Problems detecting blank dvd-r

[richardw6000]

I know there are lots of posts about problems in detecing bank media but there seem to be very few, if any, answers. I do not have the answers either but I have just had an interesting experience that I thought I would share with other members.

Recently bought a LG GSA-4167B 16x Super Multi DVD/CD Rewriter and installed it into a P4 PC running XP SP2 as Master on the Secondary IDE channel (no other device on this channel). Everything works OK, except it will not detect a blank DVD-R disk. It will burn DVD+R, CDs etc OK and it will read DVD-R discs that have been burned elsewhere. I have tried several different burning programs including Nero 7, CyberLink PowerProducer as well as the VSO Inspector info program but all fail to detect that there is a blank DVD-R disk in the drive. I have also tried different brands of media including Verbatim and Mag Media.

As it will burn DVD+R and CDs OK I have concluded that the problem is with the drive itself (I upgraded the firmware to the latest DL13 but this did not help).

The most interesting thing is that if I start a multisession DVD-R using Nero 7 on my notebook computer that has no trouble detecting a blank DVD-R, and burn a couple of small files onto the disk, I can then go to my problem LG burner and continue the multisession DVD-R with no problems. So the problem seems to be definitely with the LG burner's detection of BLANK DVD-R.

Does anyone have any information on just how a DVD burner does detect blank media and any ideas as to why this LG burner has no trouble dectecting blank DVD+R but not DVD-R?

[NooNoo]

Hmmm I don't think there is a brief answer to this other than there is something off with your firmware still...

As for how it detects, I would assume the laser the laser moves to the start position and attempts to read the file system - if it doesn't exist, it must be blank or something of that order... details of how to get the spec are here