LG DVD Burner Problem

[alanho1937]

I have a 3 month old LG GSA 4040B DVD burner on my Athlon 1800 computer which has worked flawlessly using the LG supplied driver and software until last week - but it is now giving me constant problems.

When I use my back-up software to take a data back-up (5,600 files total 3.5 Gb) on either DVD-RAM or DVD-RW media the process sometimes stops with the error message

"Cannot create or replace [file name] : Data error (cyclic redundancy check)"

Exactly the same thing happens if I drag and drop the files using Windows Explorer.

This occurs randomly. I cannot attribute it to a particular file or the time elapsed copying or a particular disc (my TDK DVD-RAM and DVD-RW discs have always worked fine until recently and a re-format and chkdsk carried out on them revealed no problems). Copying to CD-RW, DVD-R and CD-R media would appear to work OK.

To try and rectify the problem I have carried out the following actions - rechecking the copy performance at each stage - but without curing the problem.

1. Used Windows XP home retore to get back to a known good point

2. Used device manager to reinstall the DVD burner

3. Downloaded the latest LG firmware

4. Reinstalled all LG software

5. Formatted hard drive, fresh install of Windows XP and all my software followed by downloading and installing all Micosoft and other vendors updates and patches.

6. Carried out a full virus scan of all drives using McAfee (with latest DAT files)

7. Repeated actions 2 to 4 after the Windows reinstall.

After doing all the above, the problem remains – anyone have any ideas on other things I might try ?

[nwg]

Are they new discs? A CRC error usually means a dirty/scratched disc and cannot be read/written to.

I have never had the error with my LG burner. I also have the orginal firmware and have no need to update it.

[sfheath]

I think I'd suspect the media .. or mebbe time for a lens clean? .. heck! you've covered most everything else!

[alanho1937]

I bought a new DVD-RAM disc to check out whether it is my existing media - but got the same result.

I can do a full back-up from my C: drive to a D:drive (being a second hard drive) without problems - so it eliminates the source data as a possible problem.

I can copy files to the DVD drive in small batches - generally without a problem. If the copy process fails, then I can re-copy that file and carry on copying batches until the DVD-RAM is full. The disc can then be read without a problem.

Regarding a lens clean - how do you do that ?

[sfheath]

Various sources of lens cleaning CD's, TDK I think, PCWorld, Memorex .. just check out a hifi or computer shop. They come in two varieties, dry and wet. I use a dry one. It has a short brush on it and plays like a music CD, asking you to move forward to track # for a particular language which moves the lens across the spinning brush.
Let us know how you get on?

[alanho1937]

I went to PC World today and bought a Mutimedia Laser Lens Cleaner.

Tried it out whith great anticipation - but found that it has made no difference - the back-up processs was again aborted with the cyclic redundany message after running for about one hour.

I am now convinced it is a hardware problem and will contact LG Support.