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High-Speed Burning Could Harm Pioneer Combo Drives
daffydory writes "Both New Scientist and
The Register have articles about the Pioneer DVD writers (SuperDrives to us Apple users)." According to these articles, the drives "will bascially implode themselves with the new highspeed media that's coming out. Lovely. There's supposed to be a firmware patch to fix it, but it may be 'problematic' for users to install."
/dev/hdc on fire
Near the end of your warranty? Just get a 4x disc and fail to check Pioneer's website for firmware updates.
Also how many average users know what "firmware" is?
I tried burning my drive really slow and it still damaged it..
This is just what we need! More crap like this! As if this had not been tested before. I mean, I don't want to be a troll here or anything but can't companies prefent this? Should'nt the engineers be able to detect these problems in advance?
I work in the auto parts design industry. Let me tell you that with the software we have, things like this would not happen. For example, when making brakes, the pressure is sometimes too much for the metal to handle (for various design reasons). The software simulates braking and is able to tell us exactly where the part will break.
Wake up guys!
Exactly how am I going to over-heat my DVD burner burning media that it rated faster than my hardware will burn it. Maybe I am missing something here.
She kinna take it anymore, captain! She's gonna blow!
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Yup, now pirates will die a seething death as they burn music on their computers. Sucked into your own burner by an imploding disc... what a pyrotechnic ending!
I mean, who else but pirates need to burn THAT much data THAT fast?? I mean, really folks, this is to make sure that we can't store 4.7 GB's of Booby Spears and N'Stink on portable media that can be hidden from the gov't (in unthinkable places like, oh, a Cd case!)
Humor folks, enjoy it
=)
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Lovely how it gets published anyways. Yeah, these drives sure do implode. You know, computer equipment has just been known to do that sometimes. Implosion -- an accurate description of the observed phenomenom. If you are on crack.
There's supposed to be a firmware patch to fix it, but it may be 'problematic' for users to install.
Does problematic mean "I can't get to the machine to upgrade because there's shards of disc flying at me when I go near it!"?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
what kind of times are we talking about for burning dvds? i dont know anyone with a dvd burner, so could someone enlighten me?
I am not going to buy a DVD burner until the technology matures a little.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
...is when you read Pioneer's press release on the matter. All they care to say is that "damage may occur" to your drive or media. No mention of implosions, explosions, melting, burning or other various hazards.
Sig.i>
You mean because some versions of NT won't run the updater? Is that really a big deal? Boot a DOS floppy and try again, you'll lose a whole 3 minutes.
I ran the updater on a W2k machine with one of those drives this morning, and it ran with no problems, and in the GUI.
The drive is a little funky and slow and unreliable, but that's what you get when you buy stuff that's on the bleeding edge (as far as consumer products go, anyway). I've never seen an update make it worse, and I've installed 5 firmware updates on this drive.
Ok the new scientist link is down already, but the register link has this:
In addition to the items mentioned, several OEM units are affected, but Pioneer won't say which ones. You'll just have to contact your box builder and ask them if they have a fix.
So they make a defective product, but won't say which OEMs are affected? WHY NOT?
Also, how does new firmware keep a drive from self destructing? Sounds like an engineering problem that firmware couldn't fix, unless said firmware simply lowers the drive speed.
Not.
.exe file updater (for Windows and not DOS, I don't doubt). I think I'll just destroy my burner with the 4x media and get Pioneer to replace it (under warranty), if that's their attitude.
What about those of us who bought this drive for a non-Microsoft operating system?
Yay... an
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
New high-speed CPUs commit suicide when tired. Free group teraphy on the manufacturer website. Memory banks get Alzheimer disease. No workaround found yet. New copy protection for audio CDs crashes PC ... ooops, I think I already heard about it :)
Signatures are for stupids.
The Register article mentioned only problems with Windows NT - I used Windows 2000 with no problems at all. I have a Pioneer DVR-A04 that I bought about a month ago, retail box.
:)
Downloaded the upgrade, ran it. It detected my drive (hooked up as secondary slave, with a Pioneer DVD-ROM as primary slave), and flashed it. The drive rebooted itself, no problems. Took all of 30 seconds.
The Register article mentioned only problems with Windows NT - I used Windows 2000 with no problems at all. I still don't have DVD recording working under Linux, but that's from a lack of time, not a lack of trying. Nero is so easy to use.
What I'm curious of is that the firmware version number changed from 1.20 to 1.32, but they don't seem to have any changelogs on the Pioneer website. I'm curious only because I have a Compaq laptop that's rather flaky with DVD-R media (Presario 2715US), and I wanted to know if it was the firmware flash that helped, or the type of media I used (probably the media) that actually allowed it to read the DVD-R I made.
-- Joe
Here is the link to the Pioneer statement. This is only for the new 4X DVD-R and 2X DVD-RW discs that have just been approved by the DVD Forum. AFAIK these discs are not yet for sale. You can also get a free CD with the software update on it from Pioneer.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Yeah, you guys are wonderful. Like I haven't had to take my car in like 12 times for recalls because of small, faulty parts. I mean seriously...
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
heh, I would be more then bitching if a 5$ 4xdvd disk broke a 300-400$ dvd burner
I seem to recall a similar problem when 30+X cd roms came out where one had a problem of not spinning down before opening on eject. FRIZBEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
User: Eject
PC: GO FETCH!
This sounds like the laser diode overheats when run at too high a duty cycle. So the firmware probably just tells the drive to burn at slower speeds no matter how fast the media says it can run. Maybe we just need some people to develop a hardware hack to cool the diode better.
This gives a new meaning to the term:
"Burning a disc"
Honey, don't you smell something....
Wine will run this updater? It doesn't even run properly under NT according to TheReg...
Not to mention I can't even get those "disk-in-an-exe" programs to write to the floppy without exploding in wine.
But maybe I'll try, it could be fun sending Pioneer my wine debug sessions.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Using Windows 2000, I downloaded the verion checker to check my A03, it said "You need to upgrade." So I downloaded and ran the upgrader, it finished in maybe a minute. No hitches, no problems, no implosions.
Warmest Regards,
--Jack
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
So if I have one of these in an Apple Laptop, do I get an explosive fireball?
Cooooooool... now that would make me spring for some Apple hardware! [as long as it was under warranty]
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
So I'm confused, are the drives burning at 4x or 1x? I'm the owner of a DVR-104 and it'd be nice to burn at 4x. Will the firmware update just cause the drive to burn at 1x on 4x media? Anyone know?
Off topic? Do I have to link all of my irony posts for you to get it?
Back when I played Diablo2 using WineX in Linux, my 52X BTC IDE CDROM drive spun the CDROM so much that I suppose the Diablo2 Playdisc could no longer hold together and it exploded in the drive. This is the one and only reason I have to support people in making duplicates of their commercial data only to use the duplicate for daily use and keep the original data safe from daily wear and tear.
At this notion, I stab at the DMCA for their Fascist principles. On a last note, I sent my exploded Diablo2 Playdisc and the thick Diablo2 jewel case accompanied by the other two CDROMs and Blizzard replaced my Diablo2 classic medium completly for only $10 / Ship+Hand included (at my cost to ship though).
I stopped playing Diablo2 because I perceived their servers had become increasingly congested with Diablo2 traffic: how wrong my theory was... I attended the Warcraft2 symposium in Fountain Valley, California, at Fry's Electronics, and I over-heard the Battle.net network programmer state that Blizzard had migrated many Diablo2 servers over to be used as Warcraft3 servers. I think that is poor conduct to the tens of thousands of people who are still playing Diablo2 on battle.net.
And then the reason I have to boycott Blizzard's Battle.net servers was that they are too slow. I immediatly went out searching and found FSGS (http://net-games.com/fsgs) and bnetd (http://www.bnetd.org). I discovered these two projects were to run your own battle.net server as well as others; but I read a little more on their website and turns out they stopped both projects because Blizzard was shutting them down with the lawyers and DMCA!
Now I know why my Diablo2 playdisc exploded; my 52X IDE CDROM drive had good tastes and didn't like Blizzard's data! That'll show them! Hah!
I am the nightmare of nightmares.
The Pioneer firmware fix won't work on SuperDrives installed in a Mac. As quoted from Macintosh Digital Hub:
"So what's the resolution? For Mac users, that answer is a bit hazy. Pioneer is releasing updater software that tweaks the internal firmware in its drives so that they are able to use the high-speed media. This firmware updater will be available for download from Pioneer's Web site; you'll also be able to order it on a CD-ROM.
But this updater will not work with SuperDrives, since they contain Apple's firmware. According to Pioneer senior vice president Andy Parsons, "Apple is aware of the issue, and we expect they will have a solution soon." Those of us with SuperDrives will have to wait or Apple to deliver a firmware update"
Sailing over the event horizon
A pioneer's life is never easy... and sometimes it just plain sucks!
Get off my launchpad!
According to Webster (Mostly) /-ti-k&l/ /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb
Main Entry: problematic
Pronunciation: "prä-bl&-'ma-tik
Variant(s): or problematical
Function: adjective
Date: 1609
1 a : posing a problem : difficult to solve or decide b : not definite or settled : UNCERTAIN c : open to question or debate : QUESTIONABLE
2 : expressing or supporting a possibility
synonym see DOUBTFUL
3 : launching shards of flaming polycarbonate embeded into the area around the head and neck
- problematically
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Having brought the server to it's knees... Thanks /. So.... I'm just gonna read the headline and pull a insightful comment out of my as^H^Hpocket.
... will bascially implode themselves with the new highspeed media that's coming out."
"
Two words:
Exploding Coasters!!
m
waiting for dvd recording technology to mature = waiting for a DVDR drive that doesn't catch on fire
i like your understated logic.
while (dvdburning=fire)
{
burncds
else
buydvdburner
}
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/hs/
Dunno why that isn't posted in the article...
Well with the processors in the macs running "faster than light" this was just bound to happen. If you can't repect the physical laws of the universe you don't deserve to have a DVD burner, you can't have your cake and eat it to you know. This is just the universe's way of correcting the imbalance
"There's supposed to be a firmware patch to fix it, but it may be 'problematic' for users to install."
Huh? I downloaded and installed the patch last night for my DVR-104 drive, it took practically no time to perform, and I think the only possible source of confusion was the "Are you sure you want to do this? [Yes] [No]" prompt... and if you can't figure that much out, maybe you're not smart enough to operate a DVD-RW drive in the first place...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Talk about extreme Digital Rights Management . . .
Also, how does new firmware keep a drive from self destructing? Sounds like an engineering problem that firmware couldn't fix, unless said firmware simply lowers the drive speed
No, the unit tries to perform a test on blank media and it keeps retrying on the higher speed media for 5 minutes. The laser overheats and burns out. Foom, dead drive.
The New Scientist article says this.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Mac OS .... superdrive .... mean anything to you?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Just what is there about the words "standards" and "compatibility" they can't understand?
It's bad enough that there are so many flavors (about 8 at last count? DVD followed by "plus" or "minus" followed by "RAM" or "RW" or "R"...). Nobody can keep track of which are supposed to be compatible with each other and/or consumer DVD drives, and the ones that are supposed to be compatible sometimes aren't...
Naturally it's too much to expect "new, improved" media to work in old drives. Why, that would be like expecting a "low-noise" tape cassette to work in a two-year-old cassette recorder... or ASA 800 film to work in a two-year-old camera... or API service grade SL motor oil to work in a two-year-old car.
But at the VERY LEAST we should expect that new, improved media shouldn't DESTROY an old drive.
What are we supposed to think? Pioneer was in such a darn rush that they never even bothered to put one of the new disks in one of the old drives even once?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I think that should have been the title used ;-)
You must be driving a Chrysler. I purchased one of those new Dodge Rams back in 1994 and it was a recall/reliability nightmare. I counted 18 recalls before I traded it in on a new Toyota 4runner. Never a problem since. It's amazing really, in all my history of owning computers (Apples and SGI's mostly), I have only had an official recall for a computer once. That recall was for Apple's infamous Powerbook 5300, but I shipped it out, and Apple shipped it back to me in three days with a new case, keyboard and motherboard. It looked like a new machine and ran flawlessly ever since. I do remember an Apple service flyer I recieved one that advised the user to life the Apple ][ up about eight inches and drop it onto a hard surface to reset some chips that may have come loose. Classic. Also, I had an SGI O2 that routinely burned through its power supplies, but for the most part both the Apple computers and SGI's worked as advertised and were reliable as can be. This of course is in diametric opposition to Windows boxes that rarely work as advertised in the first place......
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Score! now i can finally have a way to get rid of all my aol disk-turned-coaster-turned-frisbees-turned-blowjob holes-turned-solar eclipes viewer...etc...
I just ran a System Profile on my iMac flat panel with the DVD burner. These puppies DO use the affected drive. Take care as to which media you buy, at least until the firmware upgrade comes out. I am wondering if it will be packaged with the 10.2.1 update scheduld out this week?
I wonder if it would install through VPC. Might be fun to try.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Not at all.
:)
:-)
Well, I'm told MacOS is an old version of an operating system for Macintosh computers, and not a mispelling for a Mechanics.
SuperDrive, though, huh? I heard through slashdot this was the name for some kind of DVD burner Apple sold that they used to screw over anyone wanting to use their software (or something like that, I really don't care about Apple all that much, sorry).
I'm not using this on an apple. And I'm not using windows. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
A lot of the Mac SE's had power supplies that would burn out after about 5 years.
Minix .... no I got solaris for X-86 .... no wait BeOS.
... you kids these days with your "crazy" OS's ....
I give up
I didn't know Windows was hardware! Thanks for correcting my previously skewed view of the computing world.
Wait a minute. So you're telling me that if you buy a 2x drive, and try to burn at 4x instead, you might damage the drive?
Wow, who would've thought.
I'll skip the silly sensationalism. The drive won't "implode", some parts just risk melting because the laser isn't properly calibrated in the old firmware.
;-)
But the interesting question is: does this mean that, with this new 4x media, my DVR-103 (which is a 2x DVD-R recorder) will record at 4x? If so, that's very nice to know.
I already have the new firmware, by the way. Unlike the old updater (that required you to connect the drive as the primary IDE slave), the new one will automatically detect and update all your drives, no matter how they're connected (even via IEEE-1394).
Now if only HP and Sony could do the same to make their DVD+RW recorders work with DVD+R as they promised...
RMN
~~~
Homer: And this perpetual motion machine she made today is a joke! It just keeps going faster and faster. Lisa! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
c-hack.com |
I was really glad that it could... finally I could read and write DOS 1.4M floppy disks, Mac 1.4M floppy disks, 800K Mac floppies, and 720K Dos Floppies.
I can't wait to pull out my old 512Ke with the external SuperDrive and start burning DVDs!
Oh, you mean this is just another example of Marketing BuzzWord TermReuse? Crap.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
If you have a centrifuge that's imploding at high speeds, there's nothing wrong with the device -- there's something amiss with physics in your point in space. Get out of house and contact your nearest physicist right away.
embeded
I see slashdot is having an effect even on Webster...
-=Lothsahn=-
As I said in the post, the New Scientist article was not coming up for me.
Sorry.
No it's overpowering itself. Now why someone didn't put in a failsafe (a few cents no doubt) is beyond me.
Well, the new discs didn't exist for Pioneer to put in their drives at the time they were built. Otherwise, I'm sure they would have addressed the issue earlier.
The new 4x DVD-R type media isn't even on store shelves yet - so nobody should have even encountered this problem yet.
What does make me mad, though, is that despite filling out my registration card and sending it in - I was not notified by email, US Mail, or phone of this issue. I just learned about it because I'm a regular Slashdot reader.
This is the type of thing you're supposed to get advance notice of if you register your product with the manufacturer! It should be "first heard of" in news articles.
The firmware upgrade available from Pioneer was not problematic to install. Just download an .exe, run it, press OK to use the default temporary directory and ta-da, the firmware upgrade starts. It worked fine on my DVR-104.
So what is the solution 5-10 years down the line when we have higher quantity storage devices? Is there some other substrate material being worked on that can withstand the centrifugal forces of higher speed burners?
UN inspectors finally caught Saddam with a Massive Destruction Device : a Pioneer DVD/RW
Its probably some silly bug in their firmware that sets the wrong drive speed when trying to burn to 4x. Probably added an extra zero or something stupid so the motor is rotating way too fast for the drive....
Nahh... SCO is the OS for me. ;-)
my A04 says "burn proof" on the front! :P
1. Run update
2. Reboot
3. Run accompanying CDROM check utility
4. If the check reports any problem, don't panic. Repeat from step 1 again.
My experience was that after running the check and the update, the version and date were set to all zeros (!), after rebooting, they were still zeros, so I ran the update again and this time the check utility reported v1.32.
Comments the check reported my drive as Pioneer OEM even though It was from a Pioneer branded box with the full software suite (!?!).
Environment:
Windows XP professional, with NO OS updates (The scuttlebut on XP SP1 is that there are some general problems).
2.4GHz p4, 512MB DDR 266 RAM, 100MB HD, primary drive on its own IDE i/f
Because every self-respecting user of Debian GNU/Linux, the most self-respecting distro of Linux, the most self-respecting OS.
/dev/scd0 is on fire would be more correct.
Only morons that use a different OS than the one that I use on my server would have trouble realizing that dvd burners are used in unix through scsi emulation.
ERROR:
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Nah, MegaDrive would cause more confusion- it was the European/Asian name for the Sega Genesis.
Still, it might be worth a go. I'd love to see the look on a Mac owner's face when they switched on their machine and Sonic the Hedgehog popped up. However, features that advanced won't appear until OS-XI.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
They suck, so no law is violated...
As long as its not OSF or AIX thats all that matter.
Perhaps pestering Apple will prove a more fruitful
Think this was intentional? If so it's a real groaner...
Apple? Fruit? Oh, I get it. Somebody please hand me a gun - phorm
No -- I think it's 'problematic' because users will be forced to burn the update to a CD first. (Doh!)
What if you're using it on a non-Intel platform?
It's really a ploy by the RIAA and others.... the firmware update installs DRM software!!!!!
:-)
Well... I wouldn't be suprised
Burma?
Yeah, my O2's power supply fan went wacky, luckily I was there to shut it down, as I'm not sure if the bugger has ways to deal with that. It was a blessing though, I stuck a quiter fan with the same air flow in it, and have never been happier. To it's credit, that little bastard ran a very long time with no malfunction at all.
It still can't beat my Indigo2 though, it's been running almost continiously since it was bought (was moved a few times, and had some various upgrades, etc.) with nary a problem. That thing is indestructible, knock on wood.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dvd-burners, they are implosive and quick to anger.
.noitacidem deen uoy siht daer nac uoy fI
DVD is retarded. I hate all the politics surrounding DVD. I don't care that it gives you several gigs on a CD-sized disk. DVD sucks. Stick with CD-ROM.
This is rather strange, as I _used_ to have a Pioneer 16X DVD-ROM drive. Upon inserting a standard CDR with a bunch of MP3s on it, after a few minutes of copying, it sounded like a gun went off inside my computer.
:)
The copying aborted with an error, and the drive wouldn't take any more discs. Upon removing it I could immediately hear shards of the exploded disc moving around.
Anyone else experience this? I don't think this problem is confined to just their burners... Class action anyone?
Over here in Australia its $20 - $30 for the disk and $800 - $1000 for the drive. YOU think you'd pissed.
2002-09-218 14:42:30 Speed of light broken along with CDs(articles,science) (rejected)
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
One of the selling points of +R/+RW technology was a higher writing speed than the competing -R/-RW standard.
First -R/-RW wrote at 1X, then they got to 2X/1X and now it's 4X/2X while +R/+RW stayed at the same 2.4X speed.
Since most users will not be using a lot of rewritable media, it seems that DVD-R is now both faster and cheaper (drive and media) than DVD+R. Those "features" appeal more to the average customers than the advantages that the other format may offer.
If you're running on i386, you've got a solution.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org