T60 DVD Multi-Burner not working

I have been able to read CD & DVD media, but what I can't seem to get right is burning data into them. I have been experiencing 2 years of this kind of problem, & up until now I do not know what is the cause.

I have contacted Lenovo support about this matter, & even changed the hardware twice. Yet the problem still remains.

Can any one tell me what exactly can I do to fix this problem for good?

The drive is the LG GSA-4083N DVD Multi Burner drive. I have been using the Multimedia Center for Think Offerings (Sonic RecordNow) to burn the discs. (I did use PowerISO too, but it didn't work either)

 

What is the problem? Are you getting any error messages? If you want to try some other software, CDBurnerXP is free and works well for the basics.

 

My apologes for not explaining clearly the problem.

The problem is that this DVD drive of mine cannot burn data into any media, be it CD or DVD. In quite a number of times using PowerISO & Sonic RecordNow, everything seems normal (i.e. the media inside is spinning normally, the indicator light is lit up). But after a while, the media inside starts spinning up & down, & the DVD drive's indicator light would flash on & off as well. In the end, I got the message that data cannot be burned into a DVD drive.

OK. After that I got 2 different kinds of results:

1. The data I have been trying to burn into the media disc miraculously "survived", as though the burning process is complete.
2. No data is burned into the media, & part of the space is stated to be used up (this space is exactly the same as the data size I'm trying to burn into.

Because of No. 2 I have already used up quite a number of CD & DVD Recordables, & now I'm forced to using Rewritables in case of failure in the burning process.

I have tried several ways to bypass this problem:

1. Use different brands of CDs & DVDs to burn data, be it Verbatim, Sony, Imation, TDK etc. No matter the brand (& the difference in the media quality), the burning process still fails.
2. Burn data in another DVD drive. I have a family laptop & desktop that have DVD drives, & both work fine.
3. Change drives with manufacturer (as I said in the initial post). Used to be unable to read media as well, but the problem was fixed in this exchange. However, the burning failure problem still remains.

I hope I did make the problem clear.

 

Is RecordNow spitting out any error messages? Did it ever work correctly?

 

Apologies for not being able to provide any error messages for now. I'll try to provide it ASA I have the time.

P.S. I did discover something new recently on burning files to media. I formatted a DVD with another pre-installed program called Sonic DLA & I find I was able to transfer files directly to the DVD.

 

DLA is a known troublemaker. I'd dump it if you're not using it.

 

Agree. It caused problems to me before, like system hangs. But I think I would need it since there's no other way to burn DVDs, for a while.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention something else. I have noticed that the only other action I can do to burn DVDs & CDs are through creating backups with Rescue & Recovery. No errors regarding the burning of the backup to DVDs have popped up. Contacted the Lenovo support about this, & I was suggested to do a clean install XP (this will take a while as I need my laptop for the next few weeks).

P.S. There's 2 possibilities suggested to me by the support representative: software of hardware (HDD) problem.

EDIT: There's another software I just recently found called UDF Reader that comes with the DVD drive software installer CD. Any idea what is it?

 

Try using some different burning software. I like ImgBurn and InfraRecorder (both freeware).

If the problem persists, you either have a faulty drive (did you say you've already replaced it), or some part of your Windows install is messing things up. Most likely a bad software package, or a disabled or corrupt driver or service.

Make sure you have the IMAPI service set to Manual or Automatic, type "services.msc" into the run command and check.

If none of these tips help, you may have to resort to more drastic measures.

 

If you want to try some different software, I like CDBurnerXP if only because I like to drag and drop explorer like. Img burn is good for making and burning .ISOs, though you can do other stuff. I've not tried InfraRecorder.

 

Sorry for the late reply. Anyways, just an update, I am now using CDBurnerXP instead of the RecordNow software. Burned data into 2 CDs twice & surprisingly, no problem have ever occurred at all (as of yet). Thanks for the suggestion guys.

P.S. I think I might throw away the CD that came with the DVD drive already. I'm already not using it.