new toshiba mx 50 - m5 won't burn R+ dvd from source disc R-

[taht]

My son just unboxed his toshiba mx 50 - m5 that he bought this past January, however at that time due to his committments was unable to set it up with all of his programs and continued to use his 3 year old toshiba satellite 2410 that is functioning fine. And just now set it up. ( i should say that he has the best warranty on it the "system guard" in case of droppage etc. he had that on the 3 yr old model as well but never had to use it, that cost over $400 cdn)

The problem that he encountered was that the new model would not burn R+ media on the notebook itself, inspite of the fact that we checked the specs in the manual and phoned toshiba tech support level 2 and they confirmed as well that the notebook was a super multi layer and should accomodate burning R+ and R- DVD's of good quality of course.

Their tech suggested that my son remove all of his programs that he had spent days installing in prep for university and then do a clean Restore with the Disc provided. He was really frustrated by this, however along with our software tech from work did this and they together then tested it out.

It still would not burn R+ media, Sony, Maxell, TDK, Imation ,Fuji, nor BenQ. I mention the latter in particular as we all have the BenQ 162I burners (3) and have had them since Dec 2005. They perform backups extremely well and have all the drivers and firmware uptodate. No coasters with past and present experience with our older satellite 2410 models (3). The new notebook however, will not burn R+ on any of our 3 BenQ burners. The tray flies open on both the notebook and the BenQ when we insert a R+ disc and a message requesting an R- appears. I should say that the software tech has a new Sony ext burner and the new notebook did the same with that burner as well, it rejected R+ media.

BenQ recommends only the brands of R+ media listed above which we have used without problems in the past 9 months with our older satellite 2410, as well as testing recently with an acer, and a sony. BenQ suggests these media brands as they apparently have been tested by their factory.

Toshiba said to take the notebook back to the store since my son had just unboxed it. So we did. They sent it to their repair depot and tested it and as well they get an error message re R+ media. They have ordered a new optical drive and i asked them specifically if this will also allow the BenQ external burner which is all uptodate and has burned 30 backups on our older toshibas, a sony and an acer with no R+ problems since we sent this new model to their repair depot.

The tech hedged at the query as I wanted to know what other components there are involved with this optical drive as this whole ordeal of getting the optical drive in and testing it is taking 14 days.
The tech would not comment. All he said is it is like the notebook is not communicating to its own drive to burn R+ nor is it communicating to the external BenQ to burn R+.

My son does not want to keep waiting for them trying out the replacement of 1 part and find it does not work and then order a different part to see if it works. He needs his notebook for university and got it all set up over his break and now it does not work properly.
Thus I post this in the hopes that someone knows what other parts affect an optical drive in burning??? Or is it quite reasonable that replacement of the drive will also allow the external BenQ 162I to work as well???

BTW, the toshiba depot said that everything is uptodate for that drive on the notebook, and I stress that the BenQ is uptodate and working fine on all of the above listed R+ media and other notebooks that we tested all (3) of our BenQ's on.

I hope someone can help, as we have posted at other forums; and little response.
Obviously it is not a software issue as the Clean Restore with their disc that our office tech made certain was done properly did not work.

Again, thankyou

[Adrian Wong]

I don't think it's a software issue. I doubt it's really a firmware issue either since +R and -R compatibility issues has more or less been resolved in new drives.

It's quite possible that your son's notebook may actually have a different drive from what was supposed to be in it. No idea how that can happen, but I don't see how anything else can affect a drive and prevent it from writing to +R media...

[taht]

Could this then mean that replacement of the optical drive as is being done with a new one, then will also allow communication from the notebook to the external (3) BenQ burners that we tried it with and all of them gave the same error message as the notebook drive indicating that an R- disc was required.

BTW all of these (3) BenQ burners are working with other notebooks and R+ media.

[zy]

what software are you using to burn the DVDs ?

[taht]

The depot phoned and said the drive was defective, but don't know if that is the only problem.
They don't know if replacement of this drive will allow the external BenQ 162I to be able to burn to R+ or not as they have never come across this problem before.

The software i tried was Nero Corporate 7, 1 Click DVD and Sly soft's Clone DVD and as well DVD Shrink.
The office software tech removed each separtely and tried them out one by one but no luck.
Obviously it is the drive.

Any comments about the effect the replacement of an internal drive would have on the working of the external drive for burning R+ media??

[Adrian Wong]

Wait.. You are having problems with the external drive as well??? I don't think I caught that part.

How does your external BenQ 162I connect to the notebook? Via USB? Firewire?

[taht]

It connects via usb to the new notebook. The tech called today and said that the new drive is working however he has to get an external burner to see if that now makes the external burner work (the replacement with a new drive).

The external burner is working right now on my 3 yr old toshiba satellite 2410, and as well a Sony and an Acer so it is fine and is connected via usb 2.0 and burns Sony, fuji, tdk, maxell and benq R+ media great as it has been doing since Dec 2005 when it was bought.

What occurred with the new notebook and the external burner was the same that happened with the internal drive and that is that the tray would fly open and a message saying insert a R- dvd would apppear.

This is why I am wondering if the replacement of the internal drive will fix the issue with the external burner that only occurs on this new notebook and is the exact same problem as occurred with the internal drive???
Or could there be another culprit causing this strange behaviour.

I am pushing the depot to test it on an external burner as I don't want to get it back only to have to send it back again as I have to reinstall all of my programs for work again.

Hope this info explains the issue a little better.

Thankyou

[Adrian Wong]

Hmm.. That's odd. The external drive should work...

Unless there's a problem with the driver...

[taht]

What driver are you referring to? The BenQ external burner is working on my present Satellite 2410 that I am using right now and it is 3 years old and it works as I mentioned earlier on the Sony and Acer.
The BenQ 162I was bought Dec 2005 and I checked with BenQ tech support for this burner and it is all uptodate and our software tech checked the internet for drivers and it was indicated as being uptodate.
He knew more about what he was doing than I did and so I just let him do the checking as you can see I am no techie.
Regards

[taht]

Just in case some other member should have this problem I am posting this.
The R- Source disc of the wedding which was burned by the edit shop from my mini dv and was TY was not the issue with me trying to burn it to an R+ Verbatim, sony, tdk, fuji, maxell.

The Edit Shop discovered that the problem was with the Nero software as they could not get it to burn as well to an R+. They used another R- TY that they use in their work and attempted to burn to a R+ Media and it was a NO GO!!

However, the other partner in the business has more computer knowledge and made an adjustment to a setting and then was able to do a burn. I don't know what it was that he did as he is presently on holidays, however apparently he had to fiddle around with the program for sometime before he could get it to work. This was Nero Corporate 7 which they use.
I will find out when he returns what has to be adjusted.

Just for fun I tried my 1 Click DVD Copy program that is simply making a fast copy and it burned the R- to the R+ fine. This program is on another notebook that I have.
So this 1 Click DVD Copy obviously has something built into the program that allows one to copy R- to R+ automatically and (vice/versa) which Nero does not.

I am using the 1 Click Program now as my main software right now.

I should say that you can do an R- burn to an R+ with Nero if you do an ISO, however I am usually in a rush with this new hobby of mine and don't always have the time to go through that method.
I thought this might be useful information for other members who may have this happen to them and also perhaps maybe someone knows where the setting in the program is to allow me to do this.
The partner that knows how to do this is on holidays for a few more weeks.

Best Regards.