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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
I tried burning my drive really slow and it still damaged it..
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!
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
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)
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
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
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
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.
Oh, so this is what the press release by Pioneer should say?
Users of the superdrive engineered by Pioneer Electronics may suffer ill effects from use of the drive with new 2x and 4x recordable medium. Use of this product has been known to induce spontaneus combustion, decaptitation, explosions and is rumoured to be cancerous. Those users who are able to still write ( bloody stump or not ) may address Pioneer Electronics for a partial refund - please continue to use the product in the meantime as if you die - it'll mean less payments for us. This product has been show to burn labratory rat animals in tests on 2x and 4x recordable mediums.
There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
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
Read the ****ing article! The disk trys to initialize the disk by reading an identifier on the disk. Since the drive don't recognize the new disk, it keeps trying, and trying, with the laser on all the time, overheating the media and the laser.
Not sure how this is different from the laser running continuously while buring or playing, maybe because its concentrated on on area of the disk?
What you're missing is the explanation which can be found in the goddam article.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
ROFLMAO.
So, how much data can they fit on a rat these days? If I have a male and female rat, and I leave too much food in their cage, do RIAA lawyers come after me for copyright infringement a few weeks later?
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/hs/
Dunno why that isn't posted in the article...
"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 . . .
Meh, auto parts don't do much better. Firestone anyone?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
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.
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!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the code:
while (dvdburning==fire)
{
burncds
}
buydvdburner
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
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.
I wonder if it would install through VPC. Might be fun to try.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Yeah, what we need to solve this problem is a
nitroglycerine cooling system. Or was that liquid
nitrogen? Whatever, I'm sure it'll work. They're
both weird chemicals after all...
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
And all 1966 Corvettes were designed with the intent that you would be using high-octane fuel and NOS in them years later, right?
Technology is moving much faster than the auto industry. If we tested everything in computers as well as cars (imagine piles of twisted, bent cases at the crash test sites...) they would run in more extreme temperatures, be half as likely to crash, all use the same software no matter the vendor, and we would be at all of 66 MHz right now.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
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.
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.
um, somehow I see an nitroglycerine cooling system being A Bad Thing... Could just be me.... Laser heats up, and BOOM, computer blows up. Guess that's what's called 'catastrophic failure' ;-)
Dory
-- Ecce potestas casei
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
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
If you're running on i386, you've got a solution.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org