106D owners : do your burnt DVDs behave well?

Yes, same story here, but I'm only using 10.3.6, not .7, so the problem is not specific to the latest update.

I have been getting reliable results with cheap, PC-World own-brand DVDs, but a) don't trust their longevity for archival purposes, and b) can't tell at this stage whether this is because they are 1x speed discs (burning faster, high-quality discs at any speed, including 1x, results in the non-mounting problem).

Does the Pionneer 106D only work well with 1x discs? If so, that is very unsatisfactory; the burn and verify cycle for a full DVD of data can take from 90-120 minutes at that speed, and I've got about 20 discs to create.

Further info on my case can be found here:
Rick Lecoat, "Drive burns CD's but will not mount them" #3, 11:23am Jan 26, 2005 CDT

Not a bit of problems I can trace back to the burner. I have had a DVD not be able to be mounted on the Mac, but work OK on a DVD player. However I would say that is one out of many, and is more likely a media problem then a drive problem.

Now I have had drive problems with both the Pioneer DVR 105 and 106. I had a 105 replaced under warranty and a 106 that just is now dying. I'll replace it with a DVR-109 when I get around to it.

Tom N.

Yeah, I have the same issue but only recently. I've been using my G5 and successfully burning DVDs for a long time (first generation G5) I thought it might be the media I was using but I tried various brands. It may be something in the latest system upgrades because I haven't had any problems until recently... Does anyone have any ideas???

As Tomas Hernandez, since I updated to version 10.3.7 the 106 eject
some DVDs previously recorded (with the same 106, of course). I thought that the unit had broken, but perhaps the problem is other... I never had any problems before...

Same here. I started looking for responses to a similar problem that has been troubling me for 2-3 months and I bumped into this thread. Another one...

Tried both Finder and Toast 6.x.

Now it won't let me burn a DVD at all I get Error cant write lead out in both toas and popcorn what gives? Am I going to have to buy an Ext Drive?

Don't bother with an external, unless that is what you want to have. The Internal DVD drive is easy to replace. And you can replace it with a faster DVD burner such as the Pioneer DVR 108 or DVR 109, both of which can be found for well under $100.

Both of the Pioneer drives I mentioned can be made to be recognized by Apples iLife apps with a free utility called Patchburn.

Tom N.

Manually cleaning the lenses has made a difference for some users.

Flaky read/write issues can often be attributed to dust...

Hi,

A few weeks ago I posted:

"Hello,

My superdrive suddenly stopped reading and mounting "Memorex DVD+R". Most of my backups are on them. I checked them all (about 25) and none are mounting.
I have a few backup on "Verbatim" and "Memorex DVD+RW" and the superdrive read them fine. Any suggestion would be deeply appreciated. Thanks"

I noticed that my superdrive stopped working correctly after I upgraded to 10.3.6 and before then I was able to burn and mount DVDs +/- R and DVDs +/- RW without any problem.

I recently upgraded to 10.3.7 and used DVD -R to burn some backup. It burns but it does not mount and eject the DVD.

Today I went to the nearest (which is not that near) Apple store and the "genius" told me that the recent upgrade where supposed to do just the opposite: upgrafe the firmware and make the 106D compatible with all types of DVD media......which I do not understand because mine has been since the day I bought my G5 in March 2004 up to the 10.3.6 upgrade but is not anymore......

I posted on several forums and it seems that we are quite a few with this superdrive problem.

"Today I went to the nearest (which is not that near) Apple store and the "genius" told me that the recent upgrade"

10.3.8 was released yesterday, and apparently includes changes to the burn engine...

I've had the "just burned-won't mount" problem with only 2 disks. Both were Emtec with no speed rating (burned at 1x to be sure). The disks burned and verified but then refused to mount.

I've burned a couple of hundred DVDs in the past 15 months with my 106 with otherwise zero problems, both in Disk Utility and Toast. I use Sony 4x, Apple 4x brand (TDK?), and another cheap brand here in Europe, Princo 4x. No coasters.

Moving to the 109 this week and will stick the 106 in an external case.

Anyone have a European link for "cheap" dual-layer 8.5GB media? Cheapest I have seen here in Switzerland do far is about US $15.- EACH.

Cheers,

-TB

I have the same issue with the 106D drive in my G5 PM. Will not read any DVD-Rs, whether burned on the G5 or my PowerBook. The discs work fine in either the PB or any of our DVD players, but will not mount in the G5; just spits them out after a minute or so. This issue appeared recently, and updating to 10.3.8 made no difference. I have dozens of DVD-Rs on several brands of media, and none will mount. I burned some data to a DVD-R and it mounted the disc afterwards, but after ejecting and reinserting the disc will not mount and is ejected. Regular DVDs, meaning rented movies, work fine and mount promptly. I was hoping 10.3.8 would help, but not for me....

Kevan

My non-mounting problem matched that experienced by many here (DVDs would burn and verify correctly, and if set to mount once burning was complete would do so, but then would not mount again afterward). I tried many different disc types, including Verbatim -- a good quality brand -- without success. Then I tried some Sony Discs and they worked. This happened to be after updating to 10.3.8, but since the Verbatim discs still won't burn and mount correctly, I'm not sure that the update was the solution -- it might just as easily have been the Sony 4x discs. But I'm not about to revert to 10.3.7 just to test that out!

See also this thread: Rick Lecoat, "Drive burns CD's but will not mount them" #19, 04:24pm Feb 11, 2005 CDT