ASUS BW-16D1HT 3.11 - Rewritable Discs Issue.

[dbminter]

To be fair, that disc it failed on was a bit beyond the norm.  It was a mixed mode CD created by Nero Burning ROM.  The 2nd attempt to burn the disc worked but failed to read it one sector based on an illegal mode for the track.

[dbminter]

I do believe that first failed read was a fluke due to a behavioral "bug" either in the drive, Windows, or the OWC enclosure the drive is in.  Unless you use the Eject context menu item to eject discs in File Explorer, the metadata of disc contents is NOT updated.  The downside of this is if you don't do it, when you copy the contents of one disc in File Explorer without Ejecting, File Explorer is trying to copy nonexistent data from subsequent discs inserted into the drive.

[dbminter]

Had another oddity.  Just burned a DVD+R DL that passed Write and Verify.  Then, I went to Read the same disc I had just finished Writing and Verifying and the read rate plummeted to 0.01x at the layer change.  I powered off the drive, powered it back on, and tried again.  The 2nd attempt to Read the disc afterwards succeeded.

[DeathStalker]

I posted about just having an issue burning regular BD50s in another thread.  Since MakeMKV was mentioned here, the response there I got was "Terrible choice of drive for burning. LG & ASUS are absolute garbage when it comes to writing discs. Your best option for writing discs is to get yourself a Pioneer drive."

Really helpful, considering it's one of the most popular drives sold.  I have firmware 3.03 and MakeMKV recommends 3.10 - but doesn't say why or what it does differently.  Very frustrating.

--- DS

[dbminter]

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.