Latitude E-Series DVD Burner troubles

So, got a call from Dell (uk) today. No drives in stock, and no inducation on when they will be. This is starting to get anoying...

I noticed that it was possible to burn a dvd using vista's build in data cd burning functinality. Maybe it's some configuration problem after all? What settings could mess things up? I tried disabling burn-proof already.

@umiwangu On the last page ezTol mentioned the Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7913A. It's also 9.5mm but I'm not sure if its compatible. I'm deffinitly not going to buy anything new. Dell should realle solve this soon. I payed a lot of money for this thing.

 

If you read the help in BIOS setup you will notice this is normal: BIOS does a 'thorough' POST, which is slow, when it detects any hardware changes, including RAM change, of course.
Otherwise, it does a quick POST.

 

Reagrading the burner issue, I would suggest you have a look and those not-recongnized DVDs: Are they 16x?
It is annoying that Dell is still giving away 8x burners in new laptops. These burners have problem recongnizing 16x DVDs.
I have similar experiences on my 5-year old i8600. The DVD burner works without problem for so many years on 8x or slower DVDs, but it throws out every 16x DVD.
And it is nowadays very difficult to find 8x DVDs.
However it is funny if Dell doesn't root the issue to this reason...

 

Thanks Jorisa, I had been doing a search for slim DVD writers on Newegg and didn't find much. Is the Dell drive SATA or IDE?

Edit: I just saw John Ratsey's review and the optical drive is SATA so I don't know if that Optiarc would work (it's IDE).

And olivex, it would be interesting to see if people have been using 16x discs.

Edit: But I guess they're also having problems reading discs as well.

 

Let's exclude the cases that they try to read those 16x DVDs burnt by the burner first.

 

From John's review...

"I have encountered several problems with this burner. It would not read one of my software installation discs."

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4586

 

You all be sure also e-mail Lite-On, so that they are aware that things aren't going good. I'll do that if I get mine and I have the problems you all are having. (I'm sure I will)

lite-on comment page (United States)
http://us.liteonit.com/us/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=70

 

I sent liteon a email as well.

Recieved my replacement drive today, and guess what: same problem. After half an hour of remote assistance they're sending me a technician this friday.

Is there anyone who can burn images in Vistax64?

 

Have you tried Nero? On my desktop at home I have Vista x64 and using Nero works without a hitch.

 

I think this is a very specific situation, namely Latitude E-series dvd writers. So yes, Nero will work on your desktop (I use it as well), but I don't think it would address the issue of these drives not reading pressed CD/DVDs or the vibration that's also been reported.