DVD Writer

[mark1984]

Hi Guys,
I replaced my old DVD re-writer about a month ago after it packed up and now it seems my new one has aswell, its recording very slow and often dud dvds, Its a pioneer 110D with the newest firmware, I've recorded quite a few dvds but surely its supposed to last longer then a month can anyone suggest how I can tell if it is my DVD rewriter for sure...this has really pissed me off, it was burning at 8x (its max) fine until earlier today...
I'm watching it record now and its suppose to be recording at 8 speed and normally records a dvd in under 9 minutes but now its 88% done and its at 13 minutes?
Can anyone suggest a better dvd recorder?
Also can anyone suggest a better program for recording/authoring dvds (VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS folders) I'm currently using TMPGEnc DVD Author
Many thanks
Mark

EDIT: I think I've come to the conclusion that its infact my newest hard drive,which is a Seagate Barracuda 8mb cache 300GB SATA, I've had it about 3 weeks and now it keeps saying everything is corrupt when it does a scan disk at start up and also it takes 30 minutes to transfer 4gb to another hard drive where as it use to take 4 minutes...

Can you guys tell me if a hard disk has lots of corruptions and bad sectors will formatting it cure the problem and make it like new or will I need to exchange the drive for a new one?

[~G~]

Just a quick question but have you tried different media?...often alot of problems with dvd's turn out to be bad media...

I have 3 Pioneer 110's myself and have no trouble with any of them..

Regards

~G~

[mark1984]

Hi mate, thanks for the reply, I've just edited my post, I've used the same media for nearly 6 months and never had a problem...

But I now think its my hard drive, please read above...

[~G~]

If im not mistaken im sure PT will correct me but if a harddrive contains bad sectors a format marks them as unusable but for what a new drive will cost is it really worth the compromise?

Regards

~G~

[b!lly]

u can select to recover and repair bad sectors when u do error check

[mark1984]

@b!lly, windows xp does the error checking its self on startup, do you know how I can do it through command prompt or is there another program I can get that can repair bad sectors???

If I cant repair the bad sectors will the hard disk run fine after the format or should I send it back for a new one...surely a new disk drive shouldn't get bad sectors after a month, should it???

[b!lly]

@b!lly, windows xp does the error checking its self on startup, do you know how I can do it through command prompt or is there another program I can get that can repair bad sectors???

If I cant repair the bad sectors will the hard disk run fine after the format or should I send it back for a new one...surely a new disk drive shouldn't get bad sectors after a month, should it???

yes i know but did u select to repair and recover bad sectors

[mark1984]

Yeah I ticked both the boxes mate, it said it was repairing them but I think all the files started getting corrupted, do you know how files become corrupt?

[b!lly]

Windows XP works very hard to maintain the integrity of the system files on your machine. If you try to replace one of the "protected" files, you may get an informative message that the operating system has put the old, approved, version back. Not all files are under system file protection, and even for those that are, there are ways around it. Occasionally system files become corrupt.

Enter the SFC, the System File Checker.

SFC is a good utility to run when you suspect that system files have been somehow corrupted. It validates the digital signatures of all of the Windows system files, and restores any that it finds are incorrect. It will use the on-disk cache, if possible, but SFC may require that you provide your original installation CD or a location with an image thereof. (See this prior article about not having an installation CD on some of the alternatives if that's the case.)

To run the system file checker, press Start, Run, and then type in SFC followed by its options.

The most common usage of SFC is this:

SFC /scannow

This causes SFC to scan your system immediately. SFC can take a few minutes to run. As I said above, have your installation CD or equivalent available in case SFC needs to replace a damaged file.

While it's not documented anywhere, if SFC replaces any system files, I'd reboot. I just like to make absolutely certain that the file replacement actually takes effect.

The Microsoft knowledgebase includes more detailed SFC documentation including more options to check at boot time, control the size of the system file protection cache and so on. Speaking of which, the knowledgebase also includes System File Protection documentation, covering the mechanism Windows XP uses to keep your system files safe automatically.

[mark1984]

Thanks for that mate but the hard drive thats playing up is J: drive and not my main operating system...I've formatted it and tried to copy a 5GB file across to it but it says its going to take 30 mins and thats between to SATA so surely the hard drive much be f****d, or is there something else I can do to fix the hard drive via XP or a downloaded program?

Do you think the SFC will help with J: drive, when I formatted I changed the letter to F: and changed all DVD and CD drive to letters following on from F:, I haven't restarted since the changing all the drive letters or formatting, could this cause any problems? (I didnt restart as I left it formatting over night and only went back to it for 5 minutes to see if it would copy files to it a normal speed)...

[mark1984]

Well I tried SFC and it kept asking me for the windows xp disk even though it was in the cd drive, so in the end I done a repair of windows xp pro where it installs over the top of the old one and it f**ked up and wouldn't boot, just got the BSOD, so I ended up having to format windows hard drive as well, so if this doesn't sort out why the other hard drive is running slow then I don't know, I'll just have to return it under the warrenty....

I've even been on the Seagate website and downloaded the diagnostics program and that doesn't tell me anything just that its completed the test, helpful!