Replaced drive - now it's all VERY flakey

[wrongsideof40]

Hi folks - I posted this to Clone DVD forum but I think it sits better here...

After a year or so of buring flawlessly, I changed the DVD RW drive, as I want to burn + and - media (the old drive was + only).

So I try a few test burns - the first is on a +R Memorex disc. It gets to about 30% and then comes up with something like "DVD9 error, probably bad media". So then I try a TDK +RW rewritable. Perfect! Then I try a Tesco (cheap) -R disc. Perfect again. Then I try a Sony -R and the Clone refuses to recognise that there's a disc loaded! Tried another Memorex. Same as 1st. Finally, tried a TDK -R. It never really got started then kicked out the disc with DVD9 error again.

Even on PLAYBACK things aren't good. A shop-bought DVD plays mostly OK but jumps a few frames at random every couple of minutes. It won't even load a TDK DVD I recorded on the previous drive.

What's going on here. Is this a faulty drive? If so, why did it burn the RW and cheap disc but nothing else. I kinda promised my bro that I'd burn some photos for him so any help very much appreciated.

The drive is a Sony AW-G170AB2 but when I go to the Sony website for firmware, there's no such beast.

But my gut feeling is that if it's not even playing DVDs properly. it's a fault with the drive.

Martin

 

[TPLAT]

Try some better media like Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden and reduce your burn speed to half the medias rated burn speed, for example if using 16X media try selecting 8X burn speed and if using 8X media try selecting 4X burn speed. If successfull with either one of those two brands of media at a reduced burn speed you can slowly bump it up in burn speed, but I dont normaly burn at max burn speed. From what I have seen is that TDK is now also using CMC Magnetics for some of their 16X -R & 16X +R media which isnt that good of media, Memorex also uses quite a bit of CMC Magnetics for their media and so do alot of other name brands of media made in Taiwan except for Verbatim.