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I've always been a huge fan of Pioneer. Have the 106/107/108/110. While saying that though, am disappointed at their ability to read defective disc's. I've been asked lately by numerous people to help them recover data off of damaged disc's and the Pioneers (up to the 110) just aren't cutting the mustard.

Could someone please either explain to me, exactly what feature it is that I am looking for (when reading reviews) that will help me decide whether or not a DVD burner is good at reading defective disc's. In addition, could anyone make some recommendations on what burner type and model I should be looking at. My primary task with this particular burner would be data recovery.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Thank You.

I'd give one of Lite-On's DVD writers a try. They'll read pretty much anything.

My primary reader's of DVD-Video's are Liteon 20A1S and Benq 1655. When they stutter due to scratched discs, I then go to a Pioneer 112D. It has about a 70% success rate over the Liteon and BenQ. I had the same results with a Pioneer 111.

Ian wrote:I'd give one of Lite-On's DVD writers a try. They'll read pretty much anything.

Do you have a specific model in mind? I'm leaning towards a DVD+/- DL burner as, this burner will not be soley for data recovery but, that's what the primary role of it will be. I'd like to read up on them but, to generically say "Lite On", there's quite a range.

Thanks

Grain wrote:My primary reader's of DVD-Video's are Liteon 20A1S and Benq 1655. When they stutter due to scratched discs, I then go to a Pioneer 112D. It has about a 70% success rate over the Liteon and BenQ. I had the same results with a Pioneer 111.

Thanks. I'll take a look at those. Neither are Blu-Ray are they? I thought the 112D was Blu-Ray.

Thanks again for this help.

Neither are BluRay. The Pioneer 112 is IDE, the 212 is sata.

Grain wrote:Neither are BluRay. The Pioneer 112 is IDE, the 212 is sata.

Which firmware are you running for your Pioneer 112D? Did some reaserch on it and most of the reviews had v1.09. Some of the reviews claimed that the 112D was a tad disappointing in the CD/DVD error correction however, that the issue's the 112D did have, could all be resolved with a firmware upgrade. I see that there are a few RPC patches for the firmware, you running Region-free? I have ordered a Pioneer 112D from Tigerdirect.ca and am hoping it arrives this week. I've always owned Pioneer and am a huge supporter but, if it can't do what I need it to do, then will have to look elsewhere.

Thanks again for your assistance.

I'm using the newest firmware, I believe it's 1.21 (at work, can't confirm). As far as cd's go, I can't say, I don't burn many, about 1 for every 400 dvd's. With DVD's, it's able to read poor discs better than any drive I have. Damn fine burner too.

Grain wrote:I'm using the newest firmware, I believe it's 1.21 (at work, can't confirm). As far as cd's go, I can't say, I don't burn many, about 1 for every 400 dvd's. With DVD's, it's able to read poor discs better than any drive I have. Damn fine burner too.

The newest firmware, is it hacked/patched or authentic Pioneer FW?

I'm using official firmware on my 112D. My 111D I flashed to a 111L using modded firmware to enable bitsetting for +R media, but I wasn't very happy with the burn quality after, so my 112D I'm sticking to official (and not using +R DVD5 media with it). Stock firmware automatically set's DL +R book type to DVD-ROM.

Grain wrote:I'm using official firmware on my 112D. My 111D I flashed to a 111L using modded firmware to enable bitsetting for +R media, but I wasn't very happy with the burn quality after, so my 112D I'm sticking to official (and not using +R DVD5 media with it). Stock firmware automatically set's DL +R book type to DVD-ROM.

I haven't received my drive yet but, from what I can see on the Pioneer site, it is v1.21 as the latest. I've flashed all previous drives to remove the ripping speed. Am not happy with my 110D. Get lots of errors when reading and is very sensitive to DL media. My 108 can do no wrong. Take a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. I'm thinking I'll stick with original FW for my 112/112D.

Appreciate all your help. I'm certain I've made a wise choice/decision.

BlkPnthr wrote:Appreciate all your help. I'm certain I've made a wise choice/decision.

No problem, you'll be happy with your purchase, they are a great all around drive.