On Mon, 03 Aug 2020 11:03:34 -0400, legg wrote:

Two most regularly used optical drives recently stopped
recognizing data DVD's that were created on these machines.
There is no issue with CD media. The affected machines
still recognize commercial 'film' DVDs from the public library.

When attempting to recognize the media, the OS seems to
completely bog down as explorer attempts to display the
drive contents.

Once in a blue moon, explorer succeeds in displaying the
inserted disk, or even a directory on the disk - but
further attempts to access the drive result in explorer
crashing.

Nero infotool and CDroller will also sometimes report
presence and type of DVD - succesive running of tests
usually report empty drives.

After disassembling and cleaning one drive, it allowed
normal operation for a few minutes, but reverted to
previous state after disk ejection and re-insertion.

They are both HT-LG brands, but are located in completely
different PCs (PC-Chips homebrew and Lenovo ThinkCentre
refurb), with different OS (W2K - W7pro)and different
interconnection (IDE and SATA).

The Sony, TDK, Philips, Maxell DVD-R media , both blank
and previously written, are recognizable on two other,
less-frequently used machines in the lab, neither having
HT-LG hardware.

Replacing the drives with similar types did not correct
the problem.Replacement drives had other issues, which
is why they were hanging around - sticky doors etc, but
included one IDE drive purchased for this repair exercise)

All of the LG drives, original and replacements, have labels
dated before 2010. The other PC's that still recognize the
media have similar dates of manufacture, but are Sony or
Matsu****a branded.

Using the regular suggestions to manipulate the W7 operating
system ( device manager, optical drivers, atapi drivers,
disk management, registry upper/lower limits, sfc etc )
seem to have no effect.

I've not reinstalled Nero, and haven't (recently) reverted
to a Windows restore point.'restoring' didn't work the first
time, so I don't expect it to work a second time. That is a
bit of a rabbit hole.

I have ordered (by snail delivery) some non-LG drive
replacements as a last resort - but am still curious to
know if this is a more widespread issue.

Using DVD media for physical data back-up or transport
doesn't seem to be common these days - but I've had
large USB memory go bad on me lately, too. I also back up
the OS on a USB-connected HDD.

I'm discouraged by this experience with DVD media and
hardware, for data.

RL

Going through the usual business - reinstalling DVD drivers
manually on W7 Lenovo desk machine. . .

I find one blank Sony DVD+R that registers in the explorer window
( for LG HT burner disk)- slowly but not actually knobbling the
system.

OK - I burn data to it (nero2015) at the slowest speed (4x).
- Nero data verification fails, post burn 'too many errors'.
-
- The newly-written disk no longer displays in explorer
without freezing out the system.

The defective disk loads and displays normally, with the newly-
burned data on my laptop (mitsubishi dvdwriter). All 6200 files
are in their proper directory structures.

CDroller, testing 6000 files in 40 minutes, identifies some files
that are 'poorly defined'. These are mostly text files with
file extensions used in database (.csv), CAD (gerber and drill),
and simulation (LTSpice) software.

Seems a new drive is the only option. Anyone know of one that
is a serious piece of equipment - noy intended to be replaced
sooner than the media it handles?

RL