DVD Burner Help

[Guest Raye]

Plextor 716A

OK, not sure if anyone is familiar with the technicalities of DVD burning, but just the other day, I attempted to burn a CD-R on my DVD burner and it just didn't work. Now, I've burned a number of CD-Rs on my DVD burner before, but it all of a sudden started acting up. I'm not really sure what's wrong with it, because it burns DVD-Rs and can read them quick enough, but when it comes to any type of CD-R, it's super slow and reading it and refuses to burn anything. I've updated the firmware, but am not really sure where to go from there except for the self-test, which just didn't want to work for some odd reason. If anyone can help me, it'd be greatly appreciated. I really don't want to go through the trouble of returning my burner to the manufacterer since I'm not sure if I'm even eligible for that because I bought mine off eBay. Again, it worked fine since December 2005 and it's only giving me trouble now.

[DaRkViEt73]

you need to be more specific. Did you actually try different brands of CDRs? What program are you using to burn your stuff with? When you say "it just didn't work"... in what way didn't it work? Did it give you an error message? What's the error message say?

Did you install the latest version of Plextools? Did you go into plextools and check the CD options like speedread and stuff like that? Did you enable Silent Mode? Also try changing the read and write speed in plextools under the Silent Mode option. Access time setting should be on fast, of course. And be sure to save the changes to the drive in plextools.

[Guest Raye]

According to Plextor, TDK, the brand I use, is comaptible with my burner. I use Roxio Easy Media Creator. The error reads "seek, synch, atip, or mechanical positioning error."

I'm not sure exactly what the latest version of Plextools there is, but I do have it installed. Silent Mode was not enabled, so should I turn that on?

Again, I never had a problem burning any CD-Rs until just a few days ago... I still find it hard to believe that it just suddenly stopped working properly.

[DaRkViEt73]

try using Nero to burn your things on. Also, you may want to try going into device manager... find the IDE channel your burner is connected to (either primary or secondary) then uninstall it and then click on the option that lets you redetect your plug & play hardware. Your burner SHOULD be using some form of DMA instead of PIO mode in the IDE channel setting. The burning software and also the DMA thingie are both possible causes of that error, believe it or not. Rarely is that error ever caused by your CD laser being unable to focus properly on the media if you're using genuinely supported CD/DVDs. Speaking of genuine CDs...

You should put the disk in, let the light turn green... then open up plextools. Right click on the plextor drive in the upper left corner and hit refresh all (you should always do that whenever you insert a disk and run plextools). Then go to CD/DVD info and make sure your "TDK" branded disks are really made by TDK. You can tell by looking at the Media ID, Manufacture ID and the Product Revision. Check that against some older CDs you've burned and make sure they're actually manufactured by the same factory! If they're different, that could be the cause of your problems as well.

[Guest Raye]

OK, so I uninstalled the burner, redetected it, made sure it was still using DMA, and all of the CDs are made by the same manufacterer. It's not necessarily the burning that gets me (since I have a junky old regular 52X CD-RW stowed away in the closet), but rather, the whole thing about it reading the CD-Rs slow. I have two drives, the Plextor and another DVD-R (read only) and the load time is significantly different between the two. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I installed the Plextor using the cable that was originally shared with the CD burner I replaced it with that may be the source of the problem?

[DaRkViEt73]

well you can certainly try replacing the cable with thinner IDE cable... at least you'll eliminate one potential source of your problem. But I doubt that's the cause. Have you tried the Silent Read option yet? Enable it, set it for maximum read and write speeds. Access to Fast. Go to the Basic tab and make sure the CD Read Speed is set up to max. Go to Advanced tab and make sure CD/DVD Speed Read is enabled. Right click on the plextor drive in plextools then Refresh. Make sure your new settings stay the same.

How long are the loading times? And is this loading time for blanks or burnt stuff?

[Guest Raye]

When I try to enalbe the fastest CD reading speed in the Basic tab, it never can stay at 20-48 X CAV. Whenever I change tabs or refresh, it reverts back to 17-40 X CAV. Is there any way I can save the change manually? I turned on Silent Mode and the load time is pretty fast (under 10 seconds), but when its actually reading certain files, it's still rather slow. Most of the stuff I have burnt are video files, so for example, if I scan through a video, the drive takes almost 15 seconds or more to go from point A to point B. Not only that, but the video feed lags.

[Guest CK92842]

I purchased the 716A a year and a half ago, within 2 months I had to exchange it. I contacted Plextor directly and mentioned the problem, some problem with alignment. I was told to run the self test with a CDR stored on the 716A, having both pins placed on the back of the 716A to see if it passed. To my surprise the test passed and I called Plextor back up and without suggesting...they said we can send you a new drive if you would like. So within a weeks time, I had a new one ready to go. Worked fine since then and I've had no problems. Now as for PlexTools, it's not really needed and I don't use it. So I would say leave the settings at default and you may want to run a memory test using mem86+. A buddy of mine had a problem with his drives and so did I for while due to incompatible or corrupt memory. DVDRs may seem to burn fine and CDRs as well but once you run verification tests on either of them...it'll eventually fail.

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

[DaRkViEt73]

well at this point I'd just call up Plextor and see if you can get the drive exchanged then. If you can't get it exchanged, then I'd at least try to borrow a different brand blank CDR or two from a friend, burn on it and see if the problem goes away.

As far as Plextools, I'd recommend keeping it around. It's useful because some of the advanced features of plextor drives are only accessible thru plextools as you've just seen. It also has the advanced PI/PO error tests, C1/C2 error tests and jitter tests so you can clearly see how well your disks were burned. Also I'm unsure if Roxio's program can do this, but I know Nero cannot burn single files that are larger than 2gb in size. But plextool's ISO mode can burn up to 4.0gb filesizes which is useful if, for instance, you've downloaded HDTV video files which are usually split into large 4gb+ files each. Plextools has its uses.

[Guest Raye]

Thanks for all of your help DaRkViEt73. I'm going to RMA my burner and hopefully get it replaced. I've read on other forums that the PX-716A model does contain a lot of problems such as the one I'm facing. I just hope that the replacement will work for more than a mere six months.

[DaRkViEt73]

that sucks. Well, despite all the problems people have with the drive... if I was upgrading my burner the 716A would still be my #1 choice for myself. Your drive and my 712A are the only drives I'm aware of that can do things like overburn DVDs (I can fit up to 150mb more data on my blanks). Plus I actually have uses for the GigaRec and variRec features from time to time so I'm basically limited to only Plextor drives. Unfortunately Yamaha no longer makes optical drives... their Audio Master feature is very important to me and Plextor is the only current manufacture that has a feature similar to Yamaha's Audio Master. The day that my Yamaha CRW-F1 starts to fail, that'll be a sad day for me indeed.