No Media Detected Problem

[lifshend]

I have been using my LG GSA 4116B burner since May and was problem free until a few months ago.

The drive no longer reads discs as being present. When inserting a disc into the drive, no action is taken while my other drive reads the CDs just fine and automatically takes action. Also, when I try to burn with ImgBurn/DVD decryptor, the drive will search for media, but always has the message "No Media Present."

I am using Taiyo Yuden DVD-R8X and these are the same discs I have been using the whole time! I am running Windows XP SP2 and I have a Dell Dimension 8200 with a Pentium 4 2.26GHz with 1GB of RAM.

I have tried everything I can think of to fix this to no avail. I have switched the master and slave positions, rolled back the drivers, tried a new spindle of discs (both same Taiyo and also Memorex DL DVD+R), and tried even testing with normal CDRs (FujiFilm 80 mins 700MB), reinstalled the drive and none of these have helped.

This forum helped me when I began using the drive back in May (http://forum.digital-digest.com/show...765#post396765) and I am hoping that one of you can help me now!!

The only changes I have made to my computer the last few months are installing Nortan AntiVirus 2007, SpyBot and Ad-Aware. Thanks guys!

[soup]

Did you try disabling Norton & when you installed Spybot, did you activate teatimer? It really sounds like the problem I was having with my Lg 4163B & I never even had it a year, yet blu & Chewy have had theirs for years. I have had that no media present a couple of times with this LG but I just eject the tray & put it back in & it has solved that. Maybe one of the pros will come along with some more ideas.

[Chewy]

It unusual for one drive to read cd's and the other not unless the drive is going out

since it's a dell I would probably just test each drive seperately, jumpered cable select

or even test the drive in another computer

might just be dead

anyways I wouldn't too much time on it since new drives with good firmware support are so cheap

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827151133

[lifshend]

I did try disabling Norton when I run ImgBurn but no changes. What is teatimer with SpyBot? Is that a setting I can change once it's been installed?

[lifshend]

It unusual for one drive to read cd's and the other not unless the drive is going out

since it's a dell I would probably just test each drive seperately, jumpered cable select

or even test the drive in another computer

might just be dead

Yea, my other drive is just a DVD player and still reads CDs and DVDs fine. Unfortunately, it is not a burner and so I still cannot burn the DVD once its been copied to my CPU. How can I test the drives?? Both of these drives are connected to my secondary IDE chanel (my hard drive is on the primary). I have tried flip flopping between which is the master and slave, but it doesnt make a difference.

[Chewy]

unhook the other drive and hook the dvd burner up to the same connections and see if it reads, if it doesn't you have eliminated cabling and the drive is dead, might try a cleaner disk

[lifshend]

If I have to get a new drive, are most of them now capable of bitsetting? I was able to do that to my current drive and it made things a lot easier.

[Chewy]

liteon, lg, and samsung do
pioneer and nec no

[lifshend]

I tried switching the cables and slots that the drives were in and it made no difference. Sounds like my drive is just dead?? I bought it in April/May so I am a bit surprised. Do all of the Samsung models have the ability to bitset? Even that cheaper model that is in the link above? If its a matter of $30 for a decent burner, than I guess its not a huge deal.

[gonwk]

Hi folks,

@ Lifshend

1) if Chewy suggested the "Samsung" ... he must know something ... and just because it is $30 or less DOES NOT mean that it is a bad or cheap drive ... I bought my BenQ for that price and it is the BEST ... unfortuantely BenQ's are no longer available ... so ...

2) Nothing against Chewy or Soup LG burner ... but I would STAY AWAY form LG burners ... they are moody and for some reason lousy burner (my experience anyway) ... friend of mine has an external LG Burner GSA something ... might be 2166 ... anyway, it RUINS the burns and when I scan his burned DVD with CD-Speed ... it show BAD Sectors after the burn ... so ... you decide.

G!

[lifshend]

I purchased the model from the link that Chewy provided (thanks buddy). Hopefully my problems with burning are over. Thanks for your help.

[src2206]

Go for LITE ON Super AllWrite model. If you like you can get a LightScribe too to print labels on LightScribe enabled discs. I bought few months back after extensive research and found this one rated most highly.
Thoug all other burners are of good quality, I would prefer to stay away from Samsung as well as LG.