Problem writing to Verbatim BD-R

[ClaireW]

I'm using a Pioneer BDR202 with ImgBurn to create Blue-ray discs, which are always Verbatim.

 

Presently I have two Verbatim BD-RW discs (2x speed) which ImgBurn burns perfectly, low CPU activity and a constantly full buffer level. It takes me 40 - 45 mins to burn a full disc, which I believe is about right.

 

The problem is when I burn to one of my small stock of Verbatim BD_R (2x speed) discs, the buffer level is all over place, CPU activity is way up to such an extent that I can barely get the mouse to move and the disk is written in what looks like rapid burst (looking at the drive light). Imgburn reports a writing speed of only 0.5x born out by the fact it takes nearly 3 hours to complete the burn.

 

As the drive is SATA there is not DMA setting to check and anyway it works just fine with re-writables.

 

Any suggestions? Log below..

 

; //****************************************\\

; ImgBurn Version 2.4.2.0 - Log

; Saturday, 14 February 2009, 12:48:28

; \\****************************************//

;

;

I 10:03:05 ImgBurn Version 2.4.2.0 started!

I 10:03:05 Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 2)

I 10:03:05 Total Physical Memory: 2,096,116 KB - Available: 1,653,624 KB

W 10:03:05 Drive C:\ (FAT32) does not support single files > 4 GB in size.

I 10:03:05 Initialising SPTI...

I 10:03:05 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

I 10:03:05 Found 1 DVD

[mmalves]

Install the latest drivers available for your motherboard's chipset (use SIW/Sandra/etc to find out which chipset you have) and try again. If there are no newer drivers then delete the storage controllers (IDE/SCSI/etc) from your Device Manager and reboot.

[ClaireW]

Thanks for the reply, most interesting that you suggest the cause as being hardware.

 

Unfortunately I'm rather nervous to mess with the mbo's storage controller, I have a lot of important stuff on my drive Raid 0 which consists of 3 SATA drives using up all available sockets from my MBO's ICH7R storage bus controller. I am fearful of losing data if I have to rebuild the raid as a consequence of re-installing MBO storage controller drivers.

 

Maybe I should mention the MBO is an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe.

 

Since my MBO's other onboard storage controller is the Jmicron JMB363 which doesn't support ATAPI my SATA Blue-ray drive won't work on it, so I am running it from a third party plug in PCI/SATA card. Could this be the cause? I believe messing with this would not endanger my raid drives so would have no such fears messing with that.

[mmalves]

Then look for updated drivers (and BIOS) for your PCI SATA card, or at least remove its entry in Device Manager and reboot. Even though it's SATA it still uses DMA and may fall back to PIO mode due to driver bugs/issues.

[Cynthia]

I have the same motherboard.

 

I could never get the SATA's on the mother board to work very well with my writers, so I also got an external card. Do you know what chipset this card uses?

 

It's possible to get yet another SATA connection free for a 'regular' hard disk on that mother board. It's not covered in the manual.

 

In page 2-35 under '6. ASUS EZ-Backup Serial ATA Connectors' there are two connections of which the EZ-RAID_01 can be used as a normal SATA connection. This is done by removing the jumper.

 

[ClaireW]

Hi Cynthia and Support,

 

My PCI/SATA card is ALI 5281 (5.0.2.6 drivers), I was going to re-install this or find a later driver until you mentioned your own experiences with this MBO.

 

In the past I have never been able to get the EZ-RAID working as an extra SATA connection despite removing the jumper so won't be trying that again but hey you put me on the right track, my Blue-ray drive was on the PCI/SATA card with one of my extra hard drives on the Jmicron, well I just swapped them over and hey it now works ok!!!!!!

 

At least I think it does, the CPU activity is not zero but is only a few percent, but the writing speed to another sacrificial BD-R is 3.9x - WOW!

 

The hard drive that got moved to the PCI/SATA card has now slowed down to SATA 1 speed but I can live with that..

 

Support, please look over my log file here and let me know if you think it's ok, I only wrote a GB of data on this short test, I hope it's the same when I next write a full disc.

 

I 12:38:49 ImgBurn Version 2.4.2.0 started!

I 12:38:49 Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 2)

I 12:38:49 Total Physical Memory: 2,096,116 KB - Available: 1,619,668 KB

W 12:38:49 Drive C:\ (FAT32) does not support single files > 4 GB in size.

I 12:38:49 Initialising SPTI...

I 12:38:49 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

I 12:38:49 Found 1 DVD

Edited February 15, 2009 by ClaireW

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It looks ok to me.

 

If you're now back to using the jmicron controller, you can find updated drivers here:

 

ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/jmb36x/Win2k_xp_Vista/

[Cynthia]

You have the setting in BIOS for 'EZ Backup RAID Mode Change' disabled?

 

I also have an 'ordinary' SATA hard disks attached to the SATA_RAID1 connector, not sure if you use that one.

 

[ClaireW]

You have the setting in BIOS for 'EZ Backup RAID Mode Change' disabled?

 

I also have an 'ordinary' SATA hard disks attached to the SATA_RAID1 connector, not sure if you use that one.

 

 

I tried this in the past, tried again today, still no luck connecting either an ordinary SATA drive or the SATA BD burner to the EZ Backup. Jumpers are removed, Bios setting is to "disabled", I can't get past get a disk error warning on boot, get "press F1 to continue". Before this I do enter bios and reset the boot order which has shifted but can't get past this error referring to disk 1 error, not sure which drive it means, I have a 3 disk raid on SATA 1,3 & 4 and I don't want to interfere with it.

 

To be honest I don't like having to jump through all these hoops with this mbo, been great in some ways but a complete pain in others. Looking at an I7 system now.

 

Anyway imgburn is working for me at last so hurray!