Resolved Tried to Burn a Recovery Disk

I tried to create a recovery disk set. I know this is something that is ordinarily done when the system is new rather than 4 years old but I was attempting to be responsible, if not prompt. I had not created one before. I launched the HP recovery disk creator program and followed the directions. It said either 16 CDs or 2 DVDs so I chose the latter. I made three attempts with three "generic" DVD-R blanks and got lots of disk spinning but no success. Various errors and the suggestion I try a different or better quality blanks. I got some Verbatim DVD-R blanks and tried again. A bit of success on the first attempt since it made it 12% before saying try another blank after 15-30 minutes of trying. The next attempt finally wrote the whole DVD with a few fits and starts but failed to verify. The next attempt wrote and verified the whole DVD, though it probably took 60-90 minutes. Writing the second (i.e., 2 of 2) DVD never did complete getting only part way through the verification step. Numerous forced reboots were required to get even this far.

After all of the above, I tried to play a comercially produced movie on DVD and could not even get it to recognize there was a DVD in the drive. It did play and rip an audio CD successfully.

I wanted to run the HP supplied hardware diagnostic suite but it was not to be found anywhere on my PC. I had used it just for fun 2 years ago with no problem. I found lots of interesting stuff here:
Control Panel\System and Maintenance\Performance Information and Tools.

There were many, many logs of all kinds of things. Some of the logs pointed to hundreds of error events and warnings suggesting hard disk, optical disk, USB devices, and other problem areas. The dates on the events were mostly in the last 3-6 months with some much older. These tools are way over my head so I really dont have a clue what they mean or where to go from here.

Windows and all applications are up to date. The virus/malware forum took me through the 10+ scans and cleanings with some cleanup but no virus/trojan/malware detected. Was declared clean.

Is there some diagnostic tool that will tell me where the problem(s) is? The logs mentioned above may give the answer but I don't know how to analyze them. It's very frustrating.

..Paul..

 

Your DVD lens seems to be either dirty or damaged. A DVD drive normally has 2 lenses - one for cd & other for DVD. Since you can read CD, one lens is ok, the problem is with DVD lens.

Try cleaning it first by a CD cleaner.

 

Also some DVD Burners are partial to the Format of your DVD disk, some prefer + others - even so they state compatible with + and -.
Worth looking into.

 

To simplify things I figured I would just try to copy some files to DVD. Tried the lens cleaner. Didn't help. Switched from DVD-R to DVD+R. Was able to format disk OK but could only write about 30MB of 300 MB folder before it stopped with no error message and required a forced reboot. Able to read and burn both audio and data CDs.

Device Manager says driver is up to date and device is working.

How do I reload driver(s)? If I use Device Manager to uninstall, will it then go look for the right driver on the internet and reload it? I am not familiar with this process.

If this doesn't help, I guess the next step is to replace the DVD drive.

..Paul..

 

Yep, uninstall it, reboot and let windows find it. It usually loads generac drivers. Sometimes they are the only or best drivers. Then you can go on line and up the driver the same place that you uninstalled it.

 

Since you have errors relating to other drives, I suggest looking for drivers related to storage.

Here is the webpage for your model (the computer in your user profile - My System, btw, well done getting the information for it).
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=3437575#N728
There is an update for the Intel Storage Matrix Driver. I would also get some other major drivers, like the updated Graphics and Audio drivers.

The updated drivers might not help, but they won't hurt. I agree there seems to be something physically wrong with the DVD drive (as far I know, there are a different set of heads for reading/writing CD disks as opposed to DVD disks).

Check the drivers at HP. There are updates for the CD/DVD drive firmware (under the Firmware heading), they list four different CD/DVD drives, only one relates to the drive in your computer. Usually you can tell the make/model of the CD/DVD drive from the information in Device Manager. I would upgrade the firmware before declaring that the drive is broken.

This is good for your experience level. If you want to maintain the computer yourself, you will need to find information and upgrades to keep it running well.

I am hoping it is only just a matter of updating the drivers or firmware, but I agree with the others that there might be a hardware problem with the drive.

I will move this thread to the Hardware forum.

Matt

 

I did uninstall the DVD driver and let it automatically reinstall a driver. That worked but the DVD problem remained. Then I replaced the optical drive with another one. Remarkably easy to do. It doesn't even require a screwdriver. Well, almost. Put the cover back on, reconnected the various cables, and powered it up. It installed the right driver. A video DVD played fine. I copied a 350 MB folder in about 2 minutes with no problem. I considered that a complete success. Thjanks to all for the advice and encouragement. I do still have to finish writing the recovery disk which is how I got started on this thread long ago. I'll search for drivers anyway just to see if I can find any new ones.

..Paul..

 

Well done. Thanks for the feedback.

Please mark the thread Resolved, it is in the Thread Tools.

Matt

 

I successfully burned the 2 disk DVD recovery set. Fortunately, the one-time application allowed me to start from the beginning to get a clean set.

I'll make this thread resolved.

 

Glad to hear that you got er dun.