CD/DVD Burner Fails on last half of discs

I am having a troublesome problem. In the last 1-2 months my DVD/CD Burner on my Dell e1505 has started having problems. When I burn a disc (audio or data) it says it completes successfully but any files written on the last ~50% of the disc are corrupt.

So if this is an audio CD, basically any track after track 10-11 or so will start skipping or just cut out all together. When I try playing a burned-disc on my car CD player it will play tracks 1-10 fine and then start skipping, then kick out the disc with an error.

Again, it's not always track 10, it's just wherever it's about half-way through the disc.

On a Data disc the same thing happens. Any data written on the last part of the drive is corrupt. Here is a test that I ran:

I made a folder of mp3's and pictures that was ~200 megs. I duplicated this folder 3 times (folder "1" "2" "3") for a total of 600 megs and burned this to the drive. After completing successfully, I could read all the files w/o problems from folders "1" & "2," and some from folder "3" but most were corrupt.

What's puzzling is that it does successfully burn the discs - though I have noticed that it slows down on the later part. For example, if it's going along fine with an ETA of 5 mins to burn a CD once it gets to around 50-60% it sometimes jumps up to 10, 15, 30 mins ETA.

Other important facts:

• I have tried several brands of media
• I have tried 4+ different burning software including: Windows Vista built-in, Windows Media Player, Img Burn,etc
• This used to work no problem until around 1-2 months ago
• I do not seem to have any trouble reading discs that are NOT burned by the system

My questions:

1) Any ideas of what might cause this problem?
2) Can anyone recommend software that can test this drive/process out - outside of Windows so that I can make sure it's a hardware and not software issue (boot disc, etc.)?

The system is still under warranty. Dell it checked out and had me reinstall the IDE drivers. I tested it again this morning, but this did not solve the problem. Before contacting them again, I wanted to make sure I did more tests on the hardware.

Thank you

 

Is the drive able to read the second half of it's own burnt discs?
Is it just your car's player that has trouble with them?

 

No, nothing can read the 2nd half of the discs. When it's an audio disc, neither the e1505 drive, nor 2 car CD players I've tested, and one stand alone CD player. All fail on the last ~50% or so.

When it's a data, disc it also fails. In my example above, I created 3 folders and duplicated the content (~200 megs ) in each of 3 folders. I then burned the disc (~600 megs total). It burns ok, then when I insert back it into the e1505 to read it, files in folder #3 are corrupt (not all, but most). For example, if it were a JPEG, the file would not open. But the same exact file burned in folder #1 would be fine. That is, files in the first 200-400 megs seem to read fine.

 

Update:

I found USB-Key Linux Live boot-up that also has a CD burner. I booted up with this and burned an Audio Disc - Results: same problem. So this, in my opinion, means it has to be a hardware issue.

 

Final Update:

Contacted Dell again and got the drive replaced. After having tested it on another OS, it was pretty clear that it was a hardware failure. 1 day later, I received the replacement drive, installed it in the laptop, and just burned my first CD with no problems.

I have to commend Dell on speedy support and also a side note about Windows Vista. I was able to replace the drive without even having to reboot or shutdown - that is with the system on and the drive is a different brand drive (sony vs. phillips). That's true plug and play.