DVR 112D and CD burning problems. Possibly interesting info.

HI. I had an interesting experience with my 112D having CD-R burning problems a few days ago.

I had several CD-Rs to burn and my DVR 112D suddenly started playing up. Basically it coastered 3 out of 4 CD-R's, even though I dropped the burn speed to 16x after the first coaster. I was using media that has also been up til now flawless and after the first two coasters I changed media type (and rebooted computer) but still got another coaster immediately on the next burn.

Essentially the burns would proceed normally up to about 5% or 10% and then fail, resulting in a coaster. Unfortunately I didn't save the log files because I was busy at the time and quite frustrated with the untimely failure. I didn't have time to be messed about with this so I didn't investigate very thoroughly. I hastily swapped the 112D for my old LG H10 and got back to work (and had no further problems).

The Drive is Feb2007 and the firmware is 1.21 official (never been crossflashed), software is Nero6 (6.3.1.15), UDMA-4 is working correctly, no Nvidia drivers involved and up until that day it had been burning flawlessly.

Well here's the interesting part of the story. I had given up the drive for dead but today I put it back into my older (backup) computer just for a final test. Hmmm, now it's buring CD-R's again but I don't know what's changed. Both computer are 100% stable, and the original computer is working fine with the LG drive, so I don’t see how it's a computer problem. One thing that's slightly different is that this backup computer is running Nero6 Express 6.3.1.17 (the main computer had Nero6 full 6.3.1.15). When I get time I might try the 112D back in my main computer and update the burning software to the same version of Nero express.

Of course the other thing that it might be is just plain old dumb luck. Three coasters out of 4 attempts is not really that conclusive. I might have just been really unlucky with the media that day (or really lucky with the 4 or 5 burns and no coasters that I've just made with the 112D now in the backup computer). Like I said before I would have liked to investigate it more but was too busy and frustrated with it letting me down to waste any more time or media on it at the time. Hopefully I'll get some answers when I get the time to test it again in the original computer.

BTW. Note that I'm onlt talking about CD-R's here, the drive has never yet failed on any DVD+/-R burns.

@ uart,

It should be noted that you using very old versions of Nero.

In seeing that the Pioneer DVR-112D is very new Burner it is possible and probable that Nero´s internal drive database for the old and outdated Nero versions 6.3.1.15/6.3.1.17 lacks the correct info on the Pioneer DVR-112D.

Suggest visiting the Nero Web Site and obtain the newest most current up to date version of Nero. Until you use current up to date versions of Software your observations concerning Pioneer DVR 112D and CD burning problems is highly suspect.

Regards,
bjkg

Yeah I'm not exactly sure of the date of 6.3.1.15/17, but it the latest version of Nero6 is 6.3.1.25. Bare in mind that the drive was working perfectly with this version of Nero up until a few days ago.

Guys, I don't think the software is at fault, if Nero couldn't see the drive it wouldn't let you burn. Please have the drive replaced, I suspect its only going to cost you more time and CD's later. Its not unknown for this fault to be a little intermittent. Don't trust it!

No way, latest Nero 6 version is 6.6.x.x.

The Nero 6 "Reloaded" Edition is currently at version 6.6.x.x but the standard version of Nero 6 is only 6.3.125.

BTW: I've got a paid licence for Nero6 but I wasn't exactly sure about the whole "reloaded" bit. Is that like a totally new version that will require me to purchase a new licence or will my existing Nero6 licence/serial still work with the "reloaded" version?

Here the update. I didn't try to have the drive replaced because it's still working and also would be a little bit of a hassle to return. (Reason : I have two 112D's and I've swapped the bezel’s. Long story but the first one I bought was for my father and the beige one I got didn’t really suit his tower that well. So later when I bought another for my computer I got a black one and swapped the bezels instead of swapping the whole drives).

Anyway the interesting thing is that the burner still seems to be running strong in the older computer. I had another small bunch of CD-R to burn today so I did them on the old computer just to test the pioneer and it had no problems.