LG BH20N (BH08NS20) reading stops, freezes, dies, cannot verify

[pcuser]

Hello everyone, my first post here

I've been burning CDs,DVDs,BDRs since it appeared, usually with slysoft clone, nero, and since few years imgburn, great app and free !

I have no problems related to my drive which I use on a daily basis liteon ihbs 112, but recently i bought for 30$ two pieces (15$ each, so very good deal i think) of used Hitachi-LG Data Storage drives, BH20N models, both made in JAPAN (with fujitsu-siemens stickers)

LGE - DMBH20L( to be exact.

5V/12V = 1.2A / 1.6A

manufactured june 2009, rom ver 1.01

 

I've spent few hours to read about my issue which is probably not a defect (because both drives have it), but some riplock or so.

 

Not sure i'm posting it in good place cause it may be and probably is hardware/firmware related mainly.

I have no such nor any problems with imgburn using liteon.

 

It is impossible to verify burned successfully disc, even if it starts (it may reach up to 10%) the drive "dies/freezes", led is no longer blinking, speed is 0.00, it does not respond and even computer cannot shutdown or reboot, i have to use power off or wait 15-30mins or sometimes even waiting/cancel does not help.

 

Same thing applies to transfer rate test in opti drive control, it runs for a few seconds and stops.

 

Same with copying files burned correctly before (also tested on another drive(s) - it will copy 1 or 2, 7-8GB files and "die" at the end of disc during copying 3rd file same size.

 

When I copy files separately its fine. Quality of read and write is perfect. Its only about the issue of freezing drive, unable to verify.

 

I've already tried to update firmware with success, but this issue is not resolved.

I had FW 1.03 and then 1.15, then tried to speedpatch.

 

in failsafe mode its model HL-DT-STBD-RE BH08NS20 COR4 and i will try to crossflash it soon, but anyway it should be able to verify now right? I'm aware of no quality tests available because of LG chipset , but hey we're talking about verify.

 

Read speed of drive is very slow ~2x, besides it has 6x specs and even 8x possible @ hardware when crossflashed.

It takes ~40mins to copy whole disc 23GB.

 

It burns well, quality tests of discs burned with these LG's are very fine.

 

It would be good to have possibility in imgburn to choose/change which drive should be used for verify.

 

How can I burn with drive(s) I cannot verify... makes me sad, please help.

 

I'm using on daily basis imgburn with verify and even opti drive quality test with liteon ihbs112 pl06 drive, so never had such weird LG-infamous-issues.

 

Oh and i use it at win XP, so win7 hibernation/driver related issues, fixed with later firmwares does not apply to this case.

 

After many hours of testing and reading I gave up now, maybe some of you have any ideas that can help with firmware/crossflash, low read speed and mostly - freeze - verify things.

 

I can attach any files, screenshots, logs etc when needed, everything is correct i think, no problems with other drive, and it just stops (not to be mistaken with slows @ bad quality) reading right after verify starts.

 

edit:

 

FW. 1.15 with speedpatch applied - it takes 45mins to copy 22.8GB

 

thanks in advance

Edited October 7, 2017 by pcuser

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Right click the drive selection box and pick 'family tree'. Close the box that pops up and then copy and paste everything from the log window.

[dbminter]

You could disable the automatic Verify.  There should be an option on the main Write window to uncheck for Verify, I think.  Then, you issue a manual Verify and choose the drive you want to Verify against.

 

 

I'd be worried simply by the age of the drives being a problem.

 

 

I'd have said it may be because LG drives aren't very good readers, but you said you can copy the contents from the drive and that they copy fine.  So, it wouldn't be that, I'd think.  You also say the copying is slow, which would make me think there's something else going on.

[pcuser]

I 19:18:18 ImgBurn Version 2.5.8.0 started!

I 19:18:18 Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600 : Dodatek Service Pack 3)

I 19:18:18 Total Physical Memory: 3 374 380 KiB  -  Available: 2 729 984 KiB

W 19:18:18 Duplex Secure's SPTD driver can have a detrimental effect on drive performance.

I 19:18:18 Initialising SPTI...

I 19:18:18 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

I 19:18:19 -> Drive 1 - Info: HL-DT-ST BD-RE  BH08NS20 EL02-08 (D:) (ATA)

I 19:18:19 Found 1 BD-RE!

I 19:18:32 Device: [2:0:0] HL-DT-ST BD-RE  BH08NS20 EL02 (D:) (ATA)

I 19:18:32 Family Tree: (below some parts in polish language)

I 19:18:32 -> Wieloprocesorowy komputer PC z interfejsem ACPI

I 19:18:32 -> System zgodny ze standardem Microsoft ACPI

I 19:18:32 -> Magistrala PCI

I 19:18:32 -> Standardowy podwójny kontroler PCI IDE (VEN_10DE&DEV_045D - NVIDIA - pciide - v5.1.2600.5512)

I 19:18:32 -> Pomocniczy kanał IDE

I 19:18:32 -> Stacja dysków CD-ROM (HL-DT-ST BD-RE  BH08NS20) (0)

 

If necessary I may attach also graphs or more logs, but nothings wrong nor changed there in comparison with liteon, which burns, verify, read etc ok.

 

The thing is I'd like to verify with the same drive, or if its not possible and we will not resolve issue with LG drive, then to choose another.

I'm burning single files from HDD, not image, so I cant verify them other way sector by sector, cause when its not image it only scans surface of the disc right? (it does not compare/verify sectors from disc with sectors on hdd/file ? )

So the only way is to verify with "tick" when burning, also using same drive, cause there is no other choice when prompt to verify/eject tray/choose other drive to veirfy?

 

Never had to do this the other, the hard way, been used to verify tick and done, is there any other way to verify the same way as with tick or also choosing other drive to do this?

 

I guess verify from main menu, without image selected, scans only surface of the disc, and "verify after burn tick" compares it at the same time with hdd / files burned of hdd, so its completely different verification right? Surface of the disc, and burn may be good, but if we have bad ram for example, cable or so, there can be lot of miscompares, which verify of disc only will not reveal.

 

I've found it probably has something to do with firmware-hardware restrictions @ LG, kind of riplock.

 

Yes, i can copy with LG what LG burned, its just veeery slow, because of some restriction, and its not bad quality of media, cause it looks good and fast at other drive, takes ~16mins to copy x8 23GB (liteon ihbs 112), unfortunately LG needs ~50mins ~2x to do the same.

 

I bet its not the age, just LG. I have older and much more used drives and they are doing just fine, besides its about 2 pieces, not one, which could be failing. Probability of 2 pieces failing same way, same time is very doubtful. Besides they write and read perfectly, really ! Just so slow read speed and unable to verify needs to be resolved somehow.

 

thanks for replies

Edited October 7, 2017 by pcuser

[pcuser]

Just tried to start verify only surface of the disc (from main menu).

It starts to read ~2.5x then drops to 0.00 and goes to sleep/dead after ~ 20 seconds of reading, led is not blinking, nothings happening........so weird.

Cancel wont help, because bus does not respond i think, the only way is to reboot, power offline.

Meanwhile I can normally work on computer, clock is ticking, and imgburn is working, just with no read speed.

After reboot, I can read files and copy them to drive with no problems, just slow.

What is going on here ... weird

Edited October 7, 2017 by pcuser

[dbminter]

I don't understand.  You said you're not burning images, just single files, but ImgBurn only burns images.  It doesn't write single files to discs.  Unless you mean you're using some other software to do that while trying to troubleshoot the issue.

 

 

You can set a setting to Verify against the image file contents.  Otherwise, you're just basically performing a Read operation with a manual Verify.

 

 

BTW, have you tried using ImgBurn to Read a non protected disc and see if it completes?  If you can't get a Verify to complete, a Read should, in theory, not complete either.  However, if you can complete a Read but not a Verify, that might narrow down a problem somewhere.

 

 

Have you tried reading something other than a DVD Video and see if copying the contents in File Explorer is also super slow there?   Because I would think Riplock should only affect trying to read a disc with a VIDEO_TS folder on it.  I can't imagine Riplock kicking in for anything else because it would be a deal killer for people who knew Riplock was on a drive and it was detrimental to reading data off of a disc that wasn't a DVD Video disc.

 

 

This might be your problem:

 

W 19:18:18 Duplex Secure's SPTD driver can have a detrimental effect on drive performance.

 

Have you tried disabling the SPTD driver and see if it helps the issue?  Was this installed by Alcohol?  Although you said you hadn't changed anything and the issue just came up.  But it might have just come up with these old drives you got.  The drives may have a problem with the SPTD layer.

 

 

Another possible problem could be the newer age of the drives versus the age of Windows XP.  Windows XP simply may not support those newer LG drives.  Because, I noticed this:

 

I 19:18:32 -> Stacja dysków CD-ROM (HL-DT-ST BD-RE  BH08NS20) (0)

 

Windows XP is recognizing your BD drive as a CD-ROM drive.  I would guess that is the cause of your read/verify issue.  I know the latest BD drive that LG released, the Ultra HD one, does this on Windows XP.  It is recognized only as a CD ROM drive and can only be used for reading.

 

 

Ah, you replied while I was typing.  So, it seems you tried a manual Verify from ImgBurn and got the same thing.

[pcuser]

I always use imgburn 2.5.8.0. with write/files folder to disc chosen from menu. (right side , up at ez mode picker)

 

I'm not using any secured data/discs, just burning unprotected "clean" mkvs, no conspiracy theories needed

 

Yes, I'd say that one more time, I've never seen such thing before thats why i wrote.

 

I can complete read and copy to the drive, but cannot verify, funny.

 

disc contains mkvs, different mkvs, I can burn it with pure empty 0 and 1 - and i bet we will have the same situation, copying succesfully done to the drive, verify frozen and dead within 20 seconds.

 

I dont remember about SPTD, probably Daemon Tools back in the days, but liteon works good, could it be so dramatically different for two different drives? I doubt it but we may try to get rid of it if necessary to be 100% sure.

 

I switch drive to liteon ant its ok, then switch to lg and we have a problem, even same cable, same sata port etc... everything is the same way.

 

LG drives are 2009, liteon is newer 2012 and works fine.

 

Its probably not a driver issue, because i can write without any problems, read too, just verify and speed are issues here.

 

XP naming/translating is old, I will recheck but liteon was recognized witch same 2001 CDROM driver/name, but i will recheck this when switched.

 

Yep, manual verify is not going to happen on LG, same thing with any read test with random apps, opti drive, nero disc speed etc. It reads up to 20 seconds and is "frozen."

[dbminter]

You'd think as a beta tester of the software, I'd be more familiar with all of its functions.  I had forgotten there was a write to disc option in the main menu because I've never used it.  Really.  I've never used it before.

 

 

If you're just burning MKV's, I'd say Riplock is probably not an issue for your slow reads.  I'd think Riplock would only kick on discs that have a VIDEO_TS folder in the root directory.  But, I don't know for sure.

 

 

Daemon Tools does install that driver, I believe.  If I had to harbor a guess, I'd say it's probably not an issue, but you can try disabling it and see if it affects just that one manufactuer's model.

 

 

I am still wondering about the XP/LG BD thing.  The latest LG BD drive, an Ultra HD Blu-Ray playable model, has a problem working on Windows XP.  It is recognized as a CD-ROM drive and doesn't write properly at all.  However, the issue isn't a write one; it's a read one.  And you say the LG will write data to the disc and the LiteOn will read that data that the LG wrote?

 

 

Also, what are you writing to in the LG?  DVD or BD?  I'm guessing the LiteOn is a DVD drive, so you're probably writing to DVD.

 

 

And, do you have a complete log you can post?  Of the entire write process and the Verify process where it fails?  Probably not because you can't cancel ImgBurn when this happens, just power off the system.  I don't know if ImgBurn writes to the log file as each line is written out or queues it all up to write at the end of the operation.

[pcuser]

SPTD removed - unfortunately nothings changed, started verify, read speed started ~0.5x and drops to 0.0. at 14 seconds.

 

@ CDROM its just bad naming i think, drivers are dated 2001-07-01, version 5.1.2535.0, type CDROM/DVD - same with other drives, so its not an issue either.

anyway i can change / update drivers if there are any newer, but i dont think this is it.

 

LG burns and reads what LG burned, using explorer copying, opening etc, unable to verify and slow speed are the only issues.

Also both ways, liteon reads what lg burned etc, it really does a great quality burning job.

Burning BDRs. DVDs are dead to me for good since 2012 when i have burned last one.

 

It never fails i guess, log is clear and fine, nothing is reported there when drive getting frozen.

 

It frozen since 10minutes at 0% 0,00 x speed , last log is verifying track 1 of 1 ...

I can paste all of it, its only drive/imgburn frozen not the computer/OS

 

one more important thing - if i'm using any other app for read tests which is not blocking tray while read operation, i can "unfroze" drive when it stuck by opening tray, sometimes. Its not going to happen with imgburn , cause it blocks tray, only reboot helps, I'll try to untick blocking tray in imgburn and recheck.

 

 

LOG

 

I 20:49:43 ImgBurn Version 2.5.8.0 started!

I 20:49:43 Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600 : Dodatek Service Pack 3)

I 20:49:43 Total Physical Memory: 3 374 380 KiB  -  Available: 2 792 552 KiB

I 20:49:43 Initialising SPTI...

I 20:49:43 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

I 20:49:44 -> Drive 1 - Info: HL-DT-ST BD-RE  BH20N 1.15 (D:) (ATA)

I 20:49:44 Found 1 BD-RE!

I 20:50:06 Operation Started!

I 20:50:06 Source Device: [2:0:0] HL-DT-ST BD-RE  BH20N 1.15 (D:) (ATA)

I 20:50:06 Source Media Type: BD-R (Disc ID: MBI-R06-000)

I 20:50:06 Source Media Supported Read Speeds: 4x; 4,8x; 6x

I 20:50:06 Source Media Supported Write Speeds: 2x; 4x; 6x

I 20:50:06 Source Media Sectors: 12 180 544

I 20:50:06 Source Media Size: 24 945 754 112 bytes

I 20:50:06 Verify Against Image File: No

I 20:50:06 Read Speed (Data/Audio): MAX / MAX

I 20:50:07 Read Speed - Effective: 2,5x - 6x

I 20:50:09 Verifying Session 1 of 1... (1 Track, LBA: 0 - 12219391)

I 20:50:09 Verifying Track 1 of 1... (MODE1/2048, LBA: 0 - 12219391)

 

when i click abort, there is waiting for read thread (device) at the bottom of the window and then even my computer/explorer freeze/ but rest is working, and nothing happens until patience is over = power off/reboot.

Edited October 7, 2017 by pcuser

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Have you tried booting into safe mode and giving it a go?

 

Do you have an option in your bios to enable ahci mode?

[dbminter]

Have you tried Verifying/Reading any other kind of media, like DVD or CD, in this LG and see if you also get the same failure?  Have you tried Verifying one of these burnt BD-R in the LiteOn and see if the LiteOn fails to Verfiy?  If Verify fails on both the LG and the LiteOn, then there's something other than the drive being at fault.  If the LG Verify fails but the LiteOn Verify passes, it's the LG drive failing Verify for whatever reason.

 

 

I'm surprised you have any luck with a LiteOn BD drive.  They no longer make them and, as far as my experience went, that's a good thing.  My first BD drive was a LiteOn that stopped writing to all  BD-RE after 3 months.  And it was randomly inserting pauses in 2/3 of the DVD Video discs I created with it that weren't layer breaks.

[pcuser]

kind of major breakthrough... one of LGs verified successfully for the first time, it was malfunctioning because of a dirty/dying lens, anyway read speed is still 2x.

 

i burned disc after disc all day long, and then suddenly it stopped burning, same way it stopped verifying before, just froze at 10%.

one disc failed, and the next one started burning with 1,9 speed (set 4), instead of 4x with 4 real speed, as successfully before.

I have opened drive, it was cleaned before for sure, because it was clear inside (impossible to see no dust in 2009 drive).

Someone must have clean it and probably used compressed air, which sometimes (some cans) contains oil/gas ( i was shocked when i saw it once written on container, unfortunately after cleaning my drive with it and when it stopped working because lenses was covered with oil, fixed that easily using method below).

Because i have no cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol at this moment (but will order to have a spare just in case) i made few "rounds" of 3 different brands cleaning discs,

and then next disc burned over an hour with speed ... 1.2x - but verify was done !!! (with speed ~1.8x) but with success, completed 100%.

Then the next failed, so I have no longer hesitation to claim its a faulty drive.

Switched to another one - it burns fine - but unable to verify, so it will probably die very soon too.

Besides that they are reading slow, but well. Anyway wasted saturday and few discs for 15$ per piece.

Was it worth it? Well, I dont think so. Switched to my liteon, and will talk to the seller with unknown doubtful result.

I'll try to clean lenses properly when i get my order, but if its dying laser, and it seems it is, then its just piece of trash. I've found out some clues at google regarding dying drive /laser/lens stages, first it fails to verify, then to burn and then will not even recognize disk... to be honest I had dozens of optical drives, and never had such issue (the only one died was SONY DRU800A i remember to this day)

 

I have not tried safe mode, and as far as i know i dont have ahci.

Assuming this situation, it was very misleading for longer time period until it became obvious.

Liteon scans bdrs burned at this one, still living LG are perfect, even before that second died every burn was perfect.

 

Two words @ liteon, had dozens of them, even before bdrs.

My favorite one back in the days. I can say the opposite to my liteon history, and even this one i'm using on a daily basis ihbs112 , since 2012 , near 3k burned discs and works like a champ (each one with verify and additionaly quality test so at least near 10k write/reads)

 

I have no idea what purpose of those drives could be for me. I wont use it if I cant verify against image.

Probably most of ppl wont use it as a reader because 2x speed is not enough to play smoothly.

Another lesson learned the hard way, damn.

Edited October 8, 2017 by pcuser

[dbminter]

I used to use LiteOn DVD drives all the time after Optiarc went away.  They always had a problem of randomly adding pauses in DVD Video that weren't layer breaks.  However, they only did it like 1 in every 25 discs.  The BD LiteOn I had it did it 2 out of 3 times.  Those two factors, coupled with my LiteOn failing to write to BD-RE after 3 months, put LiteOn on my junk list.  And since LiteOn no longer appears to make any optical drives, it's a moot point.