Help with DVD burner..

[shawn stonbraker 2]

Man, it just isn't my night. Here is the problem. I have a HP computer, 200GB Hard Drive, 1 GB memory, DVD burner and DVD ROM. I burn alot of DVD's and it's always taken about 15-20 min to burn one. Now it's taking 45 min to not doing it at all. I can use the DVD ROM to put the movie onto my hard drive and it will take on average 8 min. to do. But to get it onto a disk from the hard drive took me 45 min. It will "error" if I try to burn at 16x (but not always, more times than not though) and 4x takes forever. Is it my burner or could there be something else I need to check? I have burnt quite a few CD's and DVD's. (I'm being modest, it's quite ALOT of them actually) So I'm leaning toward it being a problem that the burner is worn out, but want to make sure I have all my bases covered before spending the money on a new one. Thanks for the help.

 

[James FreemanJr]

It takes ALOT of burning to burn out a dvd laser (unless you got a lemon) my old burner probably burned over 5000 disc's within 6yrs and i was still burning good before I replaced it with a faster/better burner. Check for firmware upgrades and also did you change anything about the pc anytime soon? hardwar or software? try uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling it.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

I don't have a disk for the burner. It came with the computer and of course, HP doesn't put crap like that in the box. Is there another way of updating the drivers?



Nothing really changed on the computer. Haven't done any hardware changes or software changes. I don't usually dink around with the mechanics of it. Anything I should look for? Is there a way to check the "priority" of the burner?

 

[user 62851]

somethings i found that help out greatly is first, get a dvd eye cleaner disk. some might say it doesnt help, but it has for me. another thing to do, say like after every 20 dvds burnt. you should analyze the drive, and defrag the drive if needed. also you should check for errors on the check disc in the tools tab in the properties for the drive. another one is to compress the drive when needed. oh yeah, 1 last thing i found out when burning to make things super fast was to upgrade my puter's main hard drive, and add another hard drive, use the main drive for all the puter's needs. use the other drive for only the dvd burner. when i used to use just my 80 gig hard drive, it would take 1hr plus per dvd. i upgraded now to a newer 80 gig for the main and 160 for the dvd burner. now it takes about 20mins to do the whole process, of burning to the hard drive and back to dvd. not sure which programs you use for your burning needs, but i use Ripit4me, dvd decrypter and dvd shrink, and then it just jumps to nero and does the burning its self.



the stats on my puter is HP P4 1.5 gig memory, 2 x 80 gig hard drive and 1 x 160 gig. i burn alot of dvds....

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

Thanks shvdnlayd. I use DVDFab decrypter, DVD Shrink, and Nero. Most of my work is just doing copies of ones that my buddy has already copied. (He's a member of Blockbuster OL) I usually just burn disk to disk (DVD ROM to DVD Burner) It would take about 20 min to do that since I didn't have it go to the harddrive at all. Now it's about 45 min avarage per disk. How do you "defrag", analyze, and compress the drive? I really do appreciate the advice you two.



Also, I actually have two hard-drives for a total of 200GB. One is just for a system back-up. It's a smaller drive than the main one.

 

[James FreemanJr]

Disk to Disk burning is never a good thing cause it causes the laser to burn out faster (if this is your problem) causing it to spin up and down to read and write the disk (that puts alot of stress on the laser) where as your H/D is always dong this anyway without having to use a laser that will burn out. Always copy the disk to h/d to copy and burn your disk.

 

[Don Pertz]

The burn speed is drastically different on dvd-rw and dvd+rw. If you have switched to a different style this could explain your speed problem.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

Nope. Still use DVD+RW. My DVD player won't do DVD-RW's. Another thing I failed to mention, this is also true with recording my CD-R's. It takes almost 25 min to record a CD at 40x. That's not normal.:wacko:

 

[George C]

Stone,

I would think that your dvd drive or drives have been switched from DMA to PIO. This would have a huge impact on performance. This is what you need to do.

-Go to device manager (right click my computer, left click properties, hardware tab, device mgr)

-Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers section

-Look at the properties of the channel your drive is attached to and check to make sure the current transfer mode is DMA. If it is not remove the IDE channel and reboot the computer.



Windows will automatically reinstall the channel on reboot. Then repeat the steps to make sure it is DMA. If it is not, then change it do DMA and you should be good.



Disclaimer: I am not responsibe if following these directions causes your computer to crash



George

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

George, like I'd take your advice!!! Just kidding. I did those steps and have no clue were the "Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers section" is. When I go into my device mgr, I get a list that looks like this:



Computer

Disk Drives

Display Adaptors

DVD/CDROM Drives

Human Interface Devices

IEEE 1284.4 compatable printers

IEEE 1284.4 devices

IEEE 1394 Bus Control Hosts

Imaging Devices

Keyboards

Mice and other pointing devices

Modems

Monitors

Network adaptors

Ports (COM and LPT)

Processors

Sound Video and Game controllers

storage volumes

System devices

universal Serial Bus controllers

Unknown



When I expand the DVD drives all it does is open the properties and I've looked there and can't find anything.:wacko:

 

[George C]

That's weird. Are you running Vista? Check under the storage volumes and try to expand that (click the +). If it's not there expand them all until you find one that shows IDE channel or SATA or Serial ATA.



George

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

Thanks George. No, I'm using XP SP2. I'll look at it when I get home tonight. I'll post what I find. Thanks for the help.

 

[user 62851]

yeah George, that is very weird, im using xp sp2 and mine is there just like you said it would be. and yes it is quicker to burn from disc to drive back to disc than straight through the process.



stonemiser, i know you might not wanna do this, but i think with the problems, its bout time to upgrade the dvd burner to something after market than the oem junk.



im just using a memorex DL 16x. i think i got it for like 40 bucks at best buy.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

shvdnlayd, I'm pointing that way anyway I think. I had to do that on my old computer when the OEM crapped out on me. How does the Memorex? I seen those at Staples here for around $45. What would be a good buy? Thanks.

 

[TomT]

Stonemiser. Samsung makes decent burners. Here's one for $31.99 from newegg. No tax, free shipping. Has good reviews. I'm thinking of getting one to upgrade my old 12x burner and get the lightscribe.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

TomT, I saw those on e-bay. (Just looked there to see brands and what they are going for) I have a lightscribe burner on mine right now and it's nice for when I take pictures at people's weddings and burn the pics to a disk, I put a pic of them together on the disk. Sony doesn't have a lightscibe burner, so I may check into this Samsung. Thanks.



TomT, have you bought from "newegg.com" before? Just wanted to know how thier sevice was. That's a good price.

 

[TomT]

I have bought many things from Newegg. They are fantastic. I usually receive my stuff within 3 or 4 days after ordering from them. Grab it while they still are offering free shipping. They don't always offer that.





Oops. Just checked the site again. Now shipping is $5.64. Damn. I should have grabbed it earlier today.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

I went ahead and bought one. Thanks for the heads-up and the link TomT.

 

[TomT]

Let me know how you like it. I'm still considering getting one. The one I have is still working fine so I'm not in any hurry. Would like to get one with lightscribe eventually.