Perhaps try using a SATA to PATA adapter? They seem to work fine with hard drives (provided the host system can accommodate the capacity of the SATA drive), but I never bothered to test with optical drives. Also, my adapter seems to have been acting sketchy and not functioning as of late, otherwise I'd test it now.

Mister Xiado wrote on 2020-06-03, 09:55:

Perhaps try using a SATA to PATA adapter? They seem to work fine with hard drives (provided the host system can accommodate the capacity of the SATA drive), but I never bothered to test with optical drives. Also, my adapter seems to have been acting sketchy and not functioning as of late, otherwise I'd test it now.

That was one option I had to discard due to the lack of the analog audio connector 🙁
I do have a couple of brand new SATA drives that I haven't used for that reason.

You could also try CD/DVD burners you would hope they could read a RW disc!
although I'd also expect DVD drives to be able to read RW disc just fine as well, I think you have just been unlucky.

I have a Plextor PX-755A which seems OK, but it looks like they cost silly money

Lite-On drives have been reliable to me

chinny22 wrote on 2020-06-03, 10:48:

You could also try CD/DVD burners you would hope they could read a RW disc!
although I'd also expect DVD drives to be able to read RW disc just fine as well, I think you have just been unlucky.

That's what I thought as well, in fact 3 out of 4 are actually DVD burners! But nope, no luck so far...

red-ray wrote on 2020-06-03, 10:59:

I have a Plextor PX-755A which seems OK, but it looks like they cost silly money

Yep, Plextors seem to be made of gold!

candle_86 wrote on 2020-06-03, 11:34:

Lite-On drives have been reliable to me

Lite-On is a brand I still have to test, I'll look into that.
On ebay the vast majority of what you find is LG, which I've been using myself for years but maybe they don't age very well...

DeadnightWarrior wrote on 2020-06-03, 09:33:

I tried FOUR different ones, three LGs and a TDK: none of them would properly read home made CD-R / RW and DVD-R / RW and in fact, they often don't even detect the discs! I use to burn them on my Ryzen PC with a fairly common LG SATA DVD burner, but even trying multiple discs and low write speeds doesn't help.

That doesn't make much sense. Either you live in a very dusty place and those drives need a lens cleaning, or - more likely - the discs are not burnt correctly.

DVD drives use different lasers for reading CDs and DVDs. Having 4 drives that all can't read either properly is just very, very unlikely.

I have similar situation as well, I googled to check what is considered the most reliable, best build quality ide dvd drive, and my research came up with plextor px-708A. So I went and hunted down and bought not one, not two, but 3 of these, and all 3 ended up being defective and being unable to read any of my CDs... 🙁

derSammler wrote on 2020-06-03, 12:05:

DeadnightWarrior wrote on 2020-06-03, 09:33:

I tried FOUR different ones, three LGs and a TDK: none of them would properly read home made CD-R / RW and DVD-R / RW and in fact, they often don't even detect the discs! I use to burn them on my Ryzen PC with a fairly common LG SATA DVD burner, but even trying multiple discs and low write speeds doesn't help.

That doesn't make much sense. Either you live in a very dusty place and those drives need a lens cleaning, or - more likely - the discs are not burnt correctly.

DVD drives use different lasers for reading CDs and DVDs. Having 4 drives that all can't read either properly is just very, very unlikely.

yea i agree with this, i do find my older drives read disks better that i burn with my bluray burner if i limit CD burn speed to 12x and DVD burn speed to 4x its slow but it ensures compatabilitiy

candle_86 wrote on 2020-06-03, 13:08:

DeadnightWarrior wrote on 2020-06-03, 09:33:

I tried FOUR different ones, three LGs and a TDK: none of them would properly read home made CD-R / RW and DVD-R / RW and in fact, they often don't even detect the discs! I use to burn them on my Ryzen PC with a fairly common LG SATA DVD burner, but even trying multiple discs and low write speeds doesn't help.

yea i agree with this, i do find my older drives read disks better that i burn with my bluray burner if i limit CD burn speed to 12x and DVD burn speed to 4x its slow but it ensures compatabilitiy

Should I try to go even lower than that, say 8x for CDs and 2x for DVDs?

derSammler wrote on 2020-06-03, 12:05:

DeadnightWarrior wrote on 2020-06-03, 09:33:

I tried FOUR different ones, three LGs and a TDK: none of them would properly read home made CD-R / RW and DVD-R / RW and in fact, they often don't even detect the discs! I use to burn them on my Ryzen PC with a fairly common LG SATA DVD burner, but even trying multiple discs and low write speeds doesn't help.

That doesn't make much sense. Either you live in a very dusty place and those drives need a lens cleaning, or - more likely - the discs are not burnt correctly.

DVD drives use different lasers for reading CDs and DVDs. Having 4 drives that all can't read either properly is just very, very unlikely.

Fact is, most of these drives have no problem with original music / game / OS discs while they struggle a lot with basic data CD-RWs.
It must be said the most recent of the drives is 15 years old. Yes I did clean belts, lenses and gears, had very little luck though.

I would try burning at lower speeds to see if that helps. Also make sure that your blanks are still good I've had issues with old but never used blanks before they burn but can't be read by anything

In my experience, I have noticed that the _reading_ functionality seems to 'wear out' after a certain (unknown) number of discs have been read.
I've used mine extencively to watch DVD movies/series etc for 3-4 years now, so...

While writing/burning seems to still work just perfectly fine (tested via other drive/disk error rates are on par with earlier burns), probably because haven't burnt nearly as much as I have read.

- So my theory would then be that there are 2 laser heads, 1 for reading and 1 for burning, or something like that ?
Or am I totally mistaken here ? Please enlighten me if so.

Very funny when the drive/whole system hangs or is unable to read the very discs it burnt some years ago.... 😒
(Pioneer DVR-115DBK from 2008, one of the best DVD-burners ever)

Maybe the CD media you are using is marginal . What brand are you using ? Have you tried more than one brand ?

Do the burned disks work well in modern DVD drives ?

darry wrote on 2020-06-03, 13:45:

Maybe the CD media you are using is marginal . What brand are you using ? Have you tried more than one brand ?

Do the burned disks work well in modern DVD drives ?

I assume this was meant for me ?
I am using the best disks there are(was), DVD+R 8x Tayio Yuden.... 😁

The disks work perfectly on other drives, even modern ones (I have a vast selection).

darry wrote on 2020-06-03, 13:45:

Maybe the CD media you are using is marginal . What brand are you using ? Have you tried more than one brand ?

Do the burned disks work well in modern DVD drives ?

I have a bunch of Verbatim DVD-R, Imation CD-RW and Sony CD-R.
They are indeed a bit old (I guess around 4 / 5 years, the Imations are the oldest) but have always been stored in their cases and never touched before. My modern SATA DVD burner writes and reads anything disc-shaped withouth a hitch (excluding BluRays of course!).

Did you finalize the discs? If not, that may cause trouble reading them on other devices.