Help, Pioneer A04 problems !

[JonRead]

Hey everyone,

I just got a AO4 burner and I have found that everytime I try to burn a DVD I get an error "failed to write to disc" every time at around a quarter of the DVD. Even with Buffer Underrun set and at 1x. I am fed up with wasting my discs, I tried different media and it happens with all of them. I have only used Ulead DVD Workshop 1.2 as the burning software, so I am unsure if it happens in other burning software, I am too "scared" to try as I don't want to waste more discs. I have a couple left so I am posting here before I ruin them with pointless trial and error attempts.

I read in the FAQ to try and change it to PIO as DMA can cause problems. I checked with Nero Drive Info and it says DMA is on and it also says "x1" as max writing, I thought it was x2 max ? Anyway it shows I have DMA enabled, so how do I turn it off ? I know how to turn it off for the whole ribbon, but I have another CD drive attached to the ribbon so I don't want to turn DMA off that. Or do I have to ? Is there any way to just turn DMA off on the Pioneer drive ?

Also does anyone else get my error message ? I am unsure if it is the drive that is faulty, or if it is a common error. When burning a 3gb DVD in Workshop it gets to around 15 or 20 percent and then gives me the error message.

Any help would be much appreciated. I use Firmware V1.20 and I don't multi-task when burning.

Jon

[gooki]

A few tips.

1) Get yourself a good DVD-RW disc (verbatim's are nice) so you can stop wasting your precious DVD-R ones.

2) Get your hands on PRIMO DVD or use DVDDcrypter to to some test burns.

Also what brand of media are you using as that may impact your ability to write good DVD's.

[Commander XJL]

To turn off DMA, go to device manager, IDE/ATAPI Controllers, you'll see how to do it from there. And do like gooki says, ALWAYS use a DVD-RW for testing, and try another burning app

[sarahjh69]

bang on gooki

I only use dvd-rw now
datasafe dvd-rw and white label dvd-rw
also seem to be very reliable......and only 89p each


don't use winXP for burning.....its garbage
try win98 or winME
I use winME...completely stable and no writing problems

[Commander XJL]

sarahjh69


you don't run XP at all? Or do you do duel boot?

[alexnoe]

Also does anyone else get my error message ? I am unsure if it is the drive that is faulty, or if it is a common error.I get "communication failure" when DMA is on.and it also says "x1" as max writing, I thought it was x2 max ? That is answered in the FAQ, although not clearly stated. I'll make it more clear there.
Nero shows only 1x speed if you have inserted media which is only 1x compatible.