Problem with Liteon DVD Writer

Hi there

I recently bought an external usb liteon dvd writer and since I got it all I've been able to burn is CD's.

I've tried half a dozen media types and none of the DVD media can be written to properly. All the software that I have seem to have a similar problem but I'll use Nero 7 essentials as an example - it gets part way or nearly all the way through burning and then comes ip with an error message "burn process failed at 24x (xxxxkb)" 24 being the write speed it was using and xxxxkb being the kb number it was using in relation to the write speed.

Would anyone here be able to offer some advice on what might be wrong - I'm fairly sure it's not the software as it all burns CD's fine and it's not the media because I've tried all the types/quality I can afford and gone through a fair cross-section, so I'm stumped as to what might be wrong?

The firmware/drivers are all up to date, although I haven't tried downloading the latest USB/Firewire drivers from the MS website yet, but I reinstalled those when I re-installed my OS the other week as far as I know..

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

I have a couple of external Liteon burners over the past few years and they have always behaved very well.

Which model Liteon and what firmware do you have?

What computer do you have it connected to? I presume the computer has USB 2.0 ports.

And what burning software are you using?

John

 

DVDs burn at a max of 20x so I don't know why yours are burning at 24x. Perhaps lowering the speed.

 

Zaz - I used 24x as an example of the err msg. It's actually more like 5x most of the time.

I'm using Nero 7 which was bundled with the writer, my usb ports are 2.0 and it's hooked up to my Packard Bell Easynote E6310, it burns CD's ok so I don't get what the problem is.

I've also used MagicISO and DVD Decrypter as well and they both have a problem which I think is the same.

The drive model is an LH20P I think but don't quote me on that because I've left it and my laptop at the office until tonight when I go back to work - I'm a creature of the night unfortunatly

So any ideas would really help at this point, short of suggesting a sledgehammer

 

OK. It looks like a big burner. This, or similar.

I suggest some more checks:

1. Make sure that the USB port is running at USB 2 speed. The easiest way is probably to copy a big file off a DVD onto the hard disk. You should get a speed of at least 10MB/s. If the transfer speed is only around 1MB/s then that is USB 1.1 speed. USB 1.1 would limit burning performance to 4X on CD and 0.7X on DVD.

2. If the speed test in (1) is poor, check Device Manager to make sure that there is a USB 2 enhanced host controller in the list.

3. Use Nero's InfoTool to check (a) the burner's properties and (b) the rated burning speed of different media when you insert them (the ODD reads the media ID code and then looks up the burning speeds in the firmware).

4. Are you able to test the burner with another computer? This would help to eliminate the computer from further investigation and be important evidence if the conclusion is that the burner is defective and needs to be replaced.

John

 

Aha I think it could be number 1, the software was typically writing at about 5x if I remember correctly and I think the read speed was about the same, or just a bit higher, lower than 10mbs anyway I think.

I'll check anyway, I thought of using another pc but the ones we have in the office are just as basic as my laptop and I'm not strictly speakng allowed to "fiddle" with them, our admins get a bit stressed if things go wrong

I haven't got another pc myself so I'll see if I can get away with using one of the pc's in the office - we're going thin client in a week or so anyway and they'll only be used as Blackberry servers.

Cheers for the advice I'll try everything suggested out tonight, in the meantime if it is because I don't have an enhanced USB 2.0 host controller how would I go about getting one?

 

well usually when connecting the drive you will get a message saying the device can perform faster if pliugged into a USB 2.0 port, that will tell you if you are running at lower speeds.

 

Nope haven't had one of those?

Windows tells me the device is working fine but then that's nothing to go by.

My iPod connects and runs fine, my usb mouse does also and my other mp3 player.

I wish I'd brought the thing with me I could have been doing the stuff suggested and to see if I could tell you guys anymore.

I'll give it a thorough going over tonight and post as much info as poss if I can't get it working.

Cheers everyone and thanks in advance for any further advice given.

 

USB 2.0 is standard on notebooks younger than about 2 years ago (and may be on some 3 year old models). How old is your PB?

The easiest way to add USB 2.0 is with a PC Card adaptor like one of these.

I found there is a Packard Bell forum and noticed a thread about a USB 2 problem.

I attach a page relating to USB speed from the manual for the Liteon burner.

John

 

well if all those things get plugged into the same port and run fine, then it probably isn't a USB port issue.

i think it's a faulty drive, when u got the drive did u try it first before updating the firmware? sometimes the updating goes wrong and the drive has issues.

but yeah try it on your work PC and see

 

Thanks for that John

My laptop is about 3yrs old at max and I've looked in device manager and it says it has a VIA Enhanced Host Controller but I can't actually see anything that confirms the USB ports are 2.0.

Would you be able to point out the card I'm looking for on the page in your link or can I just buy any old one?

I've attached the logfile generated by Nero with the err msg, not sure if it helps but at least someone can read it to see if they can make sense of it.

I think it may be a firmware issue also because I tried the writer out to begin with and it wasn't working correctly (or so I thought), I had Daemon Tools installed and that was blocking iTunes from burning which is what I was trying to do so I got rid of DT and all its associated files and now iTunes works fine but that was after I upgraded the firmware, but I think I may have got the wrong one - the model no. on the box says LH-20A1PX500C, in windows it is recognised as an LH-20A1P and both LH-20A1P and LH-20A1PX appear on the LiteOn website, but the LH-201P is the only one with an upgrade for the firmware?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated at this point in time

 

Liteon probably use the same drive inside in normal computers and as external drives. If you were upgrading and it didnt give you an error then it shouldnt have been a problem since if it was the wrong one it wouldnt have let you upgrade. You could try downgrading to an earlier firmware if there is one.

btw in the log.txt right at the bottom just before the error you mentioned, it says there's an error reading a certain file, could be something to look at to?

have u tried burning at a far slower speed such as 1 or 2x? oh and are you trying to copy something on the fly? cuz it does mention that just before #1

also i still don't think it is a USB 2.0 problem, unless any of your other devices have given out the "this device can perform faster" msg when they connect then you have USB 2.0

 

Hmm I don't entirely know what is wrong but I've used it on one of the office pc's using DVD decrypter and it copied and wrote to the discs I have been using.

The office pc has a slightly larger HDD in terms of free space and it has USB 2.0 ports so I'm thinking it is more than likely the USB ports not being 2.0.

So if I can work out which type of pcmcia USB 2.0 card I should be looking for I can probably cure the problem - the link John provided has half a dozen cards listed and I'm not sure if they're all compatible with a notebook.

 

Yes, the evidence is pointing towards your notebook not having USB 2.0. The mainboard hardware report of SiSoftware Sandra should tell us exactly what the hardware is if you want to investigate that furtther.

Or, if you are popping down to the shops to buy a USB 2 adaptor, then first decide whether you may want to use powered peripherals through the adaptor. Some adaptors come with a PSU and others come with a cable to draw power from an interal USB port. Do you also want a Firewire port while you are buying something?

Assuming you want the bare minimum to get your external burner to work properly then you don't need a PSU or Firewire and 2 ports is plenty, so this one should be up to the task. This one from Scan is slightly cheaper but I would personally use Netshop and 1st class post for this small package. But if there's anything else you need to buy then Scan may be better. Or this from UKDVDR if you need to stock up on more media to burn.

As for the firmware uncertainty: No problem. I'll wager a fiver that the -X model is just the eXternal version of the normal model. That's the case with my slimline Liteon external burners.

And why don't the problems show up at the start of the burning? Probably because the burning is much slower on the inner tracks and speeds up as you move towards the outside. To start with the data transfer rate might be OK but the time comes when the data can't flow fast enough.

John

PS: What I would have done is to buy one of these and put it into the notebook, but that is hindsight.

 

hmm very weird. what model laptop do you have (model no. as well) maybe you can find out in a products page if indeed your laptop doesnt have USB 2.0

i mean it is 3 years old only, there were probably USB 2.0 models out by then

 

3 years ago was still the transition period to USB 2.0. From my own records, a Dell Latitude bought September 2003 had USB 1.1 but a Fujitsu S6120 bought April 2004 had USB 2.0.

However, Google has found this page with specs for the Easynote E6310. That page says Via VT8235 southbridge with USB 2.0 support. But I have had past problems with Via shipsets not alwaysdoing what they claimed. I did previously suggest a test to read something big off the external ODD in order to check the transfer rate. This would confirm whether the USB port is delivering faster than USB 1.1.

The other possibility is the ability of the CPU / memory / HDD to deliver data fast enough.

How big is the HDD and how much space is there.

Will a DVD burn work at the slowest available speed (2X?).

John

 

Yeah I mean 3 years ago would be 2004 which should mean he has USB 2.0 but I did say that you usually get a msg telling you about the speed issue if there was one and he didnt get any in any of usb devices which is odd if there were speed issues cuz at least one of them would get the device performance msg.

he could have somehow messed up his USB driver which is something you can usually only fix with a reinstallation but yeah he should try a slower burn and see if that works.

 

I'm going to try a slower burn and I'll re-install the USB drivers, using the ones on the Packard Bell website. EDIT: Actually I'll have to google the drivers the PB website hasn't got them on their.

The devices in device manager don't have 2.0 listed anywhere where as the pc I used last night has a Enhanced Host Controller and part of the name is 2.0 - I'll run the Sisoftware report and find out.

On the tech specs - the E6310 according to the PB website is supposed to have a DVD RW drive that writes CD's made by NEC but mine has a Toshiba drive which only reads.

I'm starting to think though that the £200 I paid for it wasn't worth it and I should have saved my cash, I've spent more time dealing with performance problems/software codecs not being there and virus checking than actually using if for any productive purpose?!

Thanx for the advice though. I'll have another play around and see what I come up with.

I've ordered a USB 2.0 card anyway so if nothing happens this evening I'll see what happens when I try using that.

 

Ok so I've run sandra and its come up with 4 usb controllers, 3 are 1.1 and the fourth is a 2.0.

The report is attached, if there's anything I should be aware of please let me know because to be quite honest I am way out of my depth at the moment.

Does the fact that the 4th usb controller is a 2.0 mean that one of my ports is a 2.0 and if so how do I work out which one?

Also I've just used DVD Decrypter to copy an ISO of a disc I've recorded on my DVD recorder at home and it's got up to 10.0x speed at 80% of completion but it keeps dropping a bit at one point it was only reading at 4.3x?

 

1. The hardware definitely thinks it includes USB 2.0. I have never come across only one port being USB 2.0 enabled (although there is a first time for everything). My Intel chipset only has one enhanced USB 2.0 host controller but all the ports are USB 2.0.

2 The best places for the drivers for the Via chipset is VIA Arena. The USB 2.0 controller is VT 6202/12 (or maybe Sandra means 6202 or 6212)You can try this driver for the USB 2.0. It's the same driver for both controller versions.

3. Were you copying that DVD onto your computer? If so, up to 10X is very good and suggests that the USB port is working OK for data going into your computer.

4. How much spare HDD space do you have? And I wonder whether the HDD speed could also be an issue. This table shows that 10X DVD speed is about 14MB/s. Now you have got Sandra installed, run the physical disk benchmark test. What range of data transfers do you get? My guess is no better than 20,000kB/s (~10MB/s) at the fast end of the disk and dropping to around 10,000 at the slow end which means that your HDD could be struggling to deliver data faster than 8X (perhaps this is why the slimline notebook burners have stopped at 8X). In theory, the Smartburn facility on the burner should slow down to match the incoming data, but maybe it can't slow down far enough.

John

 

Yep I copied the DVD straight to the hard drive as an ISO. What I don't get is the PC I tried the drive on last night has 1.00 USB ports with a 2.0 EHCI as well - exactly like my laptop.

So I know the drive works all I need to do is work out why my laptop won't run it properly and fix it. I'll try re-installing the driver, I did a uninstall/re-install using device manager but the problem is still there.

And googling stuff is a bleeding nightmare

Thanx for the links. I'm running a Nero create disc simulation at the moment and it's 75%ish of the way through so I'll re-install the drivers and have another go after Nero's done it's simulation

 

I would try burning at no faster than 8X. See my previous comment about the HDDs speed.

John

PS: And Googling is a matter of hitting on the right keywords or phrases to search for.

 

I suggest you go back to where you bought it from, and throw the laptop at the salesperson who sold it to you lol

that alone will be worth the 200 you spent on it

seriously this is a very weird laptop either 3 of those USB ports are suffering from self-esteem issues or depression which makes them underperform or that one 2.0 port has too much confidence for it's own good or suffers from identity problems

 

Erm won't even be that high, I could only select 2.4x and 4x so I chose the latter. I'm doing a copy DVD operation where it copies the disc in my other drive, so I'll see if that works, there's nothing wrong with my other drive, well as far as I know anyway, but if it doesn't work that way I'll see if I can burn some of the contents of my HDD to the discs I'm using, trouble is I'm running out of discs and I haven't had my paycheck yet

My google-fu is weak, never have been able to use it all that well, especially when it comes to computer stuff.

Heh yeah I would do but it's a second hand one, nothing wrong with it, as far as I know it's all fundamentally sound.

I did have to re-install XP home because it corrupted VGAOEM.sys (or a file with a similar name) but apart from that I haven't really had any real probs that I haven't been able to solve without a bit of help from the people here, and even those were just a matter of installing codecs/ updated drivers etc. - up until now that is (if you don't count my power adaptors plastic bit on the input jack head (the yellow bit on the end of the metal bit that goes into the input not the black rubberised plastic covering) melting because it got too hot, but I've solved that with a custom heatsink - upturned metal wire mesh office desk tray, already painted black and it works pretty well, I'm waiting for a 3 fan tray to turn up but it's working ok in the meantime )

Anyway I've re-installed the VIA USB 2.0 EHCI driver as per Johns link so I'll see how the burns I'm attempting go. I think though that I may have to wait for my PCMCIA USB 2.0 card to arrive and give that a go, I'm not in a hurry to burn anything bcos I burnt what I wanted using my drive on the office PC last night but I'd like to get the burner working on my laptop at least - we go thin client with no USB ports very soon so that's my only option if I want to burn stuff while in the office, and CD's will burn but I don't want to burn CD's

 

Ok well that hasn't worked, I tried DVD Decrypter again and I tried Nero and they still wont burn a DVD even at a slow speed.

I have had MagicDisc - installed would that interfere with the process in the same way as DaemonTools did when I tried to get iTunes to recognise the drive?

I think I may have to wait for my USB 2.0 card to arrive and see if that works, failing that I'm just going to chuck the laptop and get a new one in a few months.

 

well anything u think might affect it should be removed but i dont see how that could affect the burning process though i dont know what magicdisc is, I know what DT is though

 

DT = DaemonTools, same thing as MagicDisk only supposedly better, I didn't find it reliable, my ISO's kept self-ejecting while I was watching the movies?!

On the upside of the last few days I've just got Dawn of War to run on my laptop and the GPU is an S3 Unichrome Pro IGP card, totally useless according to the guys in the Gaming forum! And I've got it running on fairly high graphical details. I couldn't get it to run before because I didn't have the extra 512mb RAM installed so I haven't bothered trying up until I got bored with trying to sort out the DVD drive half an hour ago.

At least until my USB 2.0 card turns up I've got something other than Age of Empires and Medal of Honor Allied Assault to play.

Knowing my luck though I'll get the card and it'll make no difference, the drive works, just not on my laptop - at the moment anyway