dbminter

This post is about the expected lifespan of Imation 8x DVD+RW (RiData second generation) RICOHJPN-W21-01. I'll be keeping track of how many writes are done to this media before it fails. I'll update this post with the final value when the disc dies. The writer is an ASUS BD BW-16D1HT with firmware 3.11 is a VanTech USB 3.0 first generation enclosure. One write is already accounted for by Full formatting of the disc.

This post is about the expected lifespan of RiData 8x DVD+RW (First generation) RICOHJPN-W21-01. I'll be keeping track of how many writes are done to this media before it fails. I'll update this post with the final value when the disc dies. The writer is an ASUS BD BW-16D1HT with firmware 3.11 is a VanTech USB 3.0 first generation enclosure. One write is already accounted for by Full formatting of the disc.

I sometimes think LUK and I are the only ones from the old guard who still regularly post here and help out.

As far as I am aware of, there's nothing preventing you from opening 4 different instances of ImgBurn and burning 4 different ISO's to 4 different drives. I know I have had 2 instances of ImgBurn open at the same time, but not doing 2 different burns. However, it may not be PRACTICAL to do it. If these 4 drives are all attached by USB, there may be throughput issues writing to 4 different USB burners at the same time. I've never tried it before so I can't say.

Any burned disc will return the same information. It may not do it in Write Mode so you may have to go into Read Mode. Somewhere in the right hand pane of info, there should be something that says Manufacturer ID. The burner in your PC probably doesn't have a problem with those Ritek discs, but your BD player apparently does, if you're using a standalone BD player. I've used primarily Verbatim BD-R for the past 10 years. I tried a few Sony; they were junk. Memorex's Ritek's caused playback problems on the PS3. It would skip over entire title sets, including the opening one and some it would play only partially, skipping over parts of it. The same contents burned to Verbatim BD-R all played back normally. So, I've got experience with Ritek's poor playback quality with BD-R on the PS3. I'd expect the same sort of results on other BD players. I would try some of the Verbatim BD-R and see if those work better. Since you also purchased from NewEgg and your account info verifies it, it says you're in the US like I am. I get my Verbatim BD-R from Amazon.com. You can find them at Office Depot brick and mortar stores, too. And you can order just like 10 of them at a time from Amazon.com to test out and see if you get better results without having to invest much to see if they're better.

Generally, cleaning discs for standalone optical devices have been recommended to avoid. At best they do nothing and at worst they scratch the lens. General grinding issues are the result of the laser being unable to properly read the data. And this is generally down to a conflict between the media itself and the laser. For instance, on the PS3, it hated MEMOREX/RITEK BD-R but had no issues with VERBAT-IM BD-R. The easiest way to check further is post the log of a full write of a burn of one of these BD-R that causes the grinding. If you can't get one and don't want to burn another test BD-R, you can put a disc in the drive, open ImgBurn in Write Mode, and check the pane of information on the right hand side. Look for what it says under Disc ID (DID) or Manufacturer ID (MID). What does it say is the manufacturer of the BD-R? If it says CMC anywhere in it, that's probably the issue. Although RITEK and RICOH can be a cause. If it says VERBAT anywhere in it, then the issue is not necessarily so clear cut.

I've no longer got the input source files at hand to see if I can repeat it after being able to repeat it before. I was using Advanced.

I've got 2 different folders I wanted to add to a project. One in a folder called 2 and one in a folder called 3. 2 and 3 have the same folder structure except one subfolder is labeled Disc 1 Of 2 in 2 and the other is labeled Disc 2 Of 2 in 3. I dragged and dropped the subfolder in 2 to the project, but dragging and dropping the same folder in 3 wants to replace the contents already existing in 2. Wants to overwrite the contents of Disc 1 Of 2, which there is NO Disc 1 Of 2 in 3, only in 2. I triple checked. The contents in 3 are NOT entirely the same as in 2. There is the Disc 2 of 2 folder in 3 and there is NO Disc 1 Of 2 in 3. I triple checked to make sure I was dragging the folder from 3 and not 2. I was. I repeated this several times and got the same result. I closed ImgBurn, reopened, and repeated. Same results. Thanks!

This happens only rarely, but it does occasionally happen. Because it is so rare, it seems impossible to debug such an issue. What happens is sometimes in Build mode, dragging and dropping a folder into the Project does not add the folder. Instead what gets added are all of the files and subfolders in the ImgBurn installation directory. So, files like ImgBurn.exe and other executables get added. This just happened to me for the first time in a long time, but it does occur from time to time. What generally happens is deleting those ImgBurn folder files and dragging and dropping the same folder again works. Thanks!

To the first question: no. USB 3.x devices reporting as USB 2.x is a cosmetic error in the software. Back when the last gold release of the software came out, there was no USB 3.0. So, ImgBurn identified USB 3.0 as USB 2.0. This has been fixed in later betas and when the next version of the software comes out (And, no, don't ask when that will be.) it will be addressed. In the meantime, ImgBurn will (In general.) use USB 3.x speeds on USB 3.x devices. To the second question: depends on what you mean by "properties." If you mean what Device Manager will return, as far as I know, no. However, in Write mode, if you right click on a drive, there is a Capabilities list that displays some meaningful hardware properties of the drive.

It was actually quite a surprise that Pioneer released the new 2213 model about 2 years ago. No one else was releasing anything new and many were discontinuing optical drives because they're a dying breed. There's little profit in them. While there's still use and demand, it's not really enough to bother with. So, companies simply don't care. Another reason why firmwares are so borked, despite repeated e-mails to tech support stating the problems.

I stopped testing the 3.10 firmware after the DVD+R DL failure, so I can't say what else may not have worked. And I can't recall what I tested before. Probably 8x DVD+RW and MCC DVD-R. Yes, the reason the 3.11 firmware was never released to the general public to update their drives was two fold: 1.) if they released an update package, it could be extracted and modified 2.) why let users update old drives when they can buy an all new one to fix the issues ASUS started? There is no way to upgrade to 3.11 firmware other than by buying an all new drive with it installed from the factory. ASUS has told me, though, that 3.11 is the end of life firmware and that that drive won't receive anymore firmware updates. Pioneers are great drives if you never plan on burning 8x DVD+RW on any Pioneer drive or 8x DVD+R DL at anything other than 2.4x on the 2213. Can't say what the performance of DVD-R DL is on the 2213. I've not used any in like 10 years and I only used those as temporary storage as they weren't good for DVD Video. After going through that batch I bought to try out, I never tested again. So, depending on the manufacturer, 8x DVD-R DL might burn at 8x in the 2213. However, I would be willing to wager that the quality DVD-R DL, if Verbatim still makes them, would behave the same way.

That firmware is ancient. There is a 3.10 firmware. Try updating to that and see if it makes a difference. There actually is a firmware 3.11, but you can ONLY get that on factory shipped units. The 3.10 firmware was the last package you could download. The 3.10 firmware had an issue of its own, though. It borked writing MKM 8x DVD+R DL, failing to Verify at the layer change. The 3.11 firmware fixed that. I never tested BD-R DL writing in the BW-16DHT as I've never burned a BD-R DL before. I've only burned BD-RE DL in the LG WH16NS40 and NS60. So, BD-RE DL testing was not something I did on the 16DHT when I tested it.

Pioneer was a non-starter for over 10 years if you wanted to write 8x DVD+RW media. Always failed Verifies. Didn't always do that. Only after a firmware update they never fixed for over 10 years. The 2213 fixed that, BROKE it again, and then fixed it, but now the firmware for the 2213 only writes at 2x to 8x MKM DVD+R DL. IF Pioneer can fix that with the next firmware AND NOT break the 8x DVD+RW AGAIN, the Pioneer will be a great drive again, like it was 10 plus years ago. However, Pioneer has not updated the 2213 firmware since September 30th, 2023. The only problems with ASUS's BD drive is it only writes at 12x to 16x BD-R from Verbatim, it tends to be a bit of a slow reader for BD-RE discs, and does have a higher "random" failure rate than the LG. LG's WH16NS60 has problems of its own. It's a slower reader across the board and will not read some discs that other drives will. Ever since Pioneer borked their firmwares for 8x DVD+RW, the LG WH16NS60 was the only viable drive, despite its problems. They no longer make the NS60, so all you can get is the NS40. The problem with the NS40 was 90% of the time, it failed to properly write DL BD media, despite supporting it. I haven't used the NS40 in a long time so maybe a firmware update finally addressed that issue.

BTW, the drive is an ASUS BW-16D1HT 3.11 firmware in a Vantec USB 3.0 Gen 1 enclosure.