TSST TS-L532a problem@burning SOLVED!

Summary: I had a gateway technical suport guy remotely fix my computer through a software. He just deleted a entry in the registry{WARNING: Editing your registry could destroy your system. TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK} at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. (He did it so quickly that i wasnt able to catch the entry). I asked him what it was and he told me it was a type of filter entry.



Okay i had similar problems with the TSST TS l532a dvd-burner that i have read in this forums. I have burned around 200-300 dvds/cds and my success rate was 98% (2% failure was due to poor media or using my memory resources to do other stuff) before. Nero (Oem version 6.6.x.x) was my only dvd burning software.

Recently my successrate went downhill. Nero stops at 4% to 30% and returns an error:

After the error i get random 5 second hardlocks and my dvd drive is locked.

Tried using (wasting -_-) different brands of dvds and it still didnt burn successfully (but i was able to burn a whole dvd with a 25% successrate). I was also thinking that it might be the drivers and firmware. I upgraded my t151 firmware to the xi94 firmware which resulted to a 0% success rate (actually 9/9 failures). Burning with different speeds didnt work (tried 8x 4x and 2.4x). So i found a demo version of nero 7 and tried it-- didnt work. I reverted back to my oem nero 6 after. I have a 100 pack nexxtech dvd+r spindle and burned around 60 successfully before the problem occured so the brand of dvd wasnt really a big deal.

I also read about starforce (cd/dvd protection thing) ruining optical drives. I found starforce on my system and removed it using the provided cleaner. IT IS UNCLEAR THAT STARFORCE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE PROBLEM, but my burning successrate went down after i installed one of their protected games. I just wrote this down because i remember after i installed the game i had to burn some files to get more HD space, and i had to burn the files 2-4 times.

So tonight, just before the day i decided to buy a external DVD burner, i contacted Gateway technical support. I was kinda asking for the orginal/update ti51 firmware but instead the representative did what i wrote in the summary above.

I appologize i cant really be more specific to how the representative fixed my laptop, but im hoping that people having problems could use this post a reference. Again, my problem could be different than yours so please be careful before attempting to fix the registry entry. This article i found googling the registry keys above directs how its done:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320553

As of right now, I still have to make sure if the problem i had wont return (i mentioned i still had a chance of burning successfully with the problem) and probably the fix was just coincidental.

I think i spoke too soon.. the same illegal disc error comes up, sometimes hardlocking my system. The windows burning wizard doesnt work either (doesnt recognize teh writable media) unless i disable then re-enable the "Enable CD Recording on this drive" (Rightclick/properties/Recording). Success rate so far is 50% (8x 40%, 4x 60%). I notice that the burn will fail if the DVD burner doesnt get a buffer count. But if that happens the dvd can be burned again. Sometimes it fails around 20% and well the dvd is a coaster by that time.

This drive sucks... i wonder how it broke... starforce?