase these files after a Burn. Erase any Temp file that has been used.
-I have had better reliabilty by not using a Dynamic Page file. I set a fixed size Page file (Not on My O/S drive) make sure it is lage enough.
-Confirm the use of a Drive that has lots of Free space.

Also you said you loaded another CDBurner. You should uninstall it" Completely".Nero ( and other Authoring software) do not work well together.
Check Nero info tool and error log to make sure there are no conflicts. If there are Nero has a General cleanup tool you can use to re-install cleanly.


You said you burned 100's of CD's.

Sorry, but what you bought IS NOT an industrial strength unit.

Second. If you want to see if it really still works, you were a little vague about what made it stop working. Did you get some bogus DLL's from a website?

Ignore the advice about saving this or that from your burning session from above.

NEVER save anything.

And clean your system of *log files weekly.

Run scandisk regularly. And run defrag, If you ran 100 Burning sessions at 600MB per session, how badly fragmented do you think your hard drive is? The SWAP file is pretty mercenary, and depending on what you have running, will put stuff on your hard drive all over the place, in uneven chunks.

Don't play games with 1MB log files. There are much bigger fish to fry. You are probably almost due for a system crash if you did that much work with your Windows OS.
 
good god... that last post is a bit harsh.....sounds like we are not suppose to actually use our computers for anything once set up perfectly from scratch!!!
you'd make a good tech support person.....irrate that a customer actually saved a word file on the nice clean hard disk.
help us all
 
LOL. maybe it sounded harsh

cheesescone said:
good god... that last post is a bit harsh.....sounds like we are not suppose to actually use our computers for anything once set up perfectly from scratch!!!
you'd make a good tech support person.....irrate that a customer actually saved a word file on the nice clean hard disk.
help us all


Fact is, computers are all frankensteins, with bits and pieces of hardware and software all designed by different people with different views on computing.

When was the last time anyone bought an advanced game that didnt come with a disclaimer about supported vs unsupported video cards...and that only starts the discussion. What about protocols, addressing, memory usage (windows is bad enough on its own, and then we crap it up with all our favourite stuff - I'm as guilty as any of you btw), releasing addresses no longer in use, proper program termination that releases and closes all sub-programs in use - nobody ever addresses that one.

So my last post was harsh. I was something of a tech support person, having designed websites 1st and sold and repaired computers 2nd (as sort of a side line) for about 5 years. Tech support was always the poor child that always seemed to crop up, wanting food. I have seen many interesting system configurations come across my operating table. To date I have only had to 'kill' and 'reanimate' one frankenstein (full format and reboot). Of course this is if all hardware is functioning.

Understanding the poor and lazy programming of most software writers is only the first step in healing the hurt of computer users everywhere. Understanding the competing interests of companies supposedley interested in 'standardized' computing is the second.

Ultimately we have to take use these two known facts about computers and consciously decide to do something about it.

I have learned the hard way myself.

Aggressive defragging. 1ce per month if you are a hard user. your system will suffer about 25% loss in performance before you notice anything in most cases.

Aggressive system scans. If you like to try new progs, do this 1ce per week.

Reg scans. One of the few good programs (not officially put out by Microsoft BTW) put out by Microsoft Prog writers. FIX your registry after EVERY program install or delete.....

THE SAFE RULE: If you don;t implicitly trust the source, NEVER let it overwrite 'older' dll files.....If it doesn;t work afterwards, see if there is an updated version somewhere else. Pick a DLL on your system and then do a net search. I'll bet you find 20 or more DLL's with the same name, but of different sizes, dates, etc, on the net. DO NOT trust prog writers to understand DYnamic Link Library Files just because they have somehow acquired a license to use them or write for them. LOL

In other words: be a paranoid computer user.

And ya. If you burn hundreds of CD's on an over the counter burner, you have used it up basically. Telephone the manufacturer if you dont believe me. They are only meant for casual use. Not industrial use.

DVD and CD are interesting. We all think they are digital. But they are still essentially ANALOG devices that depend on physical movements to perform. Over time the little plastic pieces that guide movement inside them degrade. My CDRW started making a funny (lol) noise the other day. But then, I have burned about 300 CD's on it. Not surprising really.

ANyways. sorry if the post seemed a little harsh. Was not meant that way at all. Feel free to email (ryleh17@hotmail.com) if you need help or advice with anything. I don't mind helping. Spare me the DDR, CPU, etc. crap that everyone posts. It doesnt really matter, unless you;re running 4 IDE, 5 PCI, 2 extra fans, a 8X AGP video card, and 256X3 ram slots on a 150W power supply.

just tell me what is happening as best you can, and if you have checked for updated drivers, have installed a new device recently.....I will email back if I need more info. If you can, a list of system devices and IRQ/COM use would help. the MOST COMMON system problems involve sound/video conflicts with each other or with other devices than are later installed.

In ALMOST all cases manually removing all devices from the Control Panel - System - Device Manager, restarting your comp (and then patiently waiting, with each disk handy as these devices are detected) will solve conflict problems.

cheers. my name is Rob. I prefer to be addressed by my name so I leave it here for you to kick around a while. If there is anyone here who thinks they know more than I, go ahead and offer your help. Or we could share the help. Whatever.
 
chrispapa said:
I’m hoping that someone here can help! I am having problems with my dvd burner…

Last February, I bought a Digital Research dual format 8x burner. It worked fine for several months, and I burned 100s of dvds with no problem using Nero. At some point over the summer, halfway through a spindle of blanks,
...
Chris

Hi Chris, any word on this? Did you get it resolved? Anything that was the culprit?

Thanks,

Kai
 
Chris,
I had a similar problem and I sort of figured it out. I had just bought an external 16X sony DRX-800UL, and the cd burning was on par with what it claimed. The DVD burning was another story... it took me 2 hours to burn a data DVD+R. I severely needed to back up my storage hard drives, but that was just ridiculous.


I tried several solutions including the ones liquidlen suggested (ie pagefile and temp folder locations) and another I read elsewhere that said to disable IMAPI. I then attempted to burn another data DVD and found that it took only a few seconds for each % complete instead of >1 minute. That is until it reached 28%... then it slowed to a crawl again but continued to progress. Then I realized MY particular problem: I was burning data from 2 different hard drives. I stopped the burn and checked which files had completed and which had not. Lo and behold, the one from a partition in the master HD burned quickly and files from the other drive (slave on the same IDE) burned extremely slowly. (Please don't criticize me for configuring my drives that way. I know that I should have had one hard drive and one cd-drive per IDE port, but when I was putting it together, I couldn't make the ribbons reach.)


Anyway, separating the hard drives into a different IDE allowed fast DVD burning for me. So my question to you is... did you get a new hard drive around the time your DVD burning became slow and did you try to burn from that drive? If this solves your problem, I'm glad... otherwise, I'm sorry for the LONG post.
-War
 
Please Help

Alright, ive been havin a hellofa time tyring to firgure out wuts wrong with my dvd burner. It's an Lg dual layer dvd burner i got 2ish years ago. ive started burning movies like crazy 5 months ago, and eveyrthing was dandy. Then last month for no reason, it just stops working. I use a registerd version of clone dvd and used anydvd, and free ccs after using any dvd. everything was going fine then one day i put in a dvd, then look for the source im downloading from, then it freezes, and says " not responding" so i restart my comp and it does the exact same thing. It wont even allow me to watch a dvd, or do anything related to dvd's. I cans till listen to CD's, and burn cd's, but cannot burn or watch dvds. So if somebody could help me that would be gretaly apprecaiated.
Dc
 
-update firmwares/drivers
-reboot pc
-check cables - IDE ok, power from PSU ok etc..
-noise?
-test on another machine
-see if you can read DVD-Data discs (if you dont have one, you can buy a pc mag that has one.. then read it through :))

due to your mention of age and 'burning movies like crazy' it maybe off to age.. only testing it after you do those troubleshooter/sovler will tell..
 
Slow DVD Burning caused by IDE channel reverting to PIO mode

I've seen plenty of advice here for defragging, scanning, despairing but nothing that really explains why a modern DVD recorder would revert to 1X speeds (or lower) rather than just failing completely. I had the same problem on my laptop drive, which would take over an hour to burn 1 full DVD, and at the same time consume 100% CPU, rendering my machine nigh unusable during the process.

I had hard drives revert to PIO mode before with similar behavior, but basically, when your number of read errors cross a certain threshhold Windows will automagically revert your IDE channel (and the device attached to it) to PIO mode from DMA mode. PIO mode is slow, cumbersome, and just plain horrible, possibly resulting in some of the symptoms mentioned on this thread.

So what to do?? Open Device Manager --> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers --> Secondary IDE Channel (or possibly primary) and double click it. Check the advanced settings tab. If the device is in PIO mode uninstall it. Reboot the machine and let Windows reinstall the IDE channel and subsequently the DVD drive, then check it again via Device manager. If you are in some form of DMA mode (mine's Ultra DMA Mode 2) then you should be good to go.

Here's a more thorough explanation of solving the PIO problem -->

WxDMA

Hope this helps.
 
It's the DMA mode of your DVD Rom causing the slow burner problem

schex86 is absolutely right. I had the exact same problem you did. I was using NERO. My DVDs took an hour to burn. I replaced my DVD-ROM with a brand new 20x burner. I tried different software. I Reloaded Windows from scratch . The problem persisted.

I went into start>>settings>> control panel>>system>>hardware>>device manager>>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers>>primary ide channel>> Advanced settings>>transfer mode.

The "transfer mode" pull down box allows you to select "PIO only" or "DMA if available". Make sure "DMA if available" is selected. And do the same for all 4 of the IDE devices in the IDE/ATAPI controllers menu just to be sure. After you change/verify the settings for all 4 of your primary/secondary IDE channels, reboot the computer. Now, when you burn a DVD the burn will take the proper 5-10 minutes instead of an hour.

The tech support people talking about IDE cables and other crap obviously didn't understand the problem you were describing. I hope anybody else experiencing a slow dvd burner problem checks their IDE DMA settings before they waste money on a new Drive like I did.
 
This is a revival of an old thread but let me add that it wouldn't hurt to double check after the reboot if it remains in DMA mode. Sometimes after manually changing from PIO to DMA mode, it doesn't stay changed. If that happens, uninstall the channel through the Device Manager, reboot and let Windows reinstall it. It should be changed now.
 
hey im having trouble similar to other posts..i keep getting the power calibration error message...i have all updated firmware..my connections are fine and im running on the DMA setting. weird thing is that i burned 2 dvds that worked fine, but now i cant burn anything. the process finishes , but when i insert the dvd to play, nothing is written on it, even when there is no error. i was wondering if anybody may be able to help, i have the log files saved. im using nervision express as my software and ive tried other types of media, same result.
 
Kadath, Errr, Rob, You forgot to mention.....

kadath said:
And ya. If you burn hundreds of CD's on an over the counter burner, you have
DVD and CD are interesting. We all think they are digital. But they are still essentially ANALOG devices that depend on physical movements to perform. Over time the little plastic pieces that guide movement inside them degrade. My CDRW started making a funny (lol) noise the other day. But then, I have burned about 300 CD's on it. Not surprising really.

That our $32.00 toys are built to manufacturing tolerances approaching a billionth of a meter, and must, of necessity, perform in dirty stinky old house air, not in a clean room. Color me still amazed that they work at all.

Anyway, is spite of this minor omission, you're still my typing god for all time!
 
ziggy16 said:
hey im having trouble similar to other posts..i keep getting the power calibration error message...i have all updated firmware..my connections are fine and im running on the DMA setting. weird thing is that i burned 2 dvds that worked fine, but now i cant burn anything. the process finishes , but when i insert the dvd to play, nothing is written on it, even when there is no error. i was wondering if anybody may be able to help, i have the log files saved. im using nervision express as my software and ive tried other types of media, same result.

Can youu check the Burner in another comeputer?
What exactly does the 'power calibration message say?
Is there enough space on your the Temp file drive?
Where you using the type of DVD that needs finalizing?
 
Can youu check the Burner in another comeputer?
I havent been able to do that yet, but i will soon, bringing it to my school IT dept. to have them look.

What exactly does the 'power calibration message say?
"...Burn process started at 16x (22,160 KB/s)
[00:23:08] DVDEngine BEGIN: VTSTT_VOBS#1 - Write
[00:23:08] DVDEngine ...RBP=0, count=1,073,739,776 bytes
[00:23:34] NeroAPI Power calibration error
[00:23:34] NeroAPI F: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-111D
[00:23:34] NeroAPI Generating DVD high compatibility borders
[00:23:34] NeroAPI Generating DVD borders completed successfully
[00:23:35] NeroAPI Burn process failed at 16x (22,160 KB/s)
[00:24:07] DVDEngine ...succeeded
[00:24:07] DVDEngine END: VTSTT_VOBS#1 - Write
[00:24:07] DVDEngine BEGIN: IDVDVideoSessionImpl - " there is alot more to that log file.. i can send u it if u need to take a look.

Is there enough space on your the Temp file drive?

By temp file drive, i assume u mean where im holding the movie files? and then by that assumption it would be my hard drive, and yes there is still 16.3 gigs left in that partition i hold them in.

Where you using the type of DVD that needs finalizing?

Im mainly going to be using them in my PS2 so i can watch dvds in my room with my g/f when we hang out, instead of on my computer.
 
Originally Posted by ziggy16
hey im having trouble similar to other posts..i keep getting the power calibration error message...i have all updated firmware..my connections are fine and im running on the DMA setting. weird thing is that i burned 2 dvds that worked fine, but now i cant burn anything. the process finishes , but when i insert the dvd to play, nothing is written on it, even when there is no error. i was wondering if anybody may be able to help, i have the log files saved. im using nervision express as my software and ive tried other types of media, same result.

im having the same problem......
i got power caliberation error then it says dvd burning n completed sucessfully but not is written on it...:(
 
im having the same problem......
i got power caliberation error then it says dvd burning n completed sucessfully but not is written on it...


yes.. well i still havent fixed it yet.. im going to bring it to my college's tech. department.. see what they can do. i will post any results if i get any.
 
I was having the same problem with my DVD burner. The problem was that IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller had been switched from DMA to PIO. This had sopmething to do with when I jumped an IDE hard Drive with a USB device to back up some files for a friend I couldn't get it to stop properly, so I went ahead and disconnected it and then my DVD burning issues started. VEry slow and the DVDs it burnt were messed up. I did find that the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller in the device manager was set to auto-detect, but was set to PIO. I knew the problem stared yesterday, I did a system restore and this solved my issue. Thanks to the 2 guys above who nailed this down to the "PIO Problem".
 
Having a similar problem

I'm by far a computer genius but I can adjust stuff and what not fairly easily just not sure what the settings should be. I'm having a very similar problem with my DVD burner but its been a problem out of the box as I just installed it. I have a Dell Dimensions 2400 and I just installed 1GB of Ram and a 20X LG DVD Burner. I've never messed with Ram settings but wasn't sure if that could be part of the problem. My burner is hooked to the same IDE cable as my other CD-Rom drive but that cable is separate from the one that the hard drive is on. I went in to check the DMA/PIO settings and they are set to DMA when available but one of the boxes says currently in PIO. Is there any way to change that? What maked DMA available. I appreciate any help that can be given and hope that this can be resolved because I don't like waiting 75 minutes for a dvd my brother can burn in 5. Thanks!
 
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