CF-W5 MA****A UJ-833s...

Hey guys!

I am a newbie and this is my first post!

I am using a CF-W5, the Core Duo 1.06 GHz model. It is only a few months old. Its optical drive is as stated. Firmware: 1.51 (factory). I find that it has problems reading/writing some CDs or DVDs:

The problem is sometimes accompanied by some mechanical noises from the drive, which leads me to believe that the laser/lens/servo has some trouble picking up data (As if it was saying oops, I cannot find the data, ah so there you are, oops I lost it again ). Burnt discs may turn out to be hard to read at some locations even when there are no signs of drive problems and stated that the operation completed successfully. The problem may occur right at the beginning or halfway through watching a movie/installing a DVD-ROM. I have used lens cleaner but the problem persists.

I googled and noticed no one else have this problem at least with this particular model. Apple laptops also used MA****A drives and some users complained about the "choosiness" about the drive.

What gives!

 

Yes, those Matsh!ta drives seem to be more troublesome than most.

I would suggest that you contact Panasonic support and ask for a list of recommended media for this burner. If they don't work then it's time to ask for a replacement.

John

 

Thanks for the additional info.

If it's only a few months old, has reading problems and is still covered by warranty then it's time to pester Panasonic.

If it's outside the warranty then (subject to being able to get into your notebook) the burner should be replaceable with something of the same size (is the UJ-833S one of the 9.5mm / 3/8" thick units?). The only other thing you need to check is whether the burner has one channel of the IDE interface for itself. It it has, then the master / slave setting of any replacement doesn't matter.

John

 

I had a similar-ish problem with both my W5K (XP Pro)and my Y5M (Vista). The drive would make this waful noise and search for ages, unable to see or burn discs, sometimes even the same discs it had burned earlier.

With the W5K, I had time so I just sent it in for repair and it came back fine. Never a problem after that.

With the Y5, I had more time so I played around with it again. I couldnt figure out any mechanical reason for the tracking problem, but the error messages I got suggested a servo tracking problem.

Now the OS has a built-in burning capability, but Panny always adds some other burning software too. It seemed they were in conflict - I think basically when I had used the secondary burner prog, it never released control of the drive, so that when I later used the built-in burner, it frizzed somehow.

So I uninstalled the add-on burner, reinstalled the OS and tried buring with the buil-in OS burner. That now worked fine.

I searched around and determined that ImgBurn was a good burner software that wouldnt create problems, si I added that to complement the built-in Vista burned.

That has worked fine in the half year since then.

I cannot guarantee that we have the same problem, but I sugegst you try that approach first.

As for the UJ-833s, idont bother lookig for firmware. You will not find it. I have even contacted Mat****a/Matsu****a directly and they made it clear that this is an OEM product customised for Panasonic and that the drivers can only be acquired via Panasonic. End of story.

So if you really cant fix it, send it in for repair.

 

And there was me thinking that these were all parts of the same company!

John