Optiarc 7170A having problems reading DVDs

Mitek

Hi, everyone!

I recently got an Optiarc burner that replaced an old Lite-On which I used quite extensively. Problem is the Optiarc won't recognize most (but not all) DVDs burned with the Lite-On. All such DVDs are easily recognizable by several other drives I put them in (including that of an IBM Thinkpad laptop). The media is mostly Verbatim DVD-R, but there are also some TDK DVD-R. Below are the outputs of Nero CD-DVD Speed for a disk that is unrecognized, and for a one that is recognized. Anyone has any idea what could be wrong - and whether there's anything to do about it? Any more info I can provide that will help solve this problem?

I tried searching the forum for answers, but apparently this is not a common issue - the only question distantly related to this one remained unanswered.

Thanks in advance!

bevills1

See http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=209168 which is just 1 of many threads I've seen for NEC drives not reading burned -R media.

Mitek

Thanks! Booting into safe mode helped with some of the disks, though not all of them. I guess I will be (finally) reinstalling that XP.

bevills1

Reinstalling XP likely won't help as it didn't for Win2k for me. If problem is rooted in XP and 2k as I suspect, solution will be to stick to +R media, get another brand burner or try Vista, Win98 or Linux. Installing Win98 and XP dual boot could be a solution as was Win98 and 2k for me if you happen to have Win98, and then boot to Win98 when -R reading is needed.

Mitek

Actually, reinstalling Windows XP helped in a limited way - some of the DVDs that were previously unreadable are recognized now. But it is in no way a definite solution. Neither is dual boot. I am quite surprised though to find such a popular combination as burned DVD-R, NEC burner and XP not to work together. I would guess this is not a new problem. Strange...