Need a New DVD Drive

[Topcat]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I have a NEC DVDRW, works great. later model plextors are junk, sorry Per.... I went through 3 of them in as many months, they just stop reading for whatever reason. If you want a slot loader, go with Pioneer. I have a pioneer slot DVD ROM, its 4 years old, still works great!

[shadow]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I kind of expect for products to be made by the Company that put their names on them. This is kind of like my car you know. Its says Suzuki on it and it is a 100% Japanese built Suzuki car with a Suzuki engine. Some other people have bought Chevys that are rebadged suzuki cars, or are GM built cars with a Suzuki engine in them, and paid a lot more than I did for the same crap!

I have found Sony burners to be particularly guilty for this sort of behaviour. Sony burners almost always cost more than other burners, yet many are just rebadged units from other companies. I remember when I bought my first DVD burner (which I still have and works fairly well), I ended up buying a Lite-On burner (this was before their burners started to have problems). However for $40 more or so I could of bought a Sony burner, which was just a rebadged version of the Lite-On which I bought!

I am not sure how Lite-On burners are now, I know they had some problems with some later models after the one I bought. However I am not sure whether these problems got rectified and if they make decent burners again.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Did I fix my SONY DRU-800A? I can't believe this but I think I did. I did a basic thing and checked the firmware version of my unit. It was at KYO1. Sony is up to KYO6 for this unit now. Reflashed the thing to KYO6, and I'm burning the living "Heck" out of DVD's again! No Coasters as of yet, and I've burnt three in a row. As soon as I get done here I will go for number four! It running cool too. Thanks to all for the good info and I hope this thing holds. Now I need to go write down all the drives you all said were good ones just in case the SONY craps again. As for me not checking the firmware ver first I also ran the sony drive check test and my drive came out clean and green in all areas.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I have a NEC DVDRW, works great. later model plextors are junk, sorry Per.... I went through 3 of them in as many months, they just stop reading for whatever reason. If you want a slot loader, go with Pioneer. I have a pioneer slot DVD ROM, its 4 years old, still works great!

Ok, thnx for the info, we will see how it goes

What I want is a new slot-in drive, but I've already got a Pioneer DVD-ROM, I want a writer... A black slot in DVD writer, preferably black (else I'll have to paint it)

It would be nice if it was SATA too, but IDE or SCSI also works

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

What I want is a new slot-in drive

i had a pioneer slot in drive. lasted about 2 months what a POS.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I was going to do a firmware update to the other DVD drive too. I don't know who the heck made it now after that search! It looks like its an A-Open, Artec, Ultama VOM-12E48X. The update I found is a DOS mode thing to make it ver.100D. Mine should be at 100A but XP Pro says its 1008. Maybe I should look again. That 8 could be a "B." The real problem is that I'm no Pro at this crap. Just can't figure how to boot this Dos mode thing in or before XP boots! I did just get an idea! If I remove the hard drive from the boot loop wouldn't this let me run this Flash EXE right from a floppy? I'm going to try it! Sometimes I can see a "Format C:\" before I even needed it done....LOL

[Paul S]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

You can make a DOS boot disk, and add your flash program to it. Sometimes, if you run the flash program in widows, it will make the floppy bootable. Weren't there any instructions with it?

To make a DOS boot disk:
1) Insert the floppy into the drive.
2) Open Explorer and right click on the floppy drive icon, select "Format..."
3) Select "Create an MS-DOS startup disk".
4) When it is done formatting, add your program to the disk.
5) Reboot the computer and enter the BIOS. Change the boot order so that the floppy is first.
6) When you restart, DOS should start up. Type in the name of the program you want to run: FLASH.EXE

You actually may be able to do it from the command line, without rebooting. Have you tried that?

[kc8adu]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

dont do it from anything but a clean boot disk.
and make double damm sure you have the right firmware so you dont brick it.

[shadow]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

You can make a DOS boot disk, and add your flash program to it. Sometimes, if you run the flash program in widows, it will make the floppy bootable. Weren't there any instructions with it?

To make a DOS boot disk:
1) Insert the floppy into the drive.
2) Open Explorer and right click on the floppy drive icon, select "Format..."
3) Select "Create an MS-DOS startup disk".
4) When it is done formatting, add your program to the disk.
5) Reboot the computer and enter the BIOS. Change the boot order so that the floppy is first.
6) When you restart, DOS should start up. Type in the name of the program you want to run: FLASH.EXE

You actually may be able to do it from the command line, without rebooting. Have you tried that?

An alternative way if you wish (I think it is a better way) is to download the "Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing" available here and run the application. It will prompt you to insert a floppy disk and it will format it appropriately. Then just follow from steps 4 to 6.

Advantages of using this method is that the bootable floppy is bare. It does not have any Windows crap or additional drivers that may load up by default with a Windows bootable floppy. This also leaves more room for your flash program and firmware file.

[Paul S]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

You can make a DOS boot disk, and add your flash program to it. Sometimes, if you run the flash program in widows, it will make the floppy bootable. Weren't there any instructions with it?

To make a DOS boot disk:
1) Insert the floppy into the drive.
2) Open Explorer and right click on the floppy drive icon, select "Format..."
3) Select "Create an MS-DOS startup disk".
4) When it is done formatting, add your program to the disk.
5) Reboot the computer and enter the BIOS. Change the boot order so that the floppy is first.
6) When you restart, DOS should start up. Type in the name of the program you want to run: FLASH.EXE

You actually may be able to do it from the command line, without rebooting. Have you tried that?

Yes, I should have mentioned to do this at your own risk. It could turn the drive into a useless piece of junk, or as kc8adu says, a brick.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

http://www.bootdisk.com/

Here you can find clean bootdisks, I use drdflash.exe, it's Dr-DOS based but it's still compatible with everything else... ("Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing")

[Junk Parts]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I didn't get any "destructions" with the 100D Flask exe. I did find that I needed a "Loader" to run 100D in XP. I got the Artec 5.2.0.0AFlash Tool. Its neat little progie that runs in windows. All you do is pick the drive to flash, then pick the folder with the flash exe in it and the progie does the rest. Yes I almost bricked it too. My ????Vom-12E48X can't run with the 100D flash. The Flash Tool was good enough that it prompted me with this fact, and wouldn't reflash the unit unless I forced it to. Thats a good thing, and I didn't force it. Now in doing more reading on this drive I found that a few had Sony chip sets in them. The only way I can see to come up with a real ID of this drive is to open the pc and get the FCC ID# from the drive, and go from there. The drive does work with almost no probems so I think I should just leave it alone Mates. The only fault I have with it is that it can't ID some of the newer blank media but it still burns on it fine at 4x. I use the 16X Sony for the movie burning anyway. The Vom-12E48X is the reader. I did learn a few good things. I can force this PC to boot from any device in the boot loop. On the next boot it will ask me if it should boot this way again or go back to a normal boot. Maybe this will allow me to load my
bought, and paid for OTC copy of XP pro corp with Sp2. This PC doesn't like that copy for some reason. Right now I have to load the old ver with SP1 then add SP2. We also learned that the ???VOM-12E48X is a POS in some ways but it works. There is no such thing as "support" from Artec, Altima, whoever. I think Artec should farm out their support page to Badcaps. We could just tell everybody, "No you can't do that" then charge them money.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Got that Plextor PX-810SA

It's really a rebranded Pioneer DVR-212, I posted some pics on cdfreaks: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=224142

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

rebranded? yuk i hope they put some fancy firmware

[bgavin]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

So far, Pioneer is giving me by far the best/longest service, and Memorex is pure merde. I've seen three Memorex drives go south... died young. Much too young.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Yea, I only have one Pioneer drive but it's really old. I think over 5 years now

Still reads all discs with no problem, scratched and all...

The Plextor uses it's own firmware, however it might just be that it has it's own name, I have not bothered with trying to download it and compare with the real Pioneer firmwares... Pioneer seems to release many new firmwares for the drive so it does look well supported... I would recommend you the Pioneer drive, it is half the price of the "Plextor" too

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Plextor PX-716 bit the dust. forgot the error it was making, something like power calibration. cleaned the lens with methanol, it made one burn and then the next one same error. so i switched power supplies between computers. same shit. whatever.

i was going to get another liteon LH-20A1H but got a samsung SH-S202N

[acstech]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I think you'll like the Samsung. I've always had good luck with 'em.

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

yes i did. i have burnt quite a few dvds now, hope the longevity is good.

i got the external SE-S204 as well, for service use and also to use with the hp notebook (prefer to give its internal drive an easy life and also dont like the typical low quality burns of internal notebook drives.

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

well i am not happy at all with this internal samsung. it needs a coroner