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I've got a Toshiba SD-R6252 DVD+RW drive in my laptop, and it seems to be working OK, except for not recognizing DVD+RWs. Firmware has been updated, I tried Maxell and Samsung media, and still it just appears as if there's no disc in the drive.

I got this drive as a replacement from HP instead of a Sony DVD+RW, which was about the same: able to do all but writing DVD+RWs, although it recognized them and instead produced a fatal write error. As it was also noisier and slower, I never really figured out whether it was the same cause&problem or not.

It gets weirder: yesterday I rebooted in Safe mode, and suddenly everything was fine - recognizing and writing the DVD+RWs (well, more or less; I ran into problems erasing one media.) But today it all went back to usual. I can already tell, by the first 5 seconds of the drive's noise, if it's gonna recognize the disc or not.

I thought it might have something to do with having DirectCD 5, but uninstalling it didn't change anything.

Any ideas, solutions or explanations, anyone??

No ideas other than a clean OS install, but you've at least narrowed it down to a software issue. No need to send it back.

when you first got your laptop, did you format and install fresh non-loaded down version of windows xp?

i do it for all my "special" customers who buy laptops and computers from me

I wish I could be sure about anything... additional Safe Mode boots didn't do anything, but today, after doing nothing special (resuming from standby), DVD+RW recognition came back to life. But the drive insisted on halting soon after starting any burning job (KEY_MEDIUM_ERROR, but I'd never believe that it's the media's fault).
Add in more evidence like the exotic unconsistent sounds the drive made at some instances (it's nice to know it is trying hard to recognize the disc), and the unfortunate fact that it has a crappy reputation - and I'm just not sure it's the software's fault.

But no, I didn't do any fresh install of that WinXP home. Worse, it's a refurbished unit (excluding the drive, as said above).

You know how painful reinstalling a whole computer is... I guess I just need a 'smoking gun' that'd justify formatting... anyone?

binba2 wrote:disc), and the unfortunate fact that it has a crappy reputation - and I'm just not sure it's the software's fault.

But no, I didn't do any fresh install of that WinXP home. Worse, it's a refurbished unit (excluding the drive, as said above).

You know how painful reinstalling a whole computer is... I guess I just need a 'smoking gun' that'd justify formatting... anyone?

You have a history of multiple applications including the Roxio and Nero. It was working in safe mode. You haven't reinstalled the OS in some time. I would personally just back up the important data and format.

You could take the drive and try it in another computer, if available, and if it works that would further point to a software problem.

Reinstalling the OS sure beats shipping drives back and forth.

hoxlund wrote:
i do it for all my "special" customers who buy laptops and computers from me

Heh heh, the FBI is gonna have a field day when they catch up with you

Thanks for the help.

Before formatting, I tried to do an as-through-as-possible cleanup of the system from burning wares, and it seems that it slightly helped. On the first trial burning failed just as usual, but today I managed to successfully fully erase a DVD+RW, as well as to write 600MB into it - for the first time.

Nevertheless, there are still 3 other factors I suspect:

1. The Maxell media (RICOHJPN W11) seems consistently better than the Samsung (OPTODISC OP4). With all my experiments, I managed to write only to the Maxells; 2 out of 2 Samsungs are coasters, in contrast to 1 of 3 Maxells. (I should still check 'em with another drive)
2. The drive's Product Specification states installaion conditions not to exceed a tilt of 15 degrees. Since I keep my laptop tilted (it's so much better for the hands), and since I'd guess that writing DVD+RWs would be the most sensitive job for the drive, might this be a factor?
3. Until now, I only tried burning packet-writing / UDF. The last, successful burn was ISO.