Replacement Drives for Liteon 5xxx Recorders

It won't work, since media types are stored in the motherboard's firmware.

Update regarding my Sony DRU-820A drive replacing the old one in my Liteon LVW-5005:

Both Fast Forward as well as Fast Rewind work; smoothly in DVD±RWs, but chunkily in DVD±Rs. Reminds me of peanut butter ;-)

After testing it I have discerned that it doesn't record VCD, SVCD, or DVD±R DL.

After trying and failing to record an SVCD, I used the same CD disc to make a music CD. I recorded and finalized the disc but after that, a FAIL message showed up. I played the CD on another player where it played just fine. Strange!!

I indicated in my previous post that this unit had no problems recording to either +R or -R DVDs. What I meant to say is that it could READ these without any problems. However, it seems to have issues RECORDING to -R DVDs but not with +R DVDs. I am referring to Retail Plus 16x discs in both cases.

Apparently, if you partially record a DVD but don't finalize it and then load it in another DVD recorder, this recorder will now see it as blank media and proceed to initialize it. Now, when you reload the DVD into the original recorder where you recorded on it in the first place, you will not be able to record any more content to that disc. Also, you will not be able to finalize it and it will only be playable on this recorder/player. Consequently I have started marking my discs as to which machine I used to record them on. Of course, this only applies to discs that I don't finalize before I eject them for whatever reason.

Well, the 813 in my Accurian 5045 rebadge seems to have given up in the last couple of months. I moved it into the bedroom, hooked it up, and dropped in a disc to test. Invaid disc. Happens with any DVD type I put in (pressed, blank +/-R/RW or an RW previously recorded on the Accurian, or my 5005). Haven't tried a CD yet. I can take the 451 out of my 5005 or try a 411@811, nec 2500, 3520, 3550, or 4550 (Mad Dog), or Pioneer 111D. As long as I can read DVDs and record to +RW, it will be usable since I primarily need the DVD to pull recordings off the HDD.

Not sure why it failed, last time I used the DVD (a couple of months ago, burned some +Rs and +RWs) it was fine. I did record a -RW on it, but it burned +RW media fine and read fine afterwards.

In addition to the list of usable drives, I'd like to see a list of known non-usable drives.

Hopefully I'll have time today to try other drives in it. I'm guessing that at least the 411@811 and the drive from the 5005 will work (I'll make sure it still works in the 5005 before removing it). Were the drives in the recorders of lower quality than the PC drives? I seem to see a lot more reports of failures in the recorders than in PCs.

Just for cross-reference, here's another thread that mentions replacements for LVW-5045 drives.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=197283

Thanks to all the useful information on this forum, I have just replaced a failing drive on my LVW-5026 with a Liteon LH 18A1P drive. This works fine with all recordable media (DVD-r, DVD+r etc.) - it records, plays back and finalises OK, although the ff problem seems to hold here as well. However, although it will read commercial DVDs it will not play them - I have used the multi-region hack but this has not heloped. Has anyone out there had this problem?

Did you put it in your PC and play a commercial DVD before installing it in you recorder? That might be your problem.

Hello everyone,

I am a new member with cdfreaks and I am glad, happy and relief to know there are many Lite-on dvd recorder LVW 5005 owners.

My LVW 5005 is 2 years old and now every time I record a dvd - (minus) type disk after 10-15 minutes, it always gave a message 'write fail' and the whole disk is 'invalid' (unusable). It also gave the same error during 'preparing' or formatting the new blank unformatted disk. However, it can write with all cd-r as a vcd, svcd and audio without any problems, only with minus dvd disk even with TDK disk, it reject writing it.

I read the report from echriste that the Sony DRU-820A worked well for this unit. Unfortunately, when I asked for one, most of the shop here in Brisbane, Australia dont have this drive anymore now but it is now a DRU-830A instead.

Will it work with LVW 5005? Does it need a special firmware upgrade before it is install into the LVW 5005?

Any advise, comments, and suggestions are much appreciated!

Thank you all.

Hi all......very interesting stuff here. My 5005 decided to die a week or so ago. can sometimes record and sometimes erase.

have a 1693s with the ks0b firmware on my pc. am thinking of swapping it.

1. 5005 has the region free, 3hr setting hack already on it.
2. the 1693s has the ltnrpc hack on it to disable the region counter.

once i swap the drive do i need to re-apply any firmware on the 5005, for the region free and 3hr setting? or will it just be fine?

Vince

You should be find. Good Luck its easy to do.

swapped out drive and all is well......so far. the 5 discs that the 5005 couldn't read/recognise last night now all work with the 1693s drive in it.

ff and rw work ok. 3hr record setting still there. checked with reg 1 and 4 original dvd's and played them without any problems.

am just now recording for a coiuple of hours, hopefully all should be good.

Just wondering if I should go out and find another 1693s and swap it out on the other 5005 i've got!!!!!

I would pick it up as a back up for the other recorder. You know it will die.

Thank you very much for your prompt reply DR PAUL.

I look around the shop and also rang most of the shop, but they don't have any Sony DRU-120c. They have Sony DRU-830A - 18x internal dvd burner instead.

Do you think this drive is the same? If it is, then I will buy it, install it as per your advise and instruction and will post and let everyone know here in the forum. Hope it will work.

Thank you DR PAUL

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Last edited by DVBURN; 22-03-2007 at 15:49.

DVBurn,

Sony DRU-120C is also known as Sony DW-G120A, so be sure to ask for that model as well.

It is a rebadged Lite-on SHM-165P6S and worked great for me as a replacement. (See my earlier post #10 in this thread for details.)

guys, need you opinion. the 1693s works gr8 on the 5005. no problems at all - well except for VCD & SVCD....I don't care.

As my previous post I said I'll try and get another 1693s for my other 5005. finding it a bit hard as I think that is an end of life model. So a lot of sotres here Australia do stock it.

I've found these available:
shm-165p6s04c
lh-18a1p186c

these are listed here as "acceptable" replacement drives. But which one would you recommend. I just want the best compatible one that won't giive me problems in the 5005.

Vince

Hi Hleone,

Thank you very much for your advise, attention. Will look around and find the Sony DW-G120A. and read your post no 10. Hope it will work.

To ROTWANG:
I had problems playing "An Inconvenient Truth" with the Region set to ALL (0). Not until I put the Region to (1) using the 2960 hack would it play.
To DENTMAN42:
I tried hooking up an AOpen DVD burner to my 5005 but it would only play discs, not record them.
To DVBURN:
I think you are safe to go with the DRU-830A drive. I doubt you will need a firmware upgrade. Just remember to hook it up to your computer first in order to set the region code as explained previously in this thread.

Hi echriste,

Thank you very much for your attention advise and message, now I have to decide to either buy the Sony DRU-830A or Lite-on LH18-A1P. Unfortunately, there are no Sony DRU 120C (DW-G120A, Liteon Rebadge SHM 165 P6S) available except in the US.

Your post in the above, mentioned that your Sony DRU-820A did not write well with the - (minus) dvd type disk right? I assume that the 'retail plus 16x' - DVD is the brand that you use?

Will keep you and everyone posted with the replacement drive that recommended by everyone here. Pity that both drive couldn't write vcd/svcd, but I will keep searching while I will use the above recommendation drives.

Keep active, healthy and recording everyone.

DVBURN Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. If it was up to me I'd get the Lite-On for a replacement. The Sony is nice but not worth the extra money just to maintain Ahe FF function. There is another Sony that I've been looking at the AW-Q170A. I haven't read where anyone has tried this unit as a replacement but I beleave it will work and the price is about the same as the Lite-On units. Let us all know how you make out.

According to the Sony site, none of their DVD recorder drives, whether DRU-820A or DRU-830A, will write to DVD-R discs. Check out the details here: http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/Di...ers/DVDBurners
However, your experience could be different.

I could have bought the DRU-830A drive but it was twice as expensive ($100) as the DRU-820A drive ($50.)

I use 16x Retail Plus +R discs in this drive with no problems. I use 16x Retail Plus -R discs in my other Liteon DVD recorder which is a DD-A300GX, which I actually like better than the 5005.

Hello everyone,

At last I chose, bought and installed the Liteon LH-18A1P (AU$45) as a replacement drive for LVW 5005 (2 years old) The pros and cons of this drive are all already mentioned, experienced and felt by our friends and members here in the forum. I would like to share and explain of what had happened and also I hope it can be useful for other member or new member who came into this forum and wish to know how to replace and install the above type and model drive replacement drive for LVW 5005.

Firstly, I installed the bare drive straight into the PC, then I download the liteon software that can make the drive region free, also recommended by one of our friends here in the forum. The installation to the PC must be done, because if it doesn't, it will not be able to read or play any commercial dvds (from any region). Once that done, I took it out from the PC, and install it on top of the recorder. You can also install it inside the recorder by removing the old original drive (DDW-813S Sony rebadge drive) The original front face template of LVW 5005 will not fit into the front face of LH-18A1P, but if you are a handyman, you can use a sharp cutter and cut the front face of the LH 18 tray to the exact like the one in the original drive, and the mounting face plate will fit perfectly. For those of you who wish to install it externally, you may have to buy an IDE cable and a power cable splitter because the original cables are short and the lenght was made only from the LVW 5005 mainboard to the DDW-813S drive.
The cable that was used in the LVW 5005 is a normal IDE cable (mainly use for connecting hard disk in the PC) and it has 40 holes on BOTH END. So please be aware because I bought a wrong type of IDE, as the new cable that for sale now in the shops such as Tandy is the new UDMA (Ultra DMA) IDE cable that support 60/100 MHZ and it only has 39 holes in it and in the middle of the socket, the hole is covered. Please don't poke and try make a hole in it because it will not work. The best place to get the normal 40 hole IDE hard disk cable is to go the retail computer shop, even better if you can go into the computer recycle shop as they have stock of this type of cable and mine was free! So I get 2 and pay only $5 for the extra effort that he went to the back and search all the boxes! The power cable spiltter are readily available in most computer shop because it is a standard shape and hardly change.

Finally, when the LVW is turned on, It can 'prepare' all kind of DVD -+(minus,plus) and -+ RW and record well with no more 'write fail' and 'invalid disk' after 15-20 mins that I had before. Yes, as many people said here in the forum, it can not do fast forward (FF) as I press it, and the whole picture freezed and the system hang! last resort is to turn off the power and turn it back on again. It also cannot record VCD/SVCD (using normal cd rom) I didn't try making an audio disk yet. So I thought I will only use the LVW 5005 just for recording dvd and playback the end result in the normal dvd player. I still use both drive (the original DDW-813S) because I still like record into vcd for everyday recording such news/current affairs or programs which are not more than 1 hour duration.

Other than the above limitation, the liteon LH-18A1P work fine and can record any DVD type. I didn't try the double layer dvd yet (DL) . The physical drive is warm when I record for 2 hours. The drive is quite and it didn't spin as fast as the original drive (DDW 813S) Now I can record onto dvd again and will keep searching for any drive that can also record vcd/svcd and keep everyone inform and posted.

Thanks everyone and particularly to DR PAUL, echriste and hleone who gave me alot and useful advise and suggestions!! One thing that I've learned from this experience is, if anyone is having problem with their DVD recorder, such as Liteon LVW 500XX.., then don't even bother to contact the Liteon support or the shop that they bought it from because they offered NO SOLUTION! I would and will tell everyone to join cd freaks in the relevant area and join the forum as they will learn more and it is all worthwhile!

DVBURN Glad to hear you are happy with your replacement drive and thank you for aharing your findings with all of us CDFREAKS. I like this replacement drive better than any of the others that I've tried. Right now Newegg is selling this drive for $30.99 and FREE SHIPPING. They also have some 165 in stock incade anyone is interested.

Hi all

Can someone recommend a replacement drive for my 5055gdl+ as it won't write to any dvd disc.

I have been thinking of trying the liteon DW1670 or Philips/Benq dvd8900 as this has worked on the other 500x and 5045 machines for varios people on this and another forum.

replaced drive (411) with lg 42 drive quite easy and looks the same on front as original but cannot use -r disks . +r and +rw are ok so do i need to do the firmware as liteon or lg .Help

If you need to update the firmware for the LG drive you have to put the drive in your computer to do it. If you have to update the firmware for your DVD recorder just put the update CD in the drive and update as normal. Hope this answered your question.

According to post #100 at http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=220602&page=4 the SHW-160P6S can be cross flashed to SHM-165P6S which can the be cross flashed to Sony DRU-120C to gain fast forward function for any interested. Post #102 of that same thread has link to Sony MYS6 firmware as well as Digi's flash fix.