Hl-dt-st Dvd-ram Gsa-h20l Won't Read Dvd+rw Or Dvd-r!!! Why??? Solution???

Back again with some new information. I haven't had the time to install my drives in another PC, but by uninstalling some programs that usually read from the drives -rebooting more than once on occasion- I discovered that my SONY was working normally again. LG still has the same problem though - can't load TDK DVD+RW and SONY DVD-Rs but can read all CDs. Does this information help ? If yes...I would really appreciate a reply, otherwise I'll post again when I have worked upon this issue on another PC. Thanks in advance!!!

Alright!!! I Installed my LG drive on another PC and it seems to be working perfectly...So what's wrong? Can't seem to understand the concept of the problem...If anyone can help me online I would reallly appreciate it...Thanks in advance

Hello Elmo, got your PM

If clearing some software sorted out the Sony drive, and the LG works perfectly on another PC, then there's definitely something on your PC that's causing the problem.

If something is easily fixed, I don't often recommend a full OS reinstall, but in this case I can't work out what software might be causing the problem. So I'd suggest a reinstall of the OS, and adding one program at a time til you find the one that's stopping your LG from working properly.

Not quite the solution I was after, so if anyone else can jump in with a better suggestion, feel free

Without sitting at Elmo's pc it will be hard to figure this out

Exactly

Unfortunately i have aproximately the same problem as Elmo....My Lg DVD-RW stops reading dvd-s that were written with it. But there is a thing i don't understant. This problem occurs only with DVD+R and DVD+R DL. I tried your advices posted to elmo but nothing happend. I reinstalled my OS about 3 times since the problems appeared. I have another DVD drive (it's a MSI DVD-ROM) that reads DVD+R perfectly. I cannot fint a solution and i don't have money to change the device..........Can anyone help me??? Please!

First of all thanks guys for replying...I really aprecciate it. And even though we couldn't find the solution for this specific problem I learned a lot of info on how I should deal with similar problems...so I guess this thread didn't go to waste. Once again thank you for your effort and time.

I figured it out.

I had a WIN2K3 server with an LG drive in it that was working perfectly. I wanted to put in a new HD and reload WIN2K3 server to build a new domain, keeping the old drive intact (so I could revert if need be.) Loaded WIN2K3 on the new drive and it read the CD fine, but once WIN2K3 started, I got the symptoms described here.

Goolging lead to this thread.

Both the primary hard drive (device 0) and the DVDRAM drive (device 1) are on the Primary IDE channel. I had already tried switching between the old and new drives as device 0 on channel 1 and the DVDRAM would work with the old drive.

Reading about the DMA settings gave me a clue - the new drive must allow some feature that the old drive did not. Using a USB thumb drive, I installed SP1 and SP2 so that both images would be alike. Sure enough, the old drive's DMA settings differed significantly from the new.

All I had to do was turn off DMA on for Device 1 (DVD RAM drive) [I set it to PIO only] and everything worked perfectly from there on out. I left the DMA settings on Device 0 (the new hard drive) alone - didn't change them at all.

So, the solution is in the Primary IDE Channel settings of the Device Manager.

I hope it works for every one else.

I'm trying it out immediatelly. You have no idea how long it's been since I last used my LG drive and DVD-Rs. I appreciate you posting this last messsage. Thanks a lot.

Hope it works for me too.

Hmmm....

setting a DVD burner to PIO is not a good idea at all
Have you already tried another IDE cable (preferably a 80 wired 18in (46cm) flat ribbon cable)?
The LG should be master, the Sony slave drive on the same cable, don't pair an optical drive with a HDD if possible.

Michael