Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

[Wannabe Actuary]

Approximately two weeks ago I installed the Lite-On DVDRW SOHW-1673S, along with the Lite-On DVD SOHD-16P9S in my computer system (P4, 2.4Ghz, 2 GB DDR Ram, etc...). Everything worked great until tonight. I put a blank CD-R in my drive to make a music CD and the autoplay detected the blank media and I opened nero and made a disc. Wanting to make another disc, I closed all my applications when the first process was done and inserted a new blank CD-R. However, the drive starts to spin, but then stops.

I tried 5 other CD-Rs, from two different packages, and none were detected. I put an audio CD in the DVD-RW drive and that wasn't detected either. Media player said the drive was empty. When I placed that in the DVD-ROM drive, it was detected and played in my media player.

At this point, through the device manager I uninstalled the drive and restarted the computer, letting it redetect the drive (including another restart to finish the install). The drive still didn't spin. At this point I visited the Lite-On website and updated the firmware to the Feb. 2005 version (JS02). After the necessary restarts, the drive still does not spin when any disc is put in the drive.

However, it reads movies burnt on DVD+Rs and reads DVDs fine.

What steps should I follow next?

[wayout44]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

Is the drive the master of the IDE channel it's on? If it's not then make is so or even if it already is then uninstall the IDE controller that it's installed on and reboot. If the problem persists then consider RMA'ing the drive.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

Is the drive the master of the IDE channel it's on? If it's not then make is so or even if it already is then uninstall the IDE controller that it's installed on and reboot. If the problem persists then consider RMA'ing the drive.

Yes the drive is the master on the secondary IDE channel. I'll try uninstalling the IDE controller.

Thanks for the idea.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

Doesn't appear to have worked. I also made sure that my hard drives were on the primary IDE channel and my disk drives were on the secondary channel.


I'm still awaiting a response from their tech support email. But before I RMA it, any other ideas?

[Wannabe Actuary]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

PS - not only does it read DVDs and movies on DVD+Rs, it also reads my blank DVD+Rs fine and copies movies in the typical time it takes me with buffering to my hard drive.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

I found an update of the firmware to JS05 and that didn't help either.

Any other ideas? Otherwise it's RMA time.

[DigitalDD]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

Do you have any applications that use their own packet writing drivers installed? BlindWrite for one will install its own packet writing drivers when you install the app, i've had lots of weird things happen when i use blindwrite and i accidentally install the Patin Couffin drivers after i insert one cd/dvd the next one i insert the drive doesn't spin up. some other CD/DVD apps use their own drivers which cause similar issues.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

Do you have any applications that use their own packet writing drivers installed? BlindWrite for one will install its own packet writing drivers when you install the app, i've had lots of weird things happen when i use blindwrite and i accidentally install the Patin Couffin drivers after i insert one cd/dvd the next one i insert the drive doesn't spin up. some other CD/DVD apps use their own drivers which cause similar issues.

I'm gonna guess that since I have no idea about any of what you're saying (in terms of other applications) that my answer would be no.

I have only used Nero for burning since I installed this drive. Prior to getting the DVD burner, I used Roxio Easy CD creator (which I uninstalled prior to putting Nero on) with my old CD writer, which I gave away.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

The RMA was approved and I ripped 9 more movies tonight. I'll mail it out tomorrow and hopefully the replacement will work in all ways.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

new drive came today with the JS05 firmware on it. Read the audio cd no problem. Back to burning movies tomorrow.

[maximus7001]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

I have had this exact thing happen with a hp dvd400i(philips). They replaced it once and it happened to the new one a week later. This time they sent a dvd420i(nec2500a), seems to be working fine but only time will tell.

This was not the drive in my sig which has worked perfect for 13 months so far.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Re: Strange behavior from DVDRW drive

I've burned a few CDs lately, everything is still working fine...knock on wood