DVD-RW problem with 8890

I have the 8890, but mine has a Toshiba SD-R6112 which is working pretty well.

It does DVD-R/RW, not +R/RW

Pioneer DVD-RW (+RW??)

I got my 8890 today and had ordered it with the 2x DVD+R/-R/-RW/+RW/CD-RW (aka the Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-K12RA).

I got Nero (OEM ver 6) and I can't get it to burn Sony & Memorex CD-R's and failed on a Plextor CD-RW.

Nero & System Device Manager both say its a DVD-R/-RW drive only. Can I record DVD+R/+RW's?? I buy expensive media (Usually Sony/Pioneer's for Master's)and don't want to get "burned" finding out.

Is there a firmware upgrade or issue with this drive??

I wish I had answers, but I only have yet another problem. I can't figure out how to get Nero to add data to a CD-RW without formatting it first. Everytime I 'add' data, it overwrites/deletes whatever was on the disc before hand. Any ideas?

What is it with optical media .
I, like a lot of others, am finding it is horribly incompatible.
Pyrobob, my experience with recordable optical is almost non-existant for the very reason I currently see it as a waste of a focussed laser beam, so I can't even give you an help.
I am currently looking to buy a LiteOn SDW-431S dual format 4x DVD writer to replace my DVD/CDR in my 8890. Given all this crap, wish me luck .

Is the 8890 fully configured truely "the one" That is the ultimate laptop? I am on the verge of buying it and just do not have experience with sager. The machine I have configured is over 5k and would love to get feedback on the build quality as well as how it is to deal with sager support.

$5K what have you stuffed into it. Are you buying it thru PC Torque? I didn't think you could make one up that expensive.

As to being "the one", for my requirements it is. For others it is not. If you post some more about your requirements and uses then I am sure you will get a plethora of recommendations.

Build quality is solid. Rock solid.

Luckily I have never had to deal with Sager Support. A search of the forums will give you an idea of their support levels. From my own reading they are much better than other manufacturers. Your experience may vary.

I had never owned a Sager before my 8890. I can say they are an exceptional laptop without reservation.

Thanks for the reply steve! The configuration that I am looking at is

16"wuxga, 3.2g extreme, 2048pc3200, twin 60gig 7200 rpm hard drives raid 0 data strip, and a dvdr/cd combo optical drive. I will also preload windowsxp pro and office2003 pro. The machine I need is going to be used for a variety of purposes. these include heavy photo and video editing in addition to some serious database work for direct marketing purposes. I also will be building several websites and be doing major content generation. The software will include all the usual creative suspects such as the adobe creative suite in addition to the video editing package. dream weaver is also going to be on the agenda. I also like to run some games such as high end flight simulators. I am however reconsiddering the p4 3.4 extreme cpu. The bench marks for the northwood do not seem to be huge between say the standard northwood 3.0 and the 3.4ext for the $$$$ I am also hoping that the presscott will be added as an option. The prescott 3.4 extreme is available in the dell xps although I like the sager better. Any insight in bang for your buck in processor. For what I mentioned do you think that I would experience any major performance differences. I was looking to buy the notebook directly from sager. Is there any advantage to buy from a reseller? The DVD issue was of interest to me because I will be burning presentations and demos for dvd and cd. This feature is critical. Are there real issues? I need to do this in a mobile scene and need it to work. The ability to burn dvd that will work in a concumer dvd player is a must.

My recommendations are - Go with the 3.4 Northwood, Go with PC Torque. Ordering through PC Torgue is the same as ordering directly with Sager - only, you will save a few penny's and have their clout/support should you have problems. You might consider an external and faster DVD-+ device that may provide more stability and compatability. The cost difference between the CPUs should make the difference "net zero" or close to it.

what G-Omaha said

Thanks mate

Of course the Athlon 64 is pretty kick ass too.

(read the title)

Now as for media. Since DVD-RW was the propuse ofthis thread.

For the dude that "buys expensive media like Sony and Pioneer and doesn't want to get 'burned' out"
WHY!!!!! Dear lord why?!?!

Go Ritek. Go Newegg. Go Happy!!

I too would say that what G-Omaha said makes much sense here.

The P4-EE 3.2GHz CPU is (bloody) expensive and has a TDP of 92W, a P4-C Northwood has a TDP of 82W (compare this to the new 90nm build P4 3.2GHz Prescott with a TDP of 103W). Even a P4-EE will give the best performance results here (thanks to his great caching facilities...) it's IMO not worth this much extra money and the additional heat it will produce. - You better go with the P4-C 3.2/3.4 GHz and save the money for other needed stuff (more RAM, better HDDS, WLAN module etc.).

BTW, from the heat and noise point of view the range/ordering (from best to worsest for the three big Sagers/Clevos) is:

1. Sager 8890 (Clevo D800P) -- the best
2. Sager 5680 (Clevo D5x0P) -- normal til good
3. Sager 8790 (Clevo D870P) -- actually the worsest of this three

In my opinion the 8890 ist still the best (top notch) you can get from Sager. Even the 8790 has also a very good build quality and excellent keyboard etc. the 8890 is still unreached.


Related to internal slimline DVD burners and multi burners:

I too have an internal Pioneer burner but the DVR-K12D instead. However, I didn't tested this much so far and thus can't say if it has problems with some media or burning formats.

Generally: The DVD burner market is very fast moving and actually much in transition. Over the last three weeks I've got a bunch of DigiTimes news about new external and internal (also slimline) DVD burners which will be shown during CeBit. The external ones will go now to 12x/16x speed and the internal slimline ones until 8x speed. There are a bunch of those drives produced in Taiwan by companies I've never heard before of (seems all these act as OEMs/ODMs for the more famous and well known storage campanies around the world).

As a verdict here I would say, that G-Omaha and aussie are right if they state, that nowadays things are much mixed up in the DVD burner domain and that an external pluged-in USB/firewire device might be the most flexible and exchangable one.

I did exactly that - got myself a Sony DRX-510UL external and I've had no compatability problems whatsoever. And I buy fairly cheap quality DVDs.

The only problems I've been having is with CD-RWs getting Nero to use them as such, rather than deleting/writing over what was previously on the disc every time I burn to it. Saying that, the only time I've done it was with data burned to it from Roxio Easy CD Creator... could that be the issue? Different programs used to burn data?

And I agree Aussie... stupid optical media!

Yep, I think so. - I had in the past exactly such problems with a TEAC and other CD-burner when using Easy CD Creator and WinOnCD. Always when burning multi-session CDs with a mixed usage of Easy CD Creator and WinOnCD the CDs got messed up. Meaning, after I started some CD burning by using Easy CD Creator I couldn't later continue that CD with for example WinOnCD. Mostly the multisession CDs were no more usable afterwards, e.g. no chance to add contents or finalize the CDs at all. - It seems they write index and lead outs etc. in a different manner or use different sizes therefor, even this should be usually standardized. Also most burning apps have their own drivers and description files for the individual burners and thus may not share or setup an individual burner in the same manner as another app possibly does.

So you might should try to use just one main burning program for a whole media and not mix up to burn parts of the media with different burning apps!

Guys make sure the DVD-R discs are Ritek G04 dye

get a dvd disc info prog and it will tell you who made it and what Gen it is..

or ask the guy u get them off and make sure they are Ritek G04 dye

i have been using them since day one...not one bad disc..

here is a great UK seller of blank DVDs ...they give a lot of info on each disc...
so you can see if your discs are the same...

http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/acata...LICK_HERE.html


i hope this helps......

Thanks Krobotkin. The only problem is that I have EasyCD at work and Nero at home. I guess I'll just have to have a work disc and a home disc.

And Tezz, you're in Florida but buy media from the UK??? What's with that?