Strange read problem with my Plextor PX-716A

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers Plextor Writer
#1

First off, if this is the wrong forum for this thread, forgive me.

Here’s the situation. I was out of the country for four months. Before I left I had no problems at all with the burner. Now that I am back, it won’t recognize most of my media (that all worked previously.) All my burned DVD’s are not being read. A select few of them will struggle to get to the title screen, and freeze shortly after. All the ones that are raw data will read and work fine.

Now, here’s the weird part. Before bothering to install the burner on my other box or do a clean wipe, I decided to burn a movie I had sitting around. Sure enough, it was a sucessful burn, and the burner reads and plays it like there was no problem at all.

The behavior of the DVD’s that aren’t being read is puzzling. There are no error lights whatsoever, the amber light just stays on as if in a never ending attempt at reading. If I right click on the DVD D: icon in My Computer, it will freeze. Plextools will freeze. WMP 10 will freeze. Nero’s little diagnostic program will detect there being 4 gigs of data on it.

I’m running Windows XP on an Intel. I’ve read the FAQ and searched the web high and low. I did update the drivers for the 716A, but the problems persisted. My only thoughts on the matter are A) The windows update was the first thing I did after firing up the computer…Perhaps this did something to cause conflict? B) My Ridata 8X DVD-R’s are junk (which doesn’t make sense to me, because my data dvd’s still read and operate fine and were burned around the same time…and everything I’ve burned since I’ve been back works fine.) Oh yeah, these Ridata’s are all off the same spool I bought in April.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

#2

Hi unbroken and Welcome to CDF. I am going to stick my neck out and venture to guess that you have a bad batch of Ritek media which is becomming more and more common lately. Do you have another burner that you can do a quality scan with? Why it would read a data DVD and not a burned DVD is puzzling.:confused: There are numerous theads in the Blank media forum about Ritek Media degradation after a few months. Could be your drive also but I would certainly try a different media.:slight_smile:

#3

A corrupted batch of discs is what I feared the most. But why would my raw data DVD’s still read and function correctly, but none of the video?

< sarcasm>
What’s the point of DVD burners when a hard drive that would last at least 2 years, in the long run, be cheaper than copying your DVD’s every 2-3 months
< /sarcasm>

#4

Good thread! Which Riteks are the trouble? I have some g05s and RICO003!

#5

etp,

There’s one thread <a href=“http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=145871” target="_blank">here</a> and another one <a href=“http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=143715” target="_blank">here</a>.

The threads seem to indicate that it’s both -R G05s and +R Ritek R03s. However, there are some other variables to consider - some people either live in warm & humid climates, and some don’t take care of their discs very well. Also, there does indeed seem to be a wide variation in Ritek quality.

I have used Memorex-branded Ritek R03s for the past year, and I posted a comparison between a scan done almost a year ago, and one of the same disc done recently in the <a href=“http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?p=1091458#post1091458” target="_blank">Post your Plextor DVD quality scans here</a> thread.

My experience has been that there has been no degradation whatsoever, but you should run your own tests to account for your own local variables.

#6

I’m assuming the discs that DVD Decrypter cant salvage are done for?

#7

unbroken,

before assuming your media is bad, have you tried it in other drives?

I have a 716a which was working fine and sometime in the last month has decided to stop reading video DVDs but reads data DVDs fine. It also will burn video DVDs but not read them, yet they can be read fine by set top boxes.

At first I thought it would just sit forever with the amber light on when I inserted a video DVD. Then I decided to wait it out and after many minutes it gives up and give s blink code (2 amber blinks) which according to Plextors site means it failed to autofocus on the media on insertion and either the media is bad or the drive. Sicne i know my media is good (Starwar pressed DVD) I assume my burner is toast.

I also don’t understand why it will read data disks and not video disks…

Frank