[bobwski]

I have a DRU-800A burner in my computer for about 6 years now.

Had a spindle of 25 2.4X DVD+R discs which worked just fine.

Bought a spindle of Memorex DVD+R 16X discs.

When installed in the computer, it wont even recognize them.

Memorex website says these can be read by the DRU-800A if firmware is KY06

I upgraded firmware from KY03 to KY06. Problem remains.

I burned an audio CD just to see if the burner had problems, and it worked just fine.

I put one of the new Memorex discs in my wife's laptop and was able to copy files to it.

Once I took the disc that had the files installed by the laptop, the DRU-800A would read them just fine.

Memorex support was no help.

Sony's instructions for the DRU-800A say it can write DVD+R at 16X.

I have this horrible feeling that I'm missing something obvious, but I can't for the life of me think of what it could be?

What am I missing, or where should I look??

[Advertisements]

What's happened here Bob is that the DVD Read/Write aspect of the optical lens has failed and with a drive of that age I'm not surprised.

What am I missing, or where should I look??

Look for a new optical drive Bob.

[Wolfeymole]

What's happened here Bob is that the DVD Read/Write aspect of the optical lens has failed and with a drive of that age I'm not surprised.

What am I missing, or where should I look??

Look for a new optical drive Bob.

[phillpower2]

Hello bobwski

Strange as it may seem but some optical drives are choosy about the brand of disk that they will work with, this can include retail music and games disks and not just blanks for burning, try an alternative brand of disk, slow down the burning speed and consider another burning software http://www.imgburn.com/

Let us know how it goes.

[Wolfeymole]

I put one of the new Memorex discs in my wife's laptop and was able to copy files to it.

Once I took the disc that had the files installed by the laptop, the DRU-800A would read them just fine.

Were these data files or video files?

Try this acid test by putting for example a store bought DVD in the drive and see if it will read it.

[bobwski]

I think I need to clarify this.

My problem ONLY covers the drive not recognizing new, blank Memorex DVD+R (16X) discs.

If I put one of my blank CD discs in the drive it will recognize it, write to it and read it.

If I put just about any CD or DVD in the drive that has data or music or whatever on it, the drive reacts just fine.

If I take one of the problem Memorex discs and add something to it using my wife's computer and then insert that disc into the drive it reads it just fine.

I dug thru some old invoices and the DVD+R discs I had been using successfully were some off-brand (actually no name on them or the spindle)2.4X discs that I got some 8 years ago from Tiger Direct.

The program I'm currently using to write to the discs is Pinnacle Studio 12. I've used the program before and it worked a few days ago using to old 2.4X discs.

One of your suggestions was to slow the drive down. How do I do that??

[Wolfeymole]

It appears that the Sony uses a Lite On burner and over the years I have seen numerous people complaining about Lite On hardware because of its fallibility.

Read more here...Sony DRU-800A

I suggest obtaining new disks such as TDK and set the burning speed in Pinnacle to no more that 4x and I still maintain that this drive is getting long in the tooth though.

[phillpower2]

I have not used Pinnacle and so I`m not familiar with how it works but look for a tab like the one in the screenshot below which shows how to select an appropriate burning speed;