Malfunctioning Sony DVD writer

[yogeshm.007]

Hi,

I have a Sony DRU-170C (just over a year old, out of warranty) DVD drive which is not working properly.
It is (a) not reading most of the DVDs properly, even the brand new/original ones, (b) is unable to write a DVD at speeds lower than 18x... and I just got hold of media capable of 18x writing once.
Is there anything I can do apart from discard it?

Regards,

[The Sorcerer]

You have given a pretty vague idea. How can people even give advices based on what you said? Please put down the complete configuration including the psu and the version of windows which obviously includes the service pack version as well. The model which you mentioned is actually a Optiarc AD-7170A OEM. I havent seen any good made in India discs that is even worth writing on 4x- that includes those moser baer/sony cheapos. Even a verbatim made in India ones are pretty good and last long especially when you write on 8x. Data and disc last longer this way. I am using verbatim (Made in India MC004) and made in Taiwan based taiyo yudens. I think a 50-100 disc spindle of verbatim will cost you 575 bucks.

[acewin]

well if anyproblem is there and needs a repair you mayhave to spend 400 bucks and 1.1K for new burner.
Hey Sorcy boy, moser baer is not so bad(Premium Plus) and is much better than Sony ones
I have not been looking much for verbatim discs though

[The Sorcerer]

^^ Ahh well after using those verbatims the results are pretty good.

[acewin]

well have been thinking the same to give a shot on verbatim ones.
which are the best in the verbatims,

moser baer has 2 types so I go for moser baer pro and not the normal one

[yogeshm.007]

Originally Posted by The Sorcerer

You have given a pretty vague idea. How can people even give advices based on what you said? Please put down the complete configuration including the psu and the version of windows which obviously includes the service pack version as well. The model which you mentioned is actually a Optiarc AD-7170A OEM. I havent seen any good made in India discs that is even worth writing on 4x- that includes those moser baer/sony cheapos. Even a verbatim made in India ones are pretty good and last long especially when you write on 8x. Data and disc last longer this way. I am using verbatim (Made in India MC004) and made in Taiwan based taiyo yudens. I think a 50-100 disc spindle of verbatim will cost you 575 bucks.

My system configuration is (its more than 5 years old):
P-IV 2.4
Intel 865GBF
512 MB RAM
Frontech standard PSU
OS:Windows XP (updated to date) with Nero 8; openSUSE 11.1 (updated to date) with K3B

The error (as per K3B) is "OPC failed. Please try writing at 1x."
Windows is presently not working on my system due to failure of other hard disc so cant give you exact error message but it was something similar.

The drive performed well (for writing) for some time, and as I said earlier I was surprised when I was able to write on a cheap 18x media. Otherwise whatever the speed I chose, the result is same.

Also, as I said earlier, it most of the times fails to read CDs/DVDs properly i.e. unable to read all of the data (even new ones), while those CDs/DVDs work correctly on other drives.

Regards,