LG DVD recorder stoppped reading

[colin]

Hi,
I have a LG dvd recorder reported as "hl-dt-st dvdram gsa-4081B"

It was working untill I wrote a rewritable CD from an ISO file,
using nero, it said something about ISO expects disc type ... , and disc in
drive is type ...
but the message disapeared before I could read it and it just started
burning,
it seemed to finish ok but now the drive doesnt read or write anything, wont
even see a bootable cd at boot up,
it notices the disc has been changed but then doesnt think theres a readable
cd in it.

Is it possible to blow up these drives somehow by forcing it to do something
it doesnt like ?
is it fixable ? or has it just died of natural cuases ?
seems unlikly its drivers as it cant even see a cd at boot up.
The drive is still there in windows as before except it acts as if no cd
present.

Thanks
Colin =^.^=

 

[kony]

Hi,
I have a LG dvd recorder reported as "hl-dt-st dvdram gsa-4081B"

It was working untill I wrote a rewritable CD from an ISO file,
using nero, it said something about ISO expects disc type ... , and disc in
drive is type ...
but the message disapeared before I could read it and it just started
burning,
it seemed to finish ok but now the drive doesnt read or write anything, wont
even see a bootable cd at boot up,
it notices the disc has been changed but then doesnt think theres a readable
cd in it.

Until you had written more below, I was wondering if you had
some kind of audio DRM software installed, as it can account
for failure to access drives.

Is it possible to blow up these drives somehow by forcing it to do something
it doesnt like ?

No, some crazy virus might try to wear out a drive by making
it constantly thrash around seeking all night long, but
that's only a theory, I've never heard of one trying to do
such a pointless thing. Otherwise the drive is uneffected
unless you tried to firmware flash it (or a virus did that,
another pointless thing as it hardly serves any useful
purpose, even destructively it'd be a minor event since the
system keeps running).

is it fixable ?

You could blow some compressed air into it, or disassemble
and drip some pure alcohol on the lens at an angle and
regrease the sliders, but generally it isn't fixable, these
more often have no effect than to fix a problem.

or has it just died of natural cuases ?

Yes, depending on how you define natural (since we don't
know how much wear you'd put on it, if it was cool enough,
good power to it, no manufacturing defects, etc). IOW,
either way it's probably dead based on further evidence you
provide below.

seems unlikly its drivers as it cant even see a cd at boot up.

If the drive (In this system without any bios changes, etc)
could previously boot same CD, and same CD boots in other
systems, it does tend to reduce the variables to the drive
having failed- since it also eliminates the OS interactions
as a cause.

The drive is still there in windows as before except it acts as if no cd
present.

Time to check on whether it's under warranty...

 

[colin]

Until you had written more below, I was wondering if you had
some kind of audio DRM software installed, as it can account
for failure to access drives.

ah no, not to my knowledge, dont want it either !

No, some crazy virus might try to wear out a drive by making
it constantly thrash around seeking all night long, but
that's only a theory, I've never heard of one trying to do
such a pointless thing. Otherwise the drive is uneffected
unless you tried to firmware flash it (or a virus did that,
another pointless thing as it hardly serves any useful
purpose, even destructively it'd be a minor event since the
system keeps running).

I was just wondering if the ISO file being for a particular type of disc and
being forced to write that track specification to a different type would
cuase problems, seems unlikly but seems a coincidence I wrote about 4 discs
sucesfully untill that message apeared, then imediatly after it suddenly
ceased to work, takes me a few tries before I get the right things set right
to make a cd properly bootable with the right image etc, so I was using
rewritables, but i think the image may have been for just a recordable.
At first I thought it had just junked the cd wich I wasnt too bothered
about.

You could blow some compressed air into it, or disassemble
and drip some pure alcohol on the lens at an angle and
regrease the sliders, but generally it isn't fixable, these
more often have no effect than to fix a problem.

I thought they had internal lense cleaners, ... time to get my screwdriver
out, and my laser goggles.

Yes, depending on how you define natural (since we don't
know how much wear you'd put on it, if it was cool enough,
good power to it, no manufacturing defects, etc). IOW,
either way it's probably dead based on further evidence you
provide below.

I hardly do any thing with it apart from using installing from the odd cd or
2,
and make the odd bootable system cd,
although its sitting there powered on all the time,
the HD is in a seperate tray.

If the drive (In this system without any bios changes, etc)
could previously boot same CD, and same CD boots in other
systems, it does tend to reduce the variables to the drive
having failed- since it also eliminates the OS interactions
as a cause.

I tried several different CDs but only in this drive, I gues I should check
the bios in case anything changed itself :s
although I think its pretty limited in terms of bios options here.

Time to check on whether it's under warranty...

ah shld of thought of that before I got the screwdriver out, its probably
years old now anyway,
I wonder if my realy old philips cd writer still works,
its still in my old pc shell somewhere,
was working when I upgraded.

many thanks
Colin =^.^=

 

[colin]

You could blow some compressed air into it, or disassemble
and drip some pure alcohol on the lens at an angle and
regrease the sliders, but generally it isn't fixable, these
more often have no effect than to fix a problem.

After cutting my finger on the incredibly thin metal they use nowdays for
cases, (its thinner than cat tins) I got it apart.
I found gues what, a clump of what looked like cat hairs wound tightly round
the main spindle/hub,
no where else just wound round the spindle, strange,
its working a lot better than it was before, though.

An ordinary CDR works fine now, but cant get a CDRW to work without lots of
verify errors,
its fine upto about 80% then tons of read erros on verify.
tried a couple of discs several times but gave up.
no idea if its the disc or the burner.
Ive got some intenso CDRWs (quite old).

Colin =^.^=