Plextor 161040A won't burn at fastest speed

E

Escher

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 9, 2000
Messages
496
I've got the Plextor 161040A drive and have used it reliably for quite some time now. I moved it from one box to another and now the damn thing refuses to burn at it's highest rated speed (16X). It burns just fine all the way up to 12X, but at 16X it freezes up. I've used numerous different programs such as Nero and CDRWin, and they all freeze up at the beginning of the burn cycle. In Nero, it shows the buffer filling up and then it freezes at 39% each and every time.

Any ideas? Has anyone seen anything like this before?

And before you jump on this and just tell me to spend $25 on a new 50X burner, I'd rather just have a simple fix to this old reliable one. If it's dead, I'm just gonna toss it as I already have a Plextor 241040A I can replace it with from a different box.
 
DMA is enabled and it's currently on the same channel as a DVD-ROM, which has been the same setup it's been on for awhile without problems.
 
I think I may have found it. It seems it's being recognized as a UDMA 1 (25 MB/s) device instead of UDMA 2 (33 MB/s).

Question now is, why is it being detected incorrectly?! Is there a way to force it to use a specific UDMA level?
 
New IDE cable? Try uninstalling the Plex's IDE channel from Device Manager,and let Windows reinstall it.
 
even if UDMA 1 is capping the speeds at 25MB/s, the drive at 16x is going at about 2.4MB/s.

i'd follow TechHeads suggestion.
 
My 161040A did the same thing....RMA'd it, was told it was a known issue and the replacement drive burned 1000's of discs with no problem...replaced recently with the Plex Premium I have now.

Mine actually gave errors though...nero would burn part way and tell me "Cannot create fixation" or something of that nature. Worked fine at 12X or slower. If its an early one, like mine, you're probably out of luck unless you can RMA it. Call up plextor and see...they replaced mine almost a year outside of warranty without much hassle.
 
I saw this exact drive do this after putting it in a friends box. Won't burn more than 12x cuz he uses a slow ass 2x cd-rw drive to read the discs on the fly.

What is your media certified for and have u tried different brands of discs?
 
Using the latest versions of all burning programs, and the discs are certified for something like 32X or 40X.

Now here's the weird thing. I moved the drive back to the other box where it worked fine .... AND NOW IT WORKS!

Still recognized as UDMA Mode 1 and using the sames apps and discs.

Very odd.
 
i owned one before. check archived posts. 1610A had problems. mine went out after 20 CDs. 20...i want not happy. luckily a friend got me a 48x24x48x Plextor. suffice to say, my next drive wont be a plextor. lite on has now been my writing drive.
 
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