[jmcqk6]

Hello All,

I have a very strange problem that I've spent hours trying to figure out now, and haven't made any progress on. Yesterday, I used 'Burn' to burn several data dvd's on an iMac. Each burn completely successfully, and was confirmed good by checking in another iMac. You can also tell the dvd's are burnt by looking at the back of them. I believe they were burnt using the HFS+ filesystem.

Today, I tried using them on my MacBook Pro running OS 10.4.11. When I insert them, they show up as Blank DVD's and are mounted as such. Using the Disk Utility to examine the disk, I recieved this information:

Name : HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080M
Type : Disk

Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080M Media
Media Type : DVDROM
Connection Bus : ATA
Connection Type : Internal
Connection ID : Device 0
Device Tree : /PCI0@0/PATA@1F,1/PRID@0/@0:0
Locked : Yes
Writable : No
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
DVDROM : Yes
Optical Media Type : DVD+RW
Device Type : CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Location : Internal
Total Capacity : 0 Bytes
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0

That looks right, except for the 'Optical Media Type' which should be DVD+R, though I may be misinterpreting what that is talking about.

Since the DVD's are showing up as blank, I tried burning something to them. They wouldn't burn.

I did get brief access to another iMac, and on that machine, one of the DVD's showed up perfectly. I'm at a loss as to what is happening here. Any ideas?

[ibook_steve]

What are your settings in the CDs and DVDs preferences?

What do the disks show up as in Disk Utility?

Steve

[jmcqk6]

I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean as CD and DVD preferences.

In Disk Utility, they show up as DVD with the mead name "HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080M Media"

This is made even stranger by the fact that Disk Utility says that it isn't writable, but when I insert the discs, OS X says they are.

While googling, someone recommended reseting the PRAM, and making sure the firmware is up to date. I just finished checking the firmware (it's up to date), and will now for the reset.

I just can't quite figure out why they work on the iMac's but not my MacBook Pro. The same version of OS X was on all of them, so maybe it's a hardware issue?

[jmcqk6]

I realized I forgot something rather important:

The drive will read other burned or pressed dvd's and cd's. it's just these dvd's that are the problem. It will also burn dvd's and cd's.

I'm beginning to suspect it has something to do with HFS, but it doesn't make any sense.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by jmcqk6 

I believe they were burnt using the HFS+ filesystem.

Doubtful.

[jmcqk6]

Well, I was an idiot and used 'Burn' instead of just dragging the files over in the finder. It really burned me. The default filesystem when creating a Data DVD is HFS+. I didn't notice until I had already burned 5 dvd's, and then I switched to the PC format.

Maybe something is really mucked up with Burn, but as I said, it works in the original computer, and in the other iMac I tested it on.