sata burner problem

[t0m]

my system has been giving me trouble since i got it. im on my second rma of this 680i motherboard and its still broken. i originally got a sata dvd burner with it, and its never worked. i always thought it was because of my motherboard, and just burned my discs in my other pc. today, my other burner died (green light blinks forever, eject button doesnt work etc). i pulled the sata burner out of my 680i system and put it in the other pc to burn a disc and it did the same thing it was doing in my 680i system. ill attach a picture to illustrate the problem. every disc i have tried to burn with this burner looks like this no matter what pc the burner is plugged in to. anyone have any ideas/seen a disc look like this before?

[AkG]

Hmm, that looks like a Memmorex DVD...which are usually made by Ritek (check the packaging IF it says "Made in Tiawan" its either ritek to optodisc. If it says "made in India" its made my mosser bauer.) To find out exactly who made the DVD download DVD ID DVD Identifier - Your DVD, HD DVD & Blu-ray Companion and it will tell you what it is. The best is MCC (mitsubishi chem corp) and or TY (taiyo yuden)...look for Made In Japan on the label when you buy dif media.

What speed are you buring the media at? To me when I see that either you burned it faster than it can really be burned at OR your system was unable to keep up with the data demand. I would guess the first is more likely as for the past few years Ritek media has sucked (R03/4 were very good for their day...R05 is crap). Just because something say 16X does NOT mean you have to burn at that speed, rather that is the MAX speed that is supported...under perfect conditions. Sometime slower speed burn faster as the burner doesn't have to slow down as much due high error rates.

[t0m]

every single disc i have tried to burn on this burner looks like this, no matter what brand. admittedly, all of them could be from the same plant (thats a bit of a stretch though), i have tried verbatim, maxell and memorex as well as generic 'staples brand' discs (among others). i burned this at 2.4x...i have been using burners since they first came out and im a firm believer in the slowest setting =)

[AkG]

yeah....hate to tell you this but all those "brands" are ritek. Verbatium used to use MCC but changed awhile back...same for Maxell. TY, MB, Optodisc, MAMA, Ritek, CMC, MCC are the main suppliers for 99% of the discs out there. with ritek or CMC being used in probably 4 out 5 budget brands (guesstimate only).

What burner are you using, you mentioned sata? 2.4x is an oddball speed (and as funny as it sounds may not be fully supported by your burner). Also are you using the nforce drivers for sata? Many moons ago many people found that sata burner + nforce drivers = terrible burns (long shot on this one but you never know).

You could try burning a test burn using nero cd dvd speed to see exactly what is happening during a burn : Nero CD-DVD Speed website

Is your burner in PIO or DMA mode? PIO would cause crap results.

Other than that i'm out of ideas....sorry can't be anymore help than that.

[t0m]

any idea what retail brands are most likely to use mcc or ty media? that disc in the pic above was the last from a 25 pack that was burning flawlessly in my other pc...until that burner died =(

the burner is a lh-20a1l05c. ill try a speed other than 2.4x. i have been using that out of habit since my first dvd burner for some reason. im pretty sure im using the nvidia sata drivers, all the motherboard drivers were were packaged in one installer(lan, chipset, usb etc). the other pc is using a via pci sata controller card (with the via non-raid drivers installed) and giving identical results though.

ill try that nero test out today.

not sure about pio or dma mode. i went to check in the bios and the only place it was mentioned was under the ide controller options, and all i could do was change master/slave to 'auto' "pio mode 1-4' or 'disable'. there was no way to see/change what a specific drive was set to. plus it was for the ide controller which i dont have anything plugged into...so would it make any difference to sata devices?

thanks for all your help so far. ill report back later after i try a different speed and that nero test (and pick up some more discs).

[AkG]

If you want to buy 50 at a time the best place is blankmedia.ca. They'll cost you about 45 cents each and are located here in ontario so shipping is CHEAP.

Lieton 20X....yeah 4x is the minimum it will burn at (or is it 6x? I can't remember). Honestly, when you get KNOWN GOOD media you will probably get best results @12 - 16X (some perfer 18X, others 20X) when using TY T03 16X media. For the newer burners I like to drop down one speed from their rating...burn 3 discs...burn the 4th and check it for error rates. Then bump back up to the rated max repeat the procedure...then bump up again and see what that particular burner prefer speed wise.

Though I only use TY's so I don't worry about crappy media not being good at their rated speed, with Ritek/CMC MAG/Optodisc/Moser Bauer crap all bets are OFF when it comes to speed and slower is usually better ;)

[t0m]

ok i did the discspeed create disc test and it burned another disc like in the pic above. i also tried burning one at 4x and 6x...which both failed to complete (using imgburn). all the other bad discs i have tried finished burning, but were improperly burned. not sure what to do now aside from getting out the old 'magic hammer' and trying to 'fix' my burner that way =)

ill check out blankmedia.ca for my next disc purchase for sure.

thanks =)

[enaberif]

Only discs I buy are Ridata for CD-R and Taiyo Yudens for DVD

[t0m]

update - cd-dcd speed create test made another disc like in the above picture. not sure whats up with that burner but so far it has never burned a good disc in the whole time i have had it. i should note that all the discs i have tried so far are dual layer. maybe i should try a regular dvd or a cd? i barely use regular dvds any more though...

in another strange twist, the burner in my other pc (which was giving me blinking lights/no eject) seems to work fine on my 680i system...it was the only thing i hadnt tried yet (putting that burner into a different pc) but it occurred to me that the burner might not be broken, but that something could be wrong in the other pc. i pulled it out and its fine in my 680i system...its funny because i thought the motherboard in my 680i system was to blame for the sata burner not working (since that mobo is still giving me other problems). so at least i can get back to burning stuff for now. what a weird situation though, i have 3 pcs with burners and over the last few days i re-arranged all of them and can only find one combination that actually works.

also, i had a quick look around blankmedia.ca and couldnt find any dual layer discs by mcc or ty. do i need to look harder or is it a different situation for dual layer discs?

[AkG]

Verbatium is about the best DL on the market right now. They usually are MCC, though they can be made in Dif factories using MCC "ink" and quality control stds...usually ;)