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colinhunt

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Posts posted by colinhunt

  1. Alcohol was ancient, I uninstalled it now. Daemon Tools is the latest one, and it uses SPTD 1.56. I uninstalled it as well, just in case. Let's see if this had any effect.

     

    First test after rebooting, with Auto calculate enabled: profile remains BD-RE after dragging some data into source box.

     

    Looks like we solved it! I'll do some further testing, but it sure looks like it was either Alcohol or DT, or both, that caused the odd behaviour.

  2. Did a bunch of tray cycles.

     

    'Prefer' box unticked-

    10/10 cycles profile comes to BD-RE

     

    'Prefer' box ticked-

    10/10 cycles BD-RE

     

    Then I tested what happens when profile is BD-RE and I drag some data into Source box, with Auto calculate enabled.

    10/10 x BD-RE is replaced by BD-ROM.

     

    Profile stays as BD-RE if I disable Auto calculate.

  3. Alcohol 120%, Daemon Tools, AnyDVD HD - any of these a possible culprit? I keep AnyDVD HD disabled when burning, though.

     

    During the previous BD-RE/BD-ROM profile swapping I didn't have AnyDVD HD loaded in memory at all. Alcohol and DT are also disabled, i.e. there's no tray icon for them, and neither is there a context menu for either one.

  4. Your drive is a bit poorly!

    Still under warranty, luckily :)

     

    dragging data to the 'source' box doesn't refresh the drive info so if it's doing that without you telling it to, it means the drive went from being 'ready' to not being ready all by itself.

    How is that even possible? Drive reported BD-RE, I dragged data to source box, and profile is changed to BD-ROM. If there's no refresh from ImgBurn, how would you explain this? (I'm not claiming ImgBurn does a refresh, I'm asking for a theory :) )

     

    As it's so on/off, any chance you could try it in another machine and see if it does the same?

    Most of my PCs are from stone age, but I do have one other PC I could try the drive in. Will take some time to test, though.

     

    It can only be the hardware (cable perhaps?) or some dodgy/conflicting driver so troubleshooting shouldn't take too long.

    The drive resides currently in my video editing PC which has loads of various burning apps installed. It could certainly be a driver issue, but I don't know how to even start investigating that.

     

    If say you did 10 tray cycles (without changing anything else), how many of those return a current profile of 'BD-ROM' where it should be 'BD-RE'?

    I'll test this once the current burn is done.

  5. This is starting to get very mysterious indeed.

     

    I ran ImgBurn with the 50GB disc in LG drive, 'Prefer' box NOT ticked, and...

    Current profile: BD-ROM. Write button disabled.

     

    Ticked the 'prefer' box. Ejected tray, inserted tray...

    Current profile: BD-RE. Write button enabled.

     

    Dragged 40GB of Blu-ray data into Build window. Boom!

    Current profile: BD-ROM. Write button disabled.

     

    Deleted data from Build window. Unticked the 'prefer' box. Ejected tray, inserted tray...

    Current profile: BD-RE. Write button enabled.

     

    Dragged 36GB of Blu-ray data into Build window. Whoosh!

    Current profile: BD-ROM. Write button disabled.

     

    Ejected tray, inserted tray:

    Current profile: BD-RE. Write button enabled.

    Clicked Write button. Pop-up: "Data will be overwritten. Continue yes/no?"

    Clicked yes and writing commenced.

     

    Drive reports profile as BD-RE, but when you drag data into Build window and check again, profile's been switched to BD-ROM.

     

    What on earth is going on here?

  6. It worked.

     

    The 50GB Panasonic BD-RE I feared would be fit only for garbage burned fine. The data on the disc is OK, too, since the movie is right now playing on the PC next to me.

     

    It's the same disc which Nero 8 couldn't quick or full format; the disc which ImgBurn was unable to format or write on while the "Prefer properly formatted" box was ticked.

     

    I unticked the box, write button was enabled and the disc burned fine.

     

    This has to have something to do with quick formatting brand new discs with Nero 8 before using them with ImgBurn.

     

    What do you think?

  7. Whoa, hey, stop the press!

     

    I took out another Maxell BD-RE 25GB. This one was burned with Nero 8.

    Started ImgBurn, ticked the "Prefer properly formatted +RW" box, closed ImgBurn and started it again. Dropped some ~20GB of Blu-ray data into Build window. Inserted disc into LG.

     

    Write button is greyed out, status reads "Disc Not Empty". What the...? And then I noticed that 'Current profile' reads "BD-ROM".

     

    It's possible that previous Maxell had also been reported as BD-ROM. I just realized that scrolling down the Device window, there's a Physical format information section which lists BD-RE. It's quite likely I took note of that and totally neglegted the 'Current profile'.

     

    So!

     

    I unticked "Prefer properly formatted +RW", ejected disc, reinserted it and boing! Write button is no longer greyed out and Current profile says BD-RE.

     

    This got me thinking (about time, too). I ejected the Maxell, inserted the 50GB Panny BD-RE.... and ImgBurn lists the Current profile for it as BD-RE -- and Write button is not greyed out.

     

    Clicked the Write button... and LG started writing on the disc. It's done 23% so far, at a steady Write rate of 2.0x.

     

    Lessons learned so far:

     

    1) I'm an idiot.

    2) Sometimes it pays to play with tickboxes.

    3) If possible, don't use Nero 8 for anything.

  8. It's impossible for a properly recognised BD-RE to grey out the write button. period.

    I'm not trying to pick a fight or say you're wrong; I'm simply reporting what I saw & experienced, that's all.

     

    Here's a start of a hypothesis: I've used Nero 8 to Quick format all my brand new BD-REs before Quick formatting them with ImgBurn. There was a good reason for this, but I've forgotten what it was. It had something to do with being somehow unable to use (or quick format, perhaps) new discs with ImgBurn, unless they were first formatted by Nero.

     

    Might that have something to do with any of this?

  9. It'll tell you if it needs erasing (even though it's automatic) - by using those very words. Unticking that box did nothing.

    Ehh, sorry, what? First the write/build button was greyed out, then I unticked the box, and the button was no longer greyed out. Looks to me like unticking sure did something ;)

     

    If the button was greyed out it's because your drive was reporting it as BD-ROM again, and that's out of my hands I'm afraid.

    This was a different disc altogether; a Maxell 25GB BD-RE and drive reported it as BD-RE.

     

    But while we're on this subject, any idea why the drive would report a BD-RE as a BD-ROM? Please note that this only happened after I used ImgBurn's Quick format on the disc. Is it possible to somehow 'override' the drive and force... hmmh, probably not.

  10. You know that you don't need to erase DVD+RW, DVD-RAM or BD-RE media before rewriting on them, right? Simply click the Write/Build button and ImgBurn will ask you if you want to overwrite the disc :thumbup:

    By the by, I just noticed this seems to be incorrect. I placed a previously burned (with ImgBurn 2.4.0.0) Maxell BD-RE 25GB in the LG drive, and the Write/Build button is greyed out. Below that, the status line reads "Disc Not Empty". Certainly looks like the disc needs to be emptied/formatted first.

     

    edit: Unticked "Prefer properly formatted +RW" box and now ImgBurn allows burning without formatting first.

  11. 3.5 hours... lol

    Best to format these things overnight ;)

    Indeed. Ridiculous, isn't it? :D

     

    I haven't found the time to try another full format on my Panny media yet. Care to hazard a guess what settings (FastWrite, Format without Spare Areas) I should use?

  12. When you try a full erase with ImgBurn, what's displayed in the Log window? Can you copy those lines and paste in a new post for us, please?

    I'll try that in a while; need to finish another burn first.

     

    Have you tried enabling Prefer Format Without Spare Areas and then trying a full erase?

    No, not yet. Full erase takes forever and a day ;) but I'll give it a shot soonish.

     

    Should I have Fastwrite enabled or not? Could that have any effect on the matter?

  13. Just so I know we're on the same page still, the current problem is that your drive keeps changing it's mind and saying the current profile is BD-ROM one minute and BD-RE the next - all without you actually doing anything except maybe ejecting / reinserting the disc?

    Not quite. Panasonic drive reports BD-ROM no matter what I do.

     

    I can 'fool' the LG drive into reporting BD-RE by having the disc in the drive when I run ImgBurn, but when I try to format the disc (or perform any operation) LG sees it as a BD-ROM (apparently) and ImgBurn asks for media type. I've scoured the net for BD applications and none of them are able to format this particular disc.

     

    Alcohol 120% gave me a glimpse of hope. It refused to format the disc at first, but I ejected and reinserted disc and it actually started formatting.. only to stop a couple of seconds later, saying the disc is not compatible with operation, or something along those lines.

  14. You know that you don't need to erase DVD+RW, DVD-RAM or BD-RE media before rewriting on them, right? Simply click the Write/Build button and ImgBurn will ask you if you want to overwrite the disc :thumbup:

    I knew that about +RW and RAM, but not about BD-RE. Thanks for the tip. Too bad it's of no help with this current problem I'm having...

  15. BD-RE and BD-RE DL share the same 'format' command. I see nothing in the MMC specs saying otherwise.

    OK. The reason I asked is quite simple: the disc was working, then I ran ImgBurn's Quick Format on it, after which the disc was borked. It's certainly just as likely that the drive malfunctioned. I don't actually care much about how it happened -- I'd much rather see a solution so I could use the disc again.

     

    Dunno if this info has any bearing on the matter, but... I've got some BD-RE 25GB media (Philips) which can't be formatted with ImgBurn's Quick Format. ImgBurn says the formatting went through OK, but then it reports that the disc is not empty. I usually get round this by running Nero 8's Quick Format on the disc, followed by ImgBurn's Quick Format. A couple of times that didn't help and I had to run ImgBurn's Full format on the disc.

  16. A couple of questions sprang to mind.

     

    1) How come Nero 8 and ImgBurn seem to format BD-RE discs differently?

    2) ...and what's the difference?

    3) Any chance of ImgBurn having a bug which results in BD-RE 50GB media being formatted incorrectly, resulting in a disc which appears as BD-ROM?

  17. Do you have any special software installed for burning/formatting BD discs? ie. anything that came with either of the drives?

    If there was a disc with LG, it's now vanished into the black hole otherwise known as this room. Panny came with DVDForm which refuses to recognize the disc.

     

    I haven't gotten around to buying any BD DL media for my H20L yet... maybe I should and we can compare results.

    DL RE media is stupidly expensive which is why I have only one. It would be good to compare results, certainly. The donation I made a while back isn't enough to cover that cost, however... maybe I should donate a bit more :)

  18. Sorry - my bad. I see the drive is sometimes recognising it as BD-ROM (not rerwritable?) and BD-RE (which would allow you to reformat).

    Yup, that's what LG is doing. However, the pop-up window for media type still appears even when it reports the media as BD-RE. Something's quite wonky with this media...

  19. Ran ImgBurn first, then inserted media into Panasonic drive, which reports:

     

    MATSHITA BD-MLT LF-MB121 BD03 (USB)

    Current Profile: BD-ROM

     

    Disc Information:

    Status: Complete

    Erasable: No

    Sessions: 1

    Sectors: 23 652 352

    Size: 48 440 016 896 bytes

    Time: 5256:06:52 (MM:SS:FF)

    Supported Write Speeds: 2x

     

    TOC Information:

    Session 1...

    -> Track 01 (Mode 1, LBA: 0 - 23652351)

    -> LeadOut (LBA: 23652352)

     

    BD Disc Information:

    Disc ID: MEI-T01-01

    Disc Type: BD-RE

     

     

    Inserting disc before running ImgBurn gives the same result.

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