Princo CD-R discs problem?

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

I recently brought a pack of 50 Princo discs that were marked A1.
I was told that the A1 discs were an improvement on the older princo
discs.
So far 4 out of 8 discs were faulty.
The retailer who sold me the discs said that it was a drive problem.
I'm using a Pioneer A06 drive and have had no other problems with
other brands of discs.

Is it a drive related problem or just bad media?
Would upgrading the ROM on my DVD writer likely to help with the
Princo disc problem?

Regards Brian

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Brian <bclark@es.co.nz> wrote:

>I recently brought a pack of 50 Princo discs that were marked A1.
>I was told that the A1 discs were an improvement on the older princo
>discs.
>So far 4 out of 8 discs were faulty.
>The retailer who sold me the discs said that it was a drive problem.
>I'm using a Pioneer A06 drive and have had no other problems with
>other brands of discs.
>
>Is it a drive related problem or just bad media?
>Would upgrading the ROM on my DVD writer likely to help with the
>Princo disc problem?
>
>Regards Brian

Sorry - I accidently posted this to the wrong newsgroup.

Regards Brian

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Brian wrote:
>
> I recently brought a pack of 50 Princo discs that were marked A1.
> I was told that the A1 discs were an improvement on the older princo
> discs.
> So far 4 out of 8 discs were faulty.
> The retailer who sold me the discs said that it was a drive problem.
> I'm using a Pioneer A06 drive and have had no other problems with
> other brands of discs.
>
> Is it a drive related problem or just bad media?
> Would upgrading the ROM on my DVD writer likely to help with the
> Princo disc problem?
>
> Regards Brian

It's a lot more on-topic that a lot of junk in this NG, so don't worry
about that.

With my other hat on, the computing one - the retailer may be right, and
he may not. I haven't seen Princo disks here in NZ for quite a while.

A couple of observations: Most obviously, it's either the disks or the
writer. You may have a dirty lens in your CD writer, just enough to
produce errors on a disk which may need slightly higher laser energy to
write a Princo disk. How much use has the writer had, and have you a
CD-writer cleaning disk available?

Some writers have shown a rather short life, a year or so and then
dying, and there are reports on the web which suggest that A06 drives
(that model is a couple of years old now) are in that category. There
are also reports on CD's which suggest that Princo are among the better
disks.

Are the disks failing on being written, or on playback? Can you try
writing/reading the disks on another computer with a CD writer? It's
important to use another writer, as some read-only drives have trouble
reading some writable disks, and they won't read a disk that hasn't been
closed, or rendered readable when finishing the write sequence.

I suspect that the dealer is right, and you may be in for a new drive.
{:-(

Colin

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <7o80b1pa5nrjuqpa4m9emrehe6h6saej90@4ax.com>,
Brian <bclark@es.co.nz> wrote:

> I recently brought a pack of 50 Princo discs that were marked A1.
> I was told that the A1 discs were an improvement on the older princo
> discs.
> So far 4 out of 8 discs were faulty.
> The retailer who sold me the discs said that it was a drive problem.
> I'm using a Pioneer A06 drive and have had no other problems with
> other brands of discs.
>
> Is it a drive related problem or just bad media?
> Would upgrading the ROM on my DVD writer likely to help with the
> Princo disc problem?
>
I've been using Princo 56x CDRs for a year or two now and have never had
a bad disc, compared to the Maxell which seem very fault-prone.

It may be your drive lens being slightly dirty - have you used a CD
cleaner at all?