DVD wrier problems

[steve threlfall]

I have bought an NEC 4550 x16(black) dvdrw. Now i think that i have it hooked up right because i took my cdrw out and plugged the cable into the new dvd writer. It reads discs just fine but when i try and copy a cd/dump some mp3's onto a cdr and burn them i get error messages like

Could not perform end track

Session fixation error

Could not perfom finalisation

The burn process always seems to fail at whatever speed i try. Am i doing something wrong or could it be a faulty drive?

[mrbanana]

A quick look on here: http://www.bhacorp.com/support/atapi/errors3.html#

might shed some light. Look down the list for 'session fixation error', and click the links next to it (in this case 4,5,6).

Is the drive on it's own ide cable, or is it sharing the cable with another device? If it's sharing one of the devices should be master, and one should be slave. If there's nothing else on the cable you might be better off setting it to master rather than cable select. Check what the cdrw was set to.

Try reseating the cables.

Have a look on NEC's website and see if there's a firmware upgrade.

Finally, update your burning software to the latest version.

If you have any, try another kind of disc.

If none of these solutions work it might be time to think about returning it.

Good luck

[Agent]

What brand disks ?, seen this a lot with crappy Bulkpaq

[steve threlfall]

A quick look on here: http://www.bhacorp.com/support/atapi/errors3.html#

might shed some light. Look down the list for 'session fixation error', and click the links next to it (in this case 4,5,6).

Is the drive on it's own ide cable, or is it sharing the cable with another device? If it's sharing one of the devices should be master, and one should be slave. If there's nothing else on the cable you might be better off setting it to master rather than cable select. Check what the cdrw was set to.

Try reseating the cables.

Have a look on NEC's website and see if there's a firmware upgrade.

Finally, update your burning software to the latest version.

If you have any, try another kind of disc.

If none of these solutions work it might be time to think about returning it.

Good luck

Thanks for the suggestions. I should have said i am using nero 6, i have checked the firmware using nero tool and it says i have the latest 1.6 firmware for the drive.

I have used two types of disc (bearing in mind i havent tried any dvds yet, only cd r's) cheap brand and some maxell ones and the drive has chucked out about 6 coasters now

Its sharing the ide cable with my hard disk, master slave config just the same as my cd writer was and i have checked all the connections.

Il try some different software though i have tried copying a cd using media player and that didnt work either. Maybe the drives faulty

[steve threlfall]

What brand disks ?, seen this a lot with crappy Bulkpaq

Some maxell ones and some from Asda

If im honest the cd writer spat out a few coasters occasionally but it worked. I have manged this morning to burn one cd. Maybe some better discs are worth a try before sending it back.

[mrbanana]

Steve,

You shouldn't really put the hard drive and the burner on the same ide cable. I don't know if it will affect burning, but I'm sure I read it will slow your hard drive down to the speed of the burner. Ideally, your hard drives should be on one cable, and your burner and dvd on the other.

I use Nero 6 too. They've gone to version 7 now, which isn't exactly being heaped with praise.

Yep, 1.6 looks like the latest official firmware.

If you can put the burner as a master on it's own cable and you still have the problem with different software the drive might be knackered.

If you're really brave you could go to the following:

http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/4550/

And try one of the hacked firmwares for the 4550. There's a link to the original 1.6 too. But only do this if you're confident you know what you're doing and DON'T download the 4551 firmwares.

Otherwise, do a search on

http://forum.rpc1.org/viewforum.php?f=2

And see if anyone else has had this problem.

[steve threlfall]

Edit: Putting the dvd writer on ide2 seems to have solved the problem *crosses fingers*

Now to try doing some dvd's