Possible software problem?

[Crotalus]

I am not sure if I have a hardware problem or a software problem. I believe it may be software for the following reasons.

My current burner a Plextor PX800A is on it’s last leg, it sounds like a bearing going bad so I bought a new Plextor PX-B320SA manufactured January 2010 with the most current firmware. I have set the region code on the new Plextor PX-B320SA. I am using AnyDVD ver. 6.6.30 and CloneDVD2 ver. 2.9.2.7. Machine has Windows XP Professional with most current updates from Microsoft.

Here is the problem. When I try to rip and burn a DVD with the new burner the following occurs.
CloneDVD2 will rip the files to a hard drive without any problems. I have used a local drive and two separate network drives for the temporary files. I have used three separate drives as the source, the PX800A, PX-B320SA, and an old Toshiba SCSI SD-M1401. The Toshiba will only read an original disk. When the burn process starts the display shows writing but the completion bar stays blank with no display. It will run for some time and then stops with the following error.

Writing to Video media was not successful:
Media write error
A write error has occurred, Probably caused by a bad media.
Please replace the media and try again
Error Write DVD 10 11 W2

During this time the drive shows activity and something is written on the entire disk. The activity led on the burner keeps flashing and when I cancel the program I can not remove the disk or purge CloneDVD2 even though the display is gone. Task Manager shows the process and I can not kill the process. The only way to kill the program is to reboot the machine at which time I can eject the disk. I can use Nero, ver 7.10.1.0 and the files saved from the rip as the source and create a good burn on the PX-B320SA without any problems. I can use an original DVD or a copy and play it using PowerDVD with the PX-B320SA as the source without any problems. I have copied data files, JPG and raw photos to a DVD with the PX-B320SA and retrieved them without any problems. I have used blanks that work on the PX800A from several manufactures with the same results. I tried using a DVD-RW thinking that I could reuse it over and over again. I cannot read or delete what is on the disk and it is now a coaster. I use DVD-R as my player that is attached to the TV; a Denon 2910 seems to like them better than the DVD+R. I have not tried a Blu-ray as I do not have any. The old PX800A still works without any problems. I use the copies in the trailer when I travel and have time and want to watch a movie.

Any ideas as to what is occurring?

P.S. I have used speeds at 16x, 12x , and 8x with the same results.

 

[mmdavis]

It sounds like either a conflict between CloneDVD and some other software on your computer for drive access, or your drive does not like your blank media of choice. Can you post an AnyDVD log to check for filters? What blank media are you using?

How to post an Anydvd .zip log file:
a) Ensure Anydvd is running.
b) Put the problematic original movie dvd in your burner. Wait for Anydvd to scan the disc.
c) Right click the red fox icon on your system tray.
d) Select "Create Logfile"
e) Wait for Anydvd to create a log file.
f) A pop-up screen will appear. Take note of the location where Anydvd created the logfile and the logfile's name. Click "OK".
g) Windows Explorer will open, and you will see a zip file called "Anydvd_Info_titleofmydisc.zip" (or something similar; see step f).
h) When replying or posting in the Slysoft forums, look for the icon that looks like (in other words, look for the paperclip after clicking "quote" or when creating a new thread).
i) If you don't see that paperclip icon, click the "go advanced" button. You should see that icon now. Click the paperclip.
j) A small pop-up screen should appear (if it doesn't please ensure your browser is enabled to allow pop-ups from the Slysoft forums).
k) Click the "Browse" button, and locate and select the .zip file you created.
l) Click "Upload".
m) Close the window. When you submit reply, or submit a new thread, the .zip file will be attached automatically for us to take a look at.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

If i'm not mistakin, error you have means that the data stream to the burner was interrupted and/or your burner could not recover from a burn error (underrun). In those post crappy media was usually at fault. They switched to another media like verbatim (best one in existence imo) and the problem never occured again.

What is the media type you're using ?

 

[mmdavis]

What is the media type you're using ?

Hmmmm, I think that's been asked already.

 

[Crotalus]

Thanks for the comments. It will be a day or two before I have time to try one with the log, maybe this weekend. I have used media from the following manufactures, Ritec Corp., CMC Magnetics, Taiyo Yuden Co. LTD and, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp all with the same results. All of them have been DVD-R media except for the coaster I made with a DVD-RW. If the media is bad why do I have no problems burning a disk with Nero? Why does my old PX800A have no problems with CloneDVD2? The old PX800A is a ATA drive and the new PX B320SA is SATA drive with Blu-ray read only. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. This may be a conflict with other programs. Time will tell. My old PX800A sometimes sounds like a car that has a slipping fan belt and that was the reason for a new burner.

 

[Crotalus]

I was able to run another one and get a log file. Not knowing what I am looking for I will submit it for your pleasure.

The Movie I was using was "Queen of Outer Space"
Source drive was "I" Plextor PX-800A
Destination drive was "G" Plextor PX-B320SA, the new drive
Temporary files was on "R" Path \\PROMETHEUS\Movies - UNIX server using samba access

Again when the rip is completed it starts accessing drive "G" and shows on the completion bar "writing". The bar remains blank and the percent complete always shows 0%. Then it gets the error. The disk appears to have written something from the center to almost the outside edge.

The files created on the UNIX server were good. I was able to use Nero to burn the DVD movie and it plays on both of the Plextor drives and on my DVD player, Denon 2910 without any problems. As I stated before it makes no difference what the source drive is or where I place the temporary files or what original DVD I am trying, or what media I am using.

When I try using Windows Explorer to access the disk written on the "G" drive I get the famous;
"Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted, or it could be using a format that is not compatible with Windows".

Here is my system information if it helps
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name ZEUS
System Manufacturer VIAK8T
System Model AWRDACPI
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 39 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~2451 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 5/17/2006
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name ZEUS\Stallard
Time Zone Mountain Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 2.76 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 6.83 GB
Page File D:\pagefile.sys

Hope this helps!

P.S Edit add
Here is the drive information;
Drive H:
Description CD-ROM Drive
Media Loaded No
Media Type CD-ROM
Name TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1401 SCSI CdRom Device
Manufacturer (Standard CD-ROM drives)
Status OK
Transfer Rate Not Available
SCSI Target ID 2
PNP Device ID SCSI\CDROM&VEN_TOSHIBA&PROD_DVD-ROM_SD-M1401&REV_1009\4&17EF5CF3&0&020
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys (5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2108), 61.50 KB (62,976 bytes), 8/4/2004 6:00 AM)

Drive G:
Description CD-ROM Drive
Media Loaded No
Media Type CD-ROM
Name PLEXTOR BDDVDR PX-B320SA SCSI CdRom Device
Manufacturer (Standard CD-ROM drives)
Status OK
Transfer Rate Not Available
SCSI Target ID 0
PNP Device ID SCSI\CDROM&VEN_PLEXTOR&PROD_BDDVDR_PX-B320SA&REV_1.05\4&241F14EF&0&000
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys (5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2108), 61.50 KB (62,976 bytes), 8/4/2004 6:00 AM)

Drive I:
Description CD-ROM Drive
Media Loaded No
Media Type CD-ROM
Name PLEXTOR DVDR PX-800A
Manufacturer (Standard CD-ROM drives)
Status OK
Transfer Rate Not Available
SCSI Target ID 0
PNP Device ID IDE\CDROMPLEXTOR_DVDR___PX-800A__________________1.00____\5&5618291&0&0.0.0
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys (5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2108), 61.50 KB (62,976 bytes), 8/4/2004 6:00 AM)

 

[mmdavis]

You have some packet writing software on your system that is interfering. This filter needs to be removed.

drvmcdb (system32\DRIVERS\drvmcdb.sys), Version: 3.21.66.0 (1.0.0.1)
Company: Sonic Solutions
Copyright: Copyright © Sonic Solutions
Description: Device Driver
FileVersion: 3.21.66a

1. i) Create a backup of your registry: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/?ln=en
2. ii) Download imgburn. It's a free program: http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download
(it's also an excellent program imo)
iii) Go to Tools > Filter Driver Load Order. Select "name_of_filter". Click "Remove Selected Filter". Click "ok".
iv) Reboot

Whatever program installed that filter will no longer work properly

 

[Crotalus]

I did some research on the drvmcdb.sys and this is what I found out. It is part of my backup software from Stomp. Veritas sold the consumer part of their backup software to Stomp and they sold it or was merged into Sonic when it was then dropped. The product still has the Veritas engine as the core.

I use it for backups because it has the best support for tape drives with a SCSI interface including the Quantum drives. I uninstalled the backup software and had to reboot the system to try DvdClone2 again. This time it worked without a problem. I can't believe that anyone would write code that would have a conflict with another program. Bad coding! But then this is Microsoft and not a UNIX system where there is never a conflict if the programs are written correctly. It is not rocket science to recognize the driver is installed and work around it.

If you rename the driver and try it the results will not work because it is still part of the kernel. If you rename the driver and reboot the system, Microsoft in it's wise wisdom will hang on the boot trying to find the driver. You then have to do a recovery and rename the driver back to .sys. A good operating system will try to find the missing piece and then log a warning and continue.

It appears that my options are to delete the backup software and use CloneDVD2 to write to the burner or use CloneDVD2 only to rip the files and use Nero to create the DVD.

I then wondered why my old drive worked without any problems. It was an ATA interface and the new one is a SATA interface. What is the difference? The ATA is used attached to a controller while the SATA is a bus. Serial attached SCSI is a new interface that combines the best of SCSI and SATA into a new new buss. They all use the ATA command set. I wonder if anybody has tried this with Serial attached SCSI.

Thanks for the help.

 

[mmdavis]

You might try moving the filter to a .bak file in the registry and see if your back-up software still works. The file is used for packet writing (drag and drop) so it may or may not be actually needed for it to work.

 

[samlar]

I was getting this error at the start of disk and spent days and a lot of time replacing all the equipment right down to the case. My problem turned out to be trying to burn with zonealarm running. I wasted a lot of disk before I found this out. I have three disktops and I was not only getting it on all three but nero would also fail at the start of the burn. I found that I could stop zonealarm and the burn was fine. There is a large post here on my test and the results. I the last month replace two of the drives with a benq and a lg and found that they both would burn without disabling zonealarm. I still think it is a zonealarm problem but I also opened a ticket with Pioneer since I had been using there drives for all my builds.this is what pioneer told sent me on march 12

Thank you for contacting Pioneer Electronics, Inc.
I have reported your issue to our engineers.
If/when I get a response, I will let you know.

It the old software or equipment problem. But at least pioneer is looking into it. The other thing is that pioneer does not make there drives and so drives using other names could also have this problem. I think ASUS makes there drives. Like I told them I am sure it is a timing problem in there firmware that when you have zonealarm running and go to burn zonealarm delays the burn just long enough to cause the error. This is like the chicken and the egg which one come first. Is it zonealarm problem since I do not know of people using other antivirus having this problem or is pioneer problem since it only happens with there drives. And zonealarm does not make there antivirus Kaspersky which others also sell under there name.

 

[mike20021969]

Hmmmm, I think that's been asked already.

To be fair to ch3vr0n, you didn't ask in bold with a gi-normous font size.
eg:

What blank media are you using?

 

[Crotalus]

I have used media from the following manufactures, Ritec Corp., CMC Magnetics, Taiyo Yuden Co. LTD and, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp all with the same results. All of them have been DVD-R media except for the coaster I made with a DVD-RW.

I have used the above. Sorry I forgot Hitachi under the Maxell brand. All DVD blanks are manufactured by a few companies and brands are put on the blanks. CMC for example produces a lot of house brands like, HP, Magnavox and others.Mitsubishi produces Verbatim. I used DVD Idenifier to find the manufacturer.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

Well wich media were you using when you got that error ? Also did you do as MMDavis asked and remove that packet writing software filter ?

 

[Crotalus]

Ch3vr0n,

All of the above, see the post previous to yours, and see post number 5 for the results of removing the device driver.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

what i ment was, what media type was in the drive at the moment when you had it. The write error is usually an error that the burner had a data stream flow error and could not recover or that it lost track of the laser and could not refocus. You can only have 1 media type in the drive so wich one was it, Ritek ? CMC, TY? MCC ? Verbatim ???

 

[mmdavis]

what i ment was, what media type was in the drive at the moment when you had it. The write error is usually an error that the burner had a data stream flow error and could not recover or that it lost track of the laser and could not refocus. You can only have 1 media type in the drive so wich one was it, Ritek ? CMC, TY? MCC ? Verbatim ???

The write error is because of the filter. While the media may be questionable, it really doesn't matter because it won't work even with Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim as long as the filter is there.

I would like to know though if the back-up software worked with the filter removed or moved to a .bak file.

 

[Crotalus]

If you rename a *.sys file the module will remain in memory. The result is the same as if it was not renamed. If you rename it and reboot, Windows will not boot because it had a previous system file that is no longer there. Blue Screen time! The only way to get Windows to boot is to boot from the original disk and go into recovery mode. Using the DOS commands you have to rename the file back to *.sys. When you reboot Windows will start normally. I deleted the backup software which removed the drvmcdb.sys file because it was no longer needed. After another reboot CloneDVD2 worked fine without any problems. No backup software in the system.

The reason I use this software is because about a year ago my Criterion Collection of "The Virgin Spring" was damaged beyond repair when I had in my trailer. Now I travel with a backup and keep the original home.

I still have no problems with my old ATA Plextor PX-800A even with the backup software installed. Problem started when I added the SATA Plextor PX-B320SA. Problem was caused by conflicting software and a new DVD burner. Very common with Microsoft Windows. Problem ticket closed.