Burning Problem

My DVD/CD writer has been giving me problems lately. When I try to burn a DVD, one will burn then the next won't and It says there's not enough space on the disc, when I know by the size of the file there is. I've tried various kinds of disc's but it's always the same. My drive is a " Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-108 1.14 " which i bought about a year ago. I've looked over another thread
" http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=86532 " as this sound like the same problem I'm having. The reply in that thread was to check DMA was enabled, which it is. The dude also said it could be some kind of buffer problem, could someone explain what this is? or any ideas on how to fix this. Also I've never updated my firmware, I've been to Pioneer's site to read up on it but I don't know what to download and have been put of trying by there warnings that getting it wrong could leave my drive un-useable. Could someone point me in the right direction as to what firmware update I need?
Thanks,
Fangy.

 

Pioneer sound.vision.soul - Firmware Archives
Above is the latest firmware update for you drive. I have just a couple questions to see if i can find out what is going on with your burner.
1. What Brand of media do you use, because some burners do not support all types of Dvd media with out firmware updates and even with firmware updates the media may not be supoported. The click on the link here scroll down to how to check Media ID and follow instructions to help you Identify Dvd media.
Pioneer sound.vision.soul - My drive can not write to my DVD-R or DVD-RW disks.

2.What Burning progam are you using to burn Dvd media , this will help me or others to troubleshoot what or if anything is wrong with the program(sometimes certain settings on some programs might cause you to have bad burns)

3.What speed do you generally Try to burn your media at, some media is optimal for certain speeds on different burners.

 

Thanks for the help, the media I use is " Ridisc xtreme DVD-R and I've tried Ridisc DVD+R and Bulkpac.The Ridisc used to work fine when I first got my drive new just over a year ago. Cd's burn ok although sometimes my back up albums jump but the original's don't. I've tried Nero 7 , DVD Santa and Alcohol 120% to burn DVD's and at some point they've all gave me bother, when I put a DVD disc in the drive, It ask's me if I want to burn a music cd, then sometimes It'll burn dvd's and other times it tells me the disc is not empty, when it is (new out the packet) or the disc isn't big enough to hold the information (4.4 gig when the disc is 4.7 ) I don't get bad burns so much as It'll burn one disc out the packet but not burn the next and so on, I usually burn thing at 4 speed. Is the Firmware easy to install? If it goes wrong can changes be undone? I'm just a bit worried about knackering my drive.
Thanks again for your help,
Fangy.

 

As JamcGriff said go get the firmware update using his URL and dont fret about installing the wrong driver as the driver software will detect all Roms on computer and a list will appear (if you have more than one) so just check and highlight the one you need to update.. its that simple.

 

Firmware should be a last resort, not first.

And even then, you need to know what you're doing as sometimes there is no going back.


I would try simple things first like different media, cleaning the lens, deleting the drive from Device Manager and letting Windows reinstall it etc beforehand.

If all that fails, then try the firmware if you have no other options.

That may very well be true.

You need space also for Lead In and Lead Out data etc, and if you're burning MultiSession, you lose a percentage of the CD/DVD's capacity for each session.

I don't know exactly how and what you are burning to say the exact cause.

Anyway, good luck.

 

Thanks for the help, I'll start with cleaning the lens and work my way through your suggestions.
Fangy.