Hi
I'm having trouble burning standard DVDs on my Sony Vaio VGN AR11S running Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005 (Service Pack 3). This model has a Matshita BD-MLT UJ210S DVD/CD drive with Blu-Ray capabilities. I am wanting to backup some of my hard drive data to a DVD – creating a data DVD.
The recording of CDs and CD RWs on this drive and laptop are fine without any problems whichever CD burning software I use. I have successful CD creations 100% of the time. I only have trouble with burning to standard DVDs for data, video or any form of DVD! I have a 0% success rate in creating DVDs.
I am unable to write any data (or very little) to any DVD that I try and use on this drive and laptop. I have used Nero 6, Roxio Creator 10 and other CD/DVD burning software and all of them report errors and I am unable to complete (or even start sometimes) to a burning of a DVD. The software (and DVD drive) is able to write the lead-in and a bit of data for the initial checking, after that the laptop freezes momentarily and an error appears on the screen saying that it cannot write to the DVD media. The DVD media pops out of the DVD drive.
These errors are along the lines of “Power Calibration Error”, “PMA error”, “Burning of DVD not possible”, “Error in burning to DVD” and sometimes no error messages at all depending if I use Nero 6, Roxio or any other software.
The DVD drive seems to work fine, I have trailed the internet looking for some solutions to this problem. I have seen that the DVD drive is working fine for reading, there are no obstructions to the mechanisms and the laser and drive is clean. Like I said earlier on, writing to a CD is fine with no troubles or errors every time. It’s just that every time I attempt to write to a DVD, I end up with a coaster!
I have tried many ways of attempting to “fix” this problem but to no avail. I am now stuck on what to do. I have tried using different brands of DVD +R and –R even +RW, -RW – Sony, TDK, Verbatim, Imation, Philips. All of these DVDs from the brands I use end up as coasters! I’ve updated all my drivers for the computer to the latest editions, updated the firmware to the latest available for my DVD drive. I’ve updated the software for Nero and Roxio. I’ve updated the whole computer practically through Vaio update and Microsoft Windows Update! I’ve even tried to follow an instruction to “fix” the “Power Calibration Error” in Nero by disabling the IMAPI CD Burning COM Service – this didn’t work.
I’ve even tried a Full System Recovery on my laptop in a last attempt and reinstalled everything from scratch with the latest versions of everything that I can think of (software and hardware). I have checked laptop hard drives for errors using CHKDSK, scanned for viruses and no problems there have been reported. I have tried defragmenting the hard drives using Diskeeper 8 Professional and also using Windows Defragmenter prior to burning data to a DVD from my hard drive. I have tried exiting all applications running in the background on my laptop while DVD burning is underway.
The problem still exists.
I am suspecting that this is more of a hardware problem rather than a software problem or media problem as I have tried (detailed above) to update all my software and rule anything else out. I have tried to use an external DVD writer drive to create DVDs. This does actually work and I can create fully working DVD discs, I am using an Iomega Super DVD drive connected to a USB2.0 port on my laptop. Although this is a clumber some work-around, it does work but it is not ideal! I am able to create DVDs on this external writer drive but it is very slow. It would be best if I could get the on-board DVD writer on my laptop to actually work! It is not ideal when I have to carry around an extra drive when I am travelling for instance.
Has anyone else experienced the same as I have? Or better still if anyone who is able to help me resolve this issue I would be very grateful.
Thanks.
