Pioneer A05 - Are they known to die?

**harryb** · 3rd January 2005

hey guys my pioneer a05 has died on me, it can burn cds although they cant be read by anything :coffee:

and it cant burn dvds either its just... dead...

it powers up and it can be opened with its eject button but god knows why it did this

if any of you need me to do anything so you can get a better idea whats wrong with it, just ask cus i DONT wanna have to shell out on a new burner

this one cost me �200 back in the day :|

**-=tc=-** · 3rd January 2005

Yep they sure do die like that ive had 105,106 die on me like that

**MaxP** · 3rd January 2005

they seem to do that.
had a couple of pioneers that whould just refuse to burn disks and spit em out.
try the same disk over and over and it would decide its going to work...

most odd...

as for paying "�200 back in the day"
you will be suitable gutted to know that u can now get 16x +/- Dual layer burners for a tad over 30 nicker.
bloody youngsters

bloody youngsters dont know how easy they have it do they Harry ?
i recall (in Sepia) hoofing all the way to north london to pay the best part of �200 for an 8x plexywriter when they first came out.

**andyinlondon** · 3rd January 2005

you might try flashing the bios on it m8.

had a sony that was playing up like that and a bios flash fixed it.

go to the pioneer webside and d/l the latest bios update got to be worth a try.

**harryb** · 3rd January 2005

ill flash it now and see how it goes

**harryb** · 3rd January 2005

ok well it reads burnt cd-r... installed a game from it and its ok
it can rad dvd movies now... ill find a dvd-r and see if it reads those

and ill try and burn a dvd too

fingers crossed n all that

**harryb** · 3rd January 2005

it kept whirrin up like it was about to burn then u heard a little warped noise from the laser again and again and again

it was tryin its ass off to burn

nero says it was a power calibration error... how do i sort that then?

**harryb** · 3rd January 2005

strangely.... i DOWNGRADED my firmware to version 1.00
no power calibration errors yet but it's making me burn my 4x disc at 1x

back to 1 HOUR burn times... eurgh
ill try upgrading to one version above it... version 1.21... hopefully that's ok too

it seems 1.30 and 1.33 are a bit picky or have maybe blacklisted a lot of media n ****ed up my drive in the process

on 13% so it's definitely progress and shows my drive still works... thank **** i was gonna buy a new one tommorow

this is where i got my downgrade bios util
http://www.dvd-recordable.org/Downlo...ad-sid-2.phtml
im on 1.00 but ill try 1.21 after this burn

**andyinlondon** · 3rd January 2005

Good news m8 at least it is working again

**andyinlondon** · 3rd January 2005

another thing to try is changing the ide settings to run at PIO mode instead of dma for this drive.

this is a slower mode as everything has to go through the processor but it does seem to overcome some calibration errors.

i have found this fixes some errors in the past.

(for xp) you can change the settings in control panel/system/hardware/device manager/ide controllers/then the pioneer/advanced settings/enable dma or PIO

**harryb** · 3rd January 2005

gonna try upping the firmware version to 1.21 now, hope it's ok

**harryb** · 3rd January 2005

ok i really gotta get some high quality discs as it seems that small files are fine running from the disc but divx movies etc couple hundred mb files make the pc grind alot with explorer going through the roof on cpu usage

they are princo discs ill get some better stuff tommorow when i go to pickup my vga silencer for my radeon 9800 pro as it seems now i upgraded to v1.21 i can burn at x2 and i have the option to burn at 4 but th epioneer gives an error... which can only mean SHITE DISCS

**harryb** · 5th January 2005

i got new media, imation dvd-r's ... 4 speed
they work great in the xbox, in the pc... in everything

but i have a problem... i select 4 speed on nero... but the discs take like 45 minutes when it should be about 15

it even has the countdown as 15 mins on nero... but then its only on abou 30%
how do i sort this bastard of an error guys

**ZX7R** · 5th January 2005

every pioneer dvdr burner I've had has eventually died on me (same symptoms you describe). Says it burns images successfuly but fails to read them. Also started to see write-errors with mine.

**harryb** · 5th January 2005

I fixed the disc readability.... all discs run perfect... just cant get it to burn at 4... it says its burning at 4 but it takes 45 mins to complete the discs

**andyinlondon** · 6th January 2005

Have a look for some other firmware for it m8. i remember there was loads out there last year for the pioneers, mainly to get them to recognise the cheaper media and burn it at 4x
you might find one to fix your burner. got it reading ok again so far.