Burning issues. No idea what is up.

[pentium]

I have a NEC ND-2500A DVD burner (which can also support burning dual layer dvds with a firmware flash) and I was burning some images (that were made using MagicISO) I made today when things went funky.
I first burned a cd full of pdf files and photos and it burned fine. I then did a dvd full of avi video clips and it too burned fine too (even plays on my PS3).
Then I proceeded to burn several more dvds that were full of just videos and while the burn was successful and I can see that teh disc has been burned, no drive (or the PS3) I own can read it. The drive just spins up and down and eventually stops and tells me that there is no disc in the drive.
I can't further test either as I am completely out of blank DVDs now.
What would something like this be associated with? The drive has worked trouble free ever since I bought it last spring.

[jpdoe]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

Possible causes

- dirty or worn out laser head
- underpowered or worn out ATX PSU
- bad batch of DVD blanks
- incompatible dvd blanks (some DVD recorders are picky regarding blanks)

[i4004]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

it seems that some models don't like too many burns in succesion...
(where "too many" can be few...hehe)

so try letting it cool for a short time, and burn at 4x....

offcourse, it's also good idea to get another burner....

[gdement]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

I agree with i4004 - overheating is a possibility.
My brother had this happen with his laptop about 6 months ago. He was burning several DVDs in succession, then it started getting really slow. Even after it cooled off it didn't get any better. He had to replace the drive.

I haven't seen this happen with a desktop drive, but I wouldn't be surprised. I suspect that consumer drives aren't designed for much of a duty cycle. The designers probably assume they'll have time to rest between burns.

Some drives have a small fan on the back of them. They seem too small to do anything, but apparently heat must be an issue or they wouldn't be there.

[Scenic]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

I have a NEC ND-2500A DVD burner

i've had exactly the same drive.
burned 3 discs in a row some day... first one was ok, 2nd one had slight reading problems... 3rd one completely unreadable (allthough i had no problems burning it (no error messages or something)).
since the 3rd disc, the drive doesnt recognize any disc anymore.. no CDs and no DVDs... dead.

went over to LG and never had any problems since then..

Some drives have a small fan on the back of them. They seem too small to do anything, but apparently heat must be an issue or they wouldn't be there.

i've only seen this on Pioneer drives (DVD burners) until now..

[pentium]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

You want me to buy another burner? I got this one just to replace another one I have. You can't be serious.
Well I have absolutely no idea what is up until I get a new spindle of dvds so in the mean time, please give a recommended "cool down" time for the drive between burns.

[jpdoe]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

After losing a CDRW drive a couple of years ago, I started thinking possible reasons. I left the PC on most of the day, and summers down here are quite hot. So I bought an used full tower case, which happens to have two 8cm fans situated over the PSU. That is, viewed from the back it looks like this:

top of the case
--------------
FAN FAN

PSU

M
O
T
H
E
R
B
O
A
R
D
---------------

So I decided to create an airflow around my brand new DVD recorder. The case has six 5 1/4 bays, situated from top to middle of the case. I left the upper four ones empty, but covered with their plastic plates. I put the DVD drive on the fifth one, and left the one in the bottom (in the middle of the case) empty, but uncovered (with its plastic plate removed). There's a metal sheet dividing the case in two: upper side for 5 1/4 devices and bottom side for motherboard and hard disks. Leaving the bottom 5 1/4 drive bay open, the fans on the upper back of the case take air from the opening below the dvd drive, creating an air flow that mantains the drive cool all the time.

[pentium]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

My case is pretty well ventilated and the POS plexiglass panel on the side has long since been removed. Shoot, right now the drive is cool to the touch.

[i4004]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

>You want me to buy another burner? I got this one just to replace another one I have. You can't be serious.
Well I have absolutely no idea what is up until I get a new spindle of dvds so in the mean time, please give a recommended "cool down" time for the drive between burns.

dunno...try 1hr, 30min 20min....
i have such lite-on burner, and i'm not using it that much because of the reasons i stated.
when i do use it and burn at 4x, it's ok.
i don't do successive burns on it at all.

about buying? come on, are burners really that expensive?
buy lg and use that one as backup.
you probably have a free ide or sata place on mobo.
you cannot possibly be that cheap.
(i primarilly bought lite-on to be able to do media (ie burn) quality scans, and for that it's still ok....)

[pentium]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

you probably have a free ide or sata place on mobo.
you cannot possibly be that cheap.
(i primarilly bought lite-on to be able to do media (ie burn) quality scans, and for that it's still ok....)

Nope, all my IDE and SATA ports are taken. All that is left is scsi.
I do have a Benq external USB dvd burner however even after I resoldered the rear power connector (the joint was cold), any bumps and the thing loses power until I jiggle the cord again.

[gdement]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

A slower burn speed might help, but I've never really used the higher speeds so I don't know what difference it makes. I've always burned at 4x just because I don't care about going any faster, and I figure higher speeds just beat up the drive and might not burn as accurately. I hate hearing an optical drive spin at insane speeds.

i've only seen this [fan] on Pioneer drives (DVD burners) until now..

I've seen it on a Pioneer (my current drive) and also a Plextor CDRW.

The fan was one of the differences between the SCSI and ATA versions of a Plextor 12X CDRW I bought a few years ago. I was disgusted with problems on my prior burner so I bought the expensive one (foolishly perhaps). The SCSI version had a fan, better version of burnproof, and a larger buffer. All things apparently intended to make it more robust than the ATA version, and indeed it's always worked perfect but being CD-only makes it not so useful nowadays.

Nope, all my IDE and SATA ports are taken. All that is left is scsi.

Not sure if they make SCSI burners anymore, but if they do they're probably built better just because they're not seen as consumer products.

[kc8adu]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

looks like the laser has worn out.
they have a limited lifespan which is why i wont use lightscribe.
why waste its short life?

[pentium]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

*sigh*
Well it is looking more like I will need to get a new drive then (even though I got this one pretty much brand new)

[i4004]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

worn out laser?
well, yeah, i have a feeling they're using industrial byproducts(junk that can't pass quality control) to make many of these....

[zandrax]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

@ Pentium: did your burning app show hardware errors like "Power calibration error" and such? If it does, the laser is dead because calibration errors are due to a too weak laser or a bad batch of blanc media; if successfully burned dvds were from the same batch, the dead laser due to overheating seems the most plausible explanation. Since it's abviously out of warranty, buy a new drive: desktop ones are so cheap (around 20 euro here, $25-30 or less) and you can keep the Nec as a dvd player (reading uses only a small fraction of the laser power) on another machine.

Another advice: use always good media from reputable manifacturers because cheap ones requires a stronger beam to be burned (so wear the laser quicklier than good ones) and are unreliable (they last from months to barely some days instead of years). I write manifacturers and not brands because brands may change suppliers: good manifacturers are Tayo Yuden, Ritek (in past sold under the Ridata brand), Mitsubishi Chemical (some Verbaitm) and a few others.

Zandrax

[pentium]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

I have never had an error pop up with this drive. It's been absolutely flawless up until this (then again I rarely burned stuff) and has already successfully burned another two spindles of dvds (Don't ask). My last spindle was Maxell.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

Heat issue is in the laser itself.
Not the entire drive.
Laser beam -> Hot

.

[pentium]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

Hmmm. I would of expected the laser assembly would be built to last a little longer than a few months.



Wait, what am I thinking?
This is 2008. Quantity sold is now better than quality of product.

[linuxguru]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

Swap the drive to a system with a known good PSU with ample power on +5v and +12v rails and check again. I'll second the recommendation of an LG DVD burner - I've never had a coaster due to a bad burn on an LG. Media that works well on LGs is just about everything, but I've had very good results with Imation (probably Moser-Baer OEM), Moser-Baer Pro, and TDK (probably CMC Magnetics). Everything plays back flawlessly on DVD players as well.

Sony (Liteon) as well as Samsung DVD burners have overheated when doing full-speed burns in quick succession, after which they drop back to 1x or 2x, which is irritating as hell. LG drops back to 8x even after occasionally overheating, which I can live with.

[pentium]

Re: Burning issues. No idea what is up.

I have never done a full speed burn and speaking of LG drives, I have never liked them.
The last two were horrible as one would coaster every disc I tried to burn and the other would burn every odd disc but they were both CD-RW drives.