DVD-RW 8165 problems

I recently bought a laptop (Fujitsu Siemens Amilo D 7830) that has a DVD-RW/CD-RW combo drive. It can read CD's, DVD's fine and can even burn CD-R's with no problem. But it refuses to burn DVD's. I use Nero Express 6 for all my burning processes. I either get 30-40% done with a DVD and it says "illegal disk" and stops the burning. I am burning a extracted movie and it plays the burned parts just fine. So i tried burning data and got the same thing, either go about half through and stop or stop at the very begining. Any idea as to what might be the problem? I do belive the drives brand is Ricoh, not sure though Thanks!

Have you tried another brand of media?
Do you have DMA activated?

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Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

Have you tried another brand of media?
Do you have DMA activated?

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I am planning on returning the current media and exchange it for another brand tomorrow when the stores open. As for DMA, i am not exactly sure how to check if it is active or not, although i do think i saw it was not (HDD was and optical drive wasn't but im not sure). How can one check of DMA is activated or not? Thanks!

Open device management. In XP its under the advanced settings tab for the secondary (or primary) ide controller properties.

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Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

Open device management. In XP its under the advanced settings tab for the secondary (or primary) ide controller properties.

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Thank you, i checked both (primary and secondary) and they are both running on DMA (Primary on DMA mode 5) and secondary in DMA mode 2. So yes, they are active. As for the different media, in a few hours i'll hop over to the store and see if i can return/exchange these disks for a different type. I'll post an update once i do, thank you very much!

**Update**

I exchanged the DVD-R's for a different brand (Imation) and they still give the same error. Tried two disks and decided i should probably take the system to the dealers workshop when they open in a few days, unless anyone has any ideas? Thanks :D

I had exactly the same problem you describe. Nero gives an error half way through writing the dvd. I solved it, eventually, after months of arguing with the guys at Siemens by installing extra RAM. The 256MB standard with the 7830 seems to give problems for full length dvds. Seems so simple, doesn't it. You can try all the different media you like, won't make much difference.

Good luck, Ivor

Welcome to WD forums Ivor :).

Well I'm not surprised Siemens argued with you - 256mb of ram is supposed to be 'plenty enough' - System requirements Nero but you'll notice Nero asks for more memory when burning DVD's - 128 meg as opposed to 64 (if you'd looked at the requirements even recently you wouldn't see the distinction, as they didn't make it !) .. so yup your 'explain' sounds v. possible indeed, as something the install notes used to say but now don't was to make sure Nero was the only thing running.

I guess the way here to 'prove' whether this may be happening to Inspiron83 is to burn a 'small disk' & see if the error persists or not :).

"illegal disk" errors though are generally what they imply & that's Nero 'not liking' the disk, generally Nero kicks a code too which pins matters a bit more exactly - a note of that from Inspiron83 may help us diagnose better :).