770 DVD drive...can it load burned/copied DVDs (+/-R)?

[catnap1972]

I remember asking this on the "old" forum and nobody had a straight answer. Can the DVD drives on the 770s mount/load DVD +/- R(W)s?

On some strange whim this morning, I stuck a burned (DVD+R) movie I made a while back in and the thing actually worked! I hadn't thought to try before as all the data DVD +/-R's I had wouldn't mount or were considered "unrecognizable" by my 770X. It seems like the drive can actually "see" the formulation of the disc (since the movie did work), but for whatever reason doesn't recognize the file system on data discs.

Anyone have any luck getting data +/- R(W)s to work?

[JHEM]

If you've got the original Hitachi combo drive, it was never spec'ed to grok DVD+R/RW or -RW.

Types of disc formats supported (read only)
DVD:
· DVD-ROM
· DVD-R
· DVD-RAM (2.6 GB format)
CD:
· CD-ROM
· CD-ROM-XA
· CD-I
· CD Audio (CD-DA)
· Photo-CD Multi-session
· CD-Extra
· CD-RW
· CD-R
· CD-TEXT

Regards,

James

[catnap1972]

Mine is the Panasonic/M a t s u s h i t a drive (SR4181)...supposedly that one doesn't support DVD+/-R's either.

[georg.hauer]

Hi - i have too a 770x with a SR-8171 which doesn't support DVD-R (nor all other) . JHEM mentioned that the original Hitachi combo drive, supports at least DVD-R (not +R/RW oder -RW) - have you more details about this drive. Or any other ideas how to read DVD-R with a 770X Thinkpad.

Thanks

[JHEM]

The only way to play newer DVD formats in the 770 series is to either replace the internal optical drive with a newer model or use an external drive. Neither of these solutions are particularly good ones.

Finding 17mm thick form factor optical drives is problematic at best as the "standard" is now 12.5mm. Both Panasonic and Fujitsu made updated 17mm thick slot-loading drives that can be used to upgrade the 770, but they're difficult to find. Try searching on eBay for "slot-loading".

Using an external DVD drive connected to a USB1.1 port is, simply put, painfully slow.

Regards,

James

[catnap1972]

Would the guts from the SR-8175 fit in the case of the SR-8171 (Pana 05K9066) or are they different form factor/sizes? Seems like the 8175 will read +R's and there's a couple on Fleabay relatively cheap so I'd be willing to try that if there's a chance for it to work.