Need help determining if my drive is bad

[frank479]

I recently purchased a new DELL computer running Windows 10 Creator Pro and when I attempted to create an Easeus emergency disk and verify that disk, ImgBurn reported several verification errors.  I tried multiple times, same thing.  I then went to another older machine running Windows 10 Anniversary Update (but with the same version of ImgBurn) and burned the same iso.  It verified there on that drive just fine.  I then had that older machine verify the disks made by my new DELL.  They also all verified just fine which was kind of a shock.  I took the disk made by my old machine over to the new DELL and the DELL using ImgBurn also verified it just fine.  ???

 

So, it appears my new machine cannot verify disks it makes, but is that even possible?

 

I attached two logs from the burn/verification sessions from the DELL.

 

Is there something wrong with my new drive?  In both logs, when it ran into an issue, I told it to retry and continue.

 

ImgBurn1.log

ImgBurn2.log

[dbminter]

Are you sure these logs are from 2 different Dell computers?  Or are these Dells 2 of the same kind of model?  Because the DVD drive in both logs is the same model.  If these Dell PC's are both the same model then that would go a ways to explaining why the drives listed are the same.

 

 

So, you're saying the same HL LG DVD drive model is in both Dells and that Verify passes on one Dell's HL LG DVD drive but not on the 2nd Dell with the same model HL LG DVD?

 

 

If you are saying that, then it does seem the one Dell with the drive that fails to Verify has some kind of problem on it.  Could be as simple as replacing the drive.  Could be a cable or port issue.  Could be a Windows configuration issue.

 

 

Probably the simplest solution is to try replacing the failing drive.  If you're adventurous/know how to do it, take the Dell's drive that works and swap out the one that doesn't work for it.  If the Verify then passes on the one that works in the PC that doesn't, you know it's the drive.

 

 

BTW, you're using CMC Magnetics discs.  CMC makes the worst optical media out there.  Try some better quality Verbatim DataLife Plus media.  NOT Life Series media; they will be CMC, too.  DataLife Plus series.  I would normally be blaming the cheap CMC media; however, in your case, not here.  It works in one drive but apparently not in another of the same model.  That seems to not be a disc quality issue but a drive quality issue.

[frank479]

Yes, 2 logs from the same failed new DELL computer.  The older computer is a also DELL but its drive, which works well, is completely different.  It's a after market drive with a door, whereas the new DELL uses one of those slot insert drives.

So, no, not saying the same HL LG DVD drive model is in both... only the new DELL.

 

I'm still going to try those Verbatim DataLife Plus disks you suggested and see what happens, even though, it doesn't exactly explain what's happening in this case.  But, it would be another data point.   The fact that the new DELL can verify those CMG disks made on the old machine says a lot.  It almost seems like the new DELL isn't burning "deep enough" for it to read disks it makes, whereas the other better quality drive can still read those same disks just fine- it's just a better reader.

 

It's a new machine so before I can get DELL to replace the drive, I have to convince them that there's something wrong with it.  I'm guessing if I can't get the new DELL to verify the Verbatim's, that might be an argument for drive replacement.  They might argue that because the Windows 10 versions are different, that could explain the inability of the new drive to verify (like, maybe Creator Pro did something differently at the driver level).  Who knows.  I'll post back after I've tried the Verbatim DL+'s.

[dbminter]

Ah, as I thought.  Those logs were from the same Dell computer.  I figured as such since the log said the same drive was being used in both logs.

 

 

Ah, a slot drive.  That's probably your problem.  After you said it was a slot drive, I looked up the drive string on Google and found LG's page for the model.  I saw its picture and the slot drive in question is a slim drive.  Is the Dell drive that Verifies a full height drive?  Slim drives are pretty much junk.  If the Dell drive that Verifies is a full height drive, that probably explains why it works and since the drive that doesn't Verify is a slim drive, that probably explains why it doesn't.

[frank479]

Yup, the drive that works is a full height drive.  The faulting drive is noticeably slower, too, maybe 24x, whereas my full height I know is 48x.  I'm almost thinking to let DELL replace it but still myself add another better external drive to the system.  You have been so helpful.  Thanks so much!

[dbminter]

No problem!  What you might want to do is buy an internal burner but also buy an external enclosure for it.  Some external burners, like ASUS's current model, are junk, too.  I don't buy DVD burners anymore, but if I were going to get an external drive, I'd get an internal SATA Pioneer BD 209M burner and put it in an enclosure.  They're pretty much my go to drives, although I have an LG internal BD burner as well because with the latest firmware, P209M drives don't properly write to Ritek 8x DVD+RW anymore.  And it's been 2 years since they last updated the firmware, so it's not like they're ever going to fix that. 

 

 

The LG, unfortunately, has more problems.  It doesn't properly write image files to BD-R/RE DL in ImgBurn, although other apps will write image files to it.  It's a weird "issue" that has no logical reason for being, but repeated experiments by me and the results of another user prove it's there.  Even though there's no difference in the code for writing an image file versus the on fly writing that does work.  LG's are also pretty bad readers, so that might also explain your problem.  Since it's failing on Verify, it's failing on a read operation and my LG fails to read a lot of discs my Pioneer would.  Although I did have a weird case where my Pioneer wouldn't read a disc my LG would.  Go figure!  BD-RE DL's formatted as giant floppies also won't write to the 2nd layer.  You'll get a weird bogus Windows message saying the source file couldn't be "read" even though it's a write operation that's failing!    Lastly, LG's are capped at writing BD-RE SL formatted as a giant floppy at 1x, even though the drive writes BD-RE SL at 2x and the Pioneer writes the formatted discs at 2x.

 

 

Personally, I'd avoid LG's all together if I could.  The only reason I still use them is for the writing to 8x DVD+RW and that it reads and writes Ritek 6x DVD-RW that my Pioneer and ASUS USB won't.  I got the last USB model made before ASUS's current one, back when I thought ASUS was a quality manufacturer.  But, their current USB contains the same model drive, internally, as their current internal BD drive.  And that was junk.  2 different copies of the same model did the same thing: destroyed 8x DVD+RW and BD-RE SL and DL!    After writing to them, even when they were brand new and had never been written to before, they were totally unreadable after burn and could not be salvaged by reformatting.  Any drive is stuck in a forever reading loop trying to read them, so you CAN'T format them to try and salvage them!    The first LG I ever had was a DVD writer rebranded for IOMega.  I got rid of that pretty quickly because it wasn't writing to DVD-R correctly.  It was writing discs that caused skips in playback on DVD Video discs that my Optiarc drive didn't do.  There's an old joke that says LG stands for "Lucky Good" because it's lucky good IF you get one that works right. 

 

 

That's why I stick with Pioneers.  They have their own issues, but they're mostly annoyances, like the aforementioned firmware issue.  Plus, I had 2 drives display the same quality control fault.  After about 7 months, the eject button wouldn't work 1 out of 10 times.  Pressing the eject button or issuing a manual eject command in ImgBurn wouldn't work, but, a 2nd immediate press or eject command in ImgBurn would work.  And, it seems that every eject command ImgBurn issues after a write/before a Verify would always work.  But, Pioneers generally last a long time, too.  My first Pioneer is still in good working order after 4 years.  I keep it on hand for use when I need one while replacing another.  The 2nd one I only just had to replace earlier in the month because it wasn't writing files to discs anymore, but, I'd been using it for 2 years.  The 3rd one I had wasn't as good, though, requiring replacing after 7 months.  The 4th one I had went back to Amazon.com because it was borked right out of the box.  Wouldn't write to Verbatim quality BD-R that my first Pioneer 209M was still writing to.