jon2121 - Question x2 ...
did you have the drives as master or slave on the chain?
and Primary or secondary chain?

I was trying something new with my SH-S182D... I had an external USB/Firewire case for a hard drive and with a little burst of insanity... I plugged the thing into the burner... its totally the wrong size and looks horrible... but it works...

I burned a disc... its a disc the drive could see... and read... and the leadin was the right size. And other drives would read it...

With jon2121's tests... and the Sony Information I stumbled over, and with my problems and trying different spots on the chain, I think that some of the drives just dislike where they get placed...

My Chipset is Nvidia Nforce 4 SLI, I tried it on the 2nd chain as slave and it was no good, when I put it on as master it worked slightly better, but still not totally correct.

I am debating trying to find a real external drive box to throw it into as I finally had success with the drive that way and just keep it as usb burner...