Is my burner dying?

[Guest]

For the past few months, I've been getting some odd behavior out of my burner, and I'm starting to wonder if it's begginning to die on me or something. It's a Yamaha 4x4x16 SCSI with the Apactec AHA2920C controller. The strange thing is that the CD's it makes seem to sometimes work fine on some readers but not others. For example, a CD will work just fine in one of my CD drives, but not be able to be read in another. The next CD I burn will work just fine in both readers. Also, it is incapable of reading it's own burned CD's. It tells me "E:\ unaccesable, Incorrect Function", when I try to read a burned CD in it, and yet it reads store-bought CDs just fine. Has anyone else had a similar situation, or know what is going on with this thing?

 

[Arrow]

How long has this drive been in use and how often do you use it?

Rob
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[Guest]

I don't remember the exact date, but I bought it with a PII-450 (when that was the fastest thing out there), so I guess it would have to be almost three years. It gets pretty regular use...I've probably made at least 500 CD's with it, probably a lot more.

 

[Guest]

Wow that's a lot of CDs. I had an HP7200i 2x burner bought with a PII-400 that died last year. I had made at least a couple hundred but not 500! I checked into getting it repaired and found that replacing the burned out laser diode would cost almost as much as a new drive so I bought the new one. I knew it had died when I coastered two CDs in a row. Previous to that the only coasters I had were when the power went out during a burn. Anyway, it sounds like yours may be starting to go and the result is that the table of contents on your burned CDs aren't quite complete but can be understood by some burners.

 

[Arrow]

Yup, sounds like that might be the problem - it's nearing hte end of its life.

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>

 

[ejsmith2]

500 is near the end of it's life? Maybe that's why mine is getting funny too.....

Time for a new burner.

 

[Arrow]

Well, the amount actually varies with the user, because CDRWs (like CDROMs) are limited in "power on hours" or "mean time between failure". So if you use it to just READ CDs, it still counts into the power on hours.

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>

 

[Guest]

Rarely use it to read...I have two other drives on my system for that. Still, after this long, it wouldn't surprise me if it was starting to go. Oh well, I've been wanting a faster one for a while anyway, this gives me a good excuse

 

[Arrow]

Hehehe, go for it! =P

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>

 

[ejsmith2]

Ah, if you're just going by the MTBF, then i'm about 99,000 hours short of the drive going out. But it's not a given.