Please help this idiot!

michael222

First of all sorry for being the ultimate newbie. I stupidly thought "Oh theres a DVD burner i'll buy that....". Anyway its a LiteOn external (USB2) on WinXP HP EasyNote 2500 laptop, Numerous burning software (you name it i've got it), all this sounds great except no matter what i do i cant burn a DVD (Movie or data) the whole system hangs about 50% burn(read light comes on and stays on). I've searched these forums first as i know you get these questions all the time but to no avail and to be honest you guys are far more advance than me and i dont want to flash any eeprom or upgrade driver until i post here first. Anyway ive checked the UDMA (as per thread) setting, there are 2 controllers 1st on udma 5 2nd on udma 2 but as my drive is usb is this applicable? My drive has 411 on the serial label and my media is 4X (came with drive) Even copy and paste using DLA in windows hangs at 50% (exactly the same point each time). I did read a thread that said burn speeds increase while burning 4X to 6x etc and as my media is 4x would this be the problem and if so how do you guys limit that? I also saw the thread for the omnipatcher but what .bin file should i use? Please help because as of this moment i have a $250 black paper weight in my office.

Chicago

Hi Michael,

I must be fortunate - I have a LiteOn external Drive (badged as Freecom) and mine worked out of the box. Had to change firmware once or twice (six to be precise) to get the best burn from Ritek -R media though.

Fistly UDMA is not applicable - as you so rightly say, your drive is not connected to a DMA controller but to a USB so forget that.

Secondly - If your media is x4 then the drive will read this and limit the burn to x4 (you did say you hadn't modded your firmware) no "switch" to throw.

I've read your thread a couple of times and get the impression that you only have one piece of media which came with the drive - is this correct? If this is so then it is safe to assume it's rewritable!

I had trouble, initially, writing to RWs until I found DVDInfoPro - which I now use to format my re-writable disks. DVDInfoPro can be downloaded HERE.

Give this a whirl - format your disk using DVDInfoPro then follow your normal burning routine and get back to us here. One request, talk us through what you do - bit more info would be nice - numerous burning software doesn't help in identifying possible software glitches.

If this does not inprove matters maybe we neet to take a look at the SPTI drivers - to get my drive to work with KProbe have to select SPTI (in KProbe). Not too hot on this - but if your problem persists I ill gladly research. There are others in this forum with far more knowledge than me - perhaps they'll chip in on this.

Stay with it Michael, once you have the machine burning correctly it will give untold rewards - OK lots of movies to watch

__________________
Regards Chicago
Pioneer DVR-115 FW1.18 (for now - looking for 1.13) - Master
BenQ DW1620 FW B7W9 - Slave (all HDs are SATA)
ImgBurn v2.4.3.0
Prassi ONES

Ghosters

i don't know much about laptops, but could it be a power issue ? have you updated your usb drivers for XP ? maybe even try the burner on another system and see what happens

michael222

Hi Pete/ghosters,

Ive got the RW disc that came with the burner and also 15 "Bulkpaq" R+ disc (ive wasted 5 already) and as a test i burned a 450mb mpeg file to the RW disc which burned ok using DLA copy/paste but as it wasnt recognised in my player i tried finalising the RW disc (i thought id be able to undo later), didnt work but it plays on my pc. I have tried using Dup-DVD, Super DVD copy, 1ClickDVDCopy, DVD cloner, Easy DVD copy and didnt get anywhere so at the mo im just trying to copy and paste (Record Now/DLA) from windows any large data 1.5GB + as a test. The drive is self powered so i assume that wouldnt pull a charge from my laptop. Im going to try that DVDinfopro tonight looks good at the mo i format using DLA. Also i dont get any errors from any software or windows when i crash just the system hanging and the drive locked. I would look at my SePTIc drivers if i knew what they where but your right ill try the dvdinfopro first

PS should i get nero v6.3.1.17 or just try to get what i have working first and also should i get different media (memorex)?

Thanks guys.

Ghosters

...SPTI - How do you access the device?
If you're a software developer, wondering how we communicate with the device, it differs depending on what operating system you are running. When run under Windows 2000/XP, we use the "SCSI Pass Through" interface. When run under Windows 98/98SE/Me, we use the "ASPI" interface. Both of these APIs are available in the core operating system, which explains why there are no additional files shipped with this utility. Only a single executable file is needed...

michael222

i have no idea what that meant ghosters but thanks