Sony DRU500A DVD+RW

[jman037]

14300.1

Hello everyone!



I just wanted to share an experience and was wondering if anyone else has had similiar. Yesterday I finally broke down and shelled out almost 400 bucks for a Sony DVD+RW drive and 9 Memorex DVD-R disks. I have almost a terabyte to backup and CDRs are like floppies to a job of this magnitude.



So far, I have made 5 DVD coasters. I've used Nero (latest version), Veritas RecordNow, Sonic MyDVD and Sonic DVDit PE. I get write errors consistently even though the drive has buffer underrun protection. DMA is enabled in BIOS and in Windows XP Device Manager. I have a Pentium III 1Ghz machine on an ASUS CLUSC-2 motherboard and 512MB of PC133 SDRAM. I've tried burning from files on a 5400rpm external firewire drive, my 7200 rpm C drive and a 5400rpm D drive (all Maxtor). I am not running any programs, just letting it burn at 1x.



At 7 dollars per disk, I've already wasted almost 30 bucks with nothing to show for it. Are these drives bad or am I missing something here?



Thank you for reading and (hopefully) responding.

Jory

 

[Adul]

prob a bda drive. if you cant burn a single good disk I would suspect the drive. have u tried what comes with sony's drive for software?

 

[ShinKen]

Hello,

I recently purchased this drive also. I have burned successfully using cheap meritline DVD-R, Apple DVD-R, and the Sony DVD+RW. However these burns were done in Ulead's DVD Workshop(+RW) and also burning .iso files with nero 5.5.9.14(-R). You might want to check VCDHelp Forums, to see if anyone one else is having problems with the Memorex DVD-R media.

Can you burn with the supplied DVD+RW disc? Also I do not believe that Nero does not yet have full support for the drive yet, this may also be the case with the other programs.

 

[skriefal]

According to DaGamePimp here, there are known issues with the Memorex DVD-R discs and the Sony DRU500A. I've no idea where he obtained that information, but your experience suggests that he's correct.

I'll also add that you should avoid Verbatim 2X DVD-Rs for a while, since they too have problems. You may have seen the pink piece of paper that came with your DRU500A that mentions this. I can recommend the 2X TDK DVD-Rs, which CompUSA sells for $3.99 each or $16 for a 4-pack.

Since until recently there were only a very small number of DVD-R drives, it's not really surprising that there are some compatibility issues with certain brands of discs when used with certain new burners. These will probably be solved in the future, as the media manufacturers tweak their formulas and their equipment.

P.S. $7 per DVD-R is way too much to pay for blank DVD-R discs. Don't pay more than $5/disc at a local B&M. If you order online from a place like meritline.com, rima.com, supermediastore.com, or shop4tech.com you can get cheapie 1X blanks for $1 or better stuff for about $2.

 

[jman037]

I have updated the BIOS for my motherboard and tried again. Memorex DVD-Rs still fail. I tried a Memorex DVD+R (a 3 pak came with the drive). Unlike the DVD-R's, these wrote at 2.5x..and FAILED. Something about not being able to finish disc at once end.

I tried the Sony DVD+RW disc that was in the actualy drive box. At 2.5x this was successful.

Is it safe to assume the drive is good and the media bad/imcompatible?

 

[skriefal]

Possibly. Try to pick up a TDK DVD-R (one of the made in Japan ones, if possible) and give it a try.

 

[jman037]

Last night I burned several Fujitsu CDRs on the drive. They all wrote successful. This also leads me to believe the drive is just finicky about its media. I wish I would have known this before I spent 50 bucks on DVDs I can't use. Does anyone have a list of known compatible media for this drive? Sony's website didn't help there.

 

[Eug]

Dunno about the Sony drive, but I've found TDK ($$), Apple ($$$), and Mitsui ($$$$) discs to be good quality for use in my Panasonic.

Princos ($) OTOH, are suck.

Memorex ($$) has mixed reviews online.

 

[epsilon]

This drive has problems. I have made nothing but coasters with it also. It is in my opinion, way too finicky about media. Read the forums at www.dvdwriters.co.uk. This drive was rushed to market IMO. Mine is probably going back as I cannot even burn a regular CD on this thing.

 

[jman037]

Today I tried TDK DVD+R. I got the same error as with the Memorex DVD+R : Could not perform end of Disc-at-Once. So with 2 different brands of DVD+R, I get that error. With the one brand of DVD-R, I just get a Write Error..Uusally close to halfway through the burn.

I'm only buying one disk of each at a time as I test the various brands and formats.

 

[SKORPI0]

Originally posted by: jman037
Does anyone have a list of known compatible media for this drive? Sony's website didn't help there.

UNOFFICIAL list of media that have been reported to work with the DRU-500A

Also..... Firmware upgrade available

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Firmware 1.0d will improve read and write speed on DRU-500A. It will also provides enhanced writing compatibility with DVD recordable/rewritable media.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upgraded mine from 1.0C to 1.0D.

Successfully burned data on Memorex DVD+RW (2.4X) and K Hypermedia DVD-R (1X). Will try the Fuji DVD+R (25-pack) I bought at Best Buy.