CD-R/RW DVD-R RW Ultrabay Burner

[Richard Beeson]

I just tried to upgrade my A31p optical drive from CD-R DVD-ROM to the multi-burner. Result: catastrophe. I'm running Win XP Pro, SP2 on the machine. I use third-party software (RSJ) for CD burning, and did not install IBM's DLA, so the DLA problems IBM lists for SP2 should not be relevant. In fact, the drive is even having trouble reading a DVD movie with Win DVD 5, whereas there is no difficulty with the old drive. Currently the drive is useless. The only way I could determine if the drive is having a hardware probelm would be to uninstall RSJ and install all the IBM authoring software, which I don't want to do. I can't get IBM support if I'm not using their software. Is anyone else experiencing a problem like this? Any suggestions? Right now I'm giving up. I may sell the drive if someone else wants to use it with IBM software. I'm not interested in authoring movies. I wanted the DVD for archiving large backup files. RSJ and Win DVD authoring software definitely fight each other. I got blue screen stops when they were both installed, so I uninstalled the win DVD authoring software and just left the player (which has always worked fine until now).

Richard Beeson

[MadeInJapan]

I would uninstall RSJ (whatever it is...never heard of it)...WinDVD authoring and RSJ may have had some shared components, thus the blue screen as well as when you uninstalled one, the other quit working properly. I would then install the IBM burning software (just RecordNow and not DLA...DLA has some issues with my ThinkPad too....RecordNow will burn CD's and DVD's) and see if this works. Even though it is "IBM" software, it really is not...it is third party that IBM has an agreement with. Good luck and keep us updated on how things go. I use a multiburner in my T30 and use PowerDVD to view movies and RecordNow for burning...works very well for both CD's and DVD's. Although you told me that you aren't interested in authoring movies, I have some other authoring software on my ThinkPad....AnyDVD, DVD Decryptor and DVD2One and they work flawlessly as they don't interfere with each other.

If my theory of "shared components" is correct about RSJ and WinDVD Authoring, and you really really want to keep RSJ, either try reinstalling RSJ over itself or if that doesn't work, uninstall it and then reinstall it again. My thinking is that the installation process would reinstall the components that were lost when you uninstalled WinDVD Authoring...anyway, good luck.

[Richard Beeson]

RSJ is software made in Germany, that has been ported over from OS/2. It works seamlessly with the file management system. There is no need to attach drives or format them, and files copied to the media are instantly readable by other computers. I am loath to give it up. I did uninstall/reinstall RSJ, and it works again as it did formerly with the old drive, which reads but does not burn DVD. One of the things that seems to be wrong is that there is no driver supplied for the drive itself. I had to install the Win DVD authoring software in order to get the system to recognize the drive at all. Even the Win DVD playback software couldn't find it -- I got error messages that there was no valid disc/drive present. If I can't find a solution, I'll have to try using different hardware configurations, or try something like an Iomega USB 2 DVD burner; maybe it wouldn't have the same problems. I'm already using the Iomega CD burner, and it does a much better job of copying CDs than the internal drive.

[MadeInJapan]

Richard...there are no drivers for DVD drives...or should I say that all such drives use the Windows drivers so even if you look long and hard you won't find any. What you need is good DVD burning software that doesn't interfere with RSJ, then your drive will be recognized without any issue. Did you try RecordNow? It should work fine, and I might add, that although a different version, that's my main burning software on my desktop...I really love it...just stay away from DLA. If you need other recommendations, maybe even software sent by email (if you have broadband, we can do it...otherwise it would be better for me to burn to disk and send it to you by snail mail), let me know...and keep us posted.

[Richard Beeson]

Many thanks for the help. I have pretty well worked through the problems. First problem was that the drive was defective. After a week spent fighting it, I finally concluded that the main problem was the drive itself. IBM did not argue, and sent me a new one which arrived today. It is actually a different burner, with a different part number, a Matshita UD-830S instead of an HL-DT GSA-4080N. The drive installed and worked perfectly.

There is still a problem with how the RSJ software is dealing with this drive, however. It seals a DVD when I've finalized a session, preventing future sessions, among other things. It also can't seem to copy my large backup files, which are over 3 gig each, and are the main reason I wanted a DVD burner. I'll work that out with RSJ. I installed Record Now, and it seems to coexist nicely with RSJ, so thanks especially for the tip concerning that one. It copies the large backup files with no problem, and it also copies music audio CDs in DAO mode, which RSJ won't for some reason.

My main use for RSJ is for finding and copying files that have been selected by filters in my file manager. I hate the process of selecting files in the other programs. I use a file manager, also made in Germany, called EF Commander, which also came over from OS/2. It is structured much like the old Norton Commander for DOS, and has two panes. You can select files by date, extension, or whatever, or have the most recent at top, etc., in one pane, and have the CD in the other pane, and send them over with either drag and drop or a simple func tion key command. With the thousands of files I have, it saves an enormous amout of time. Fortunately, even with this new drive, RSJ still functions with CDs for that purpose, so I can use it for those jobs and use Record Now for the other jobs. And maybe RSJ will fix their bugs -- they usually do.

For everyone on the forum, it's worth giving EF Commander and RSJ a shot, or at least EF Commander. I can post the URL of the maker, if anyone wants to try it. Both pieces of software come in evaluation versions.

Again, thanks for the help.

[MadeInJapan]

Richard,
Yes, please post the URL's, especially if they are free downloads. It would be nice to have a way to selectively choose files to burn to CD by way of date, length, type, etc. As far as DVD is concerned, we are usually talking about very large files to begin with and so that would not be such a concern. Usually I am making DVD movies with RecordNow so once I burn the VOB, etc. files to disc, I delete the original files. Otherwise, it is very easy to have half or more of my HDD occupied with DVD files. Glad RecordNow worked for you.

[Richard Beeson]

Here are the URLs:
For RSJ: http://www.rsj.de/stage/en/default.asp
For EF Commander: http://www.efsoftware.com/

Regarding the EF Commander, I also recognize using EF Find, which is a plug-in for Commander. It is a much more robust file searching utility than the Windows default, and you can perform operations on files from within the search results, including do things such as export lists of the files on your CDs to a text file.

The evaluation downloads are free, but RSJ does time out if you don't eventually pay for it. I think the EF software programs just keep annoying you with reminders to register and pay. However, they aren't that expensive to buy, and Emil Fickel, creater of the EF programs, keeps sending out upgrades for free. It's really a great program. RSJ works from within the commander. Right click on the drive icon of your burner, and all the CD burning options are there. Just treat the CD like any other drive, except, of course, that it has to be finalized to be read by other drives. No formatting is needed.

[Richard Beeson]

Re the above: "recognize" should be "recommend." I should have previewed and didn't.