DVD burners have stopped writing

[Rod Speed]

Yousuf Khan wrote:

Well, here's an update on this problem. I've now had a chance to test
it out with different configurations. It's been suggested that I should test it with different IDE cables, I've now
tried 3 different IDE
cables, each one had the same problem with this drive. I then tested
whether it was the motherboard IDE connection that was the problem
here, so I remembered that my eSATA PCI-e adapter also had included
its own IDE connector, so I moved the connection over to that connector. Same problem here as well, in fact, on this
connector it can't even detect
the DVD drive's model name!

So I'm thinking I've done sufficient due diligence and I can declare this drive dead.

Yes, thats pretty convincing, tho you should really try the drive
in a completely different system.

I guess the most likely explaination for the simultaneous write
failure with two separate drives is either just coincidence, or
that you got a spike from the mains or from a faulty power
supply that killed just that function in two separate drives.

The only other thing I could possibly try is to put an IDE-SATA converter adapter on it, and try to run it through
SATA. I've had success in the past with old IDE hard drives that looked like they were dying under native IDE, but
after the SATA conversion they ran much better,

Problem with that approach is that some of the converters
dont support ATAPI very well.

but I think that may be getting little too pedantic at this point.

I'd personally try the drive in a completely different
system instead if you want to be that pedantic.