HP DVD 300i trouble

Ed ) wrote:
Did you ever figure your problem out?

Yes.

I have nearly the same except my
dvd recorder only gives me that error message with dvd-r. It writes to
dvd rw. (and I have a hp moviewriter, I think the problem is with the
software or configuration, not the drive)

The 300i will only write DVD+R and DVD+RW (and the usual CD combinations).
The -R and -RW's aren't supported.

As to fixing the drive problems, I had to do two things:

1. Update the firmware on the drive itself, which was difficult since it's needs
to write to the drive to do it, and writing was a problem. I had to force the
drive into one of the low PIO modes, I don't recall which one, to get it to
work. This was difficult because even when I told BIOS to set a particular
mode, Windows kept overriding it and going to Ultra DMA Mode 2, which doesn't
work for this drive on this computer.

2. Lock the drive to no faster than Multiword DMA Mode 2. The DRIVE supports
all the way up to Ultra DMA Mode 2, but I can't reliably write disks at that
speed. For my system, fortunately, there's an ATA configuration utility which
runs under Windows through which I can set the desired parameters for all four
ATA/IDE drives and they WILL stick under Windows.

Without the firmware update I had to set the drive to Multiword to play DVDs.
It would write CDs at that speed but not DVDs. To record DVDs, I had to switch
it back to one of the PIO modes. And, of course, remember to switch it back up
to Multiword, or I couldn't play any DVDs.

- Bill
_________
PS: I tried to mail you directly, but I'm getting "Delivery to the following
recipients failed." for your given e-mail address from