Can somebody tell me what to do. My matshita dvd ram uj 820s that came with my Toshiba satellite laptop is seriously malfunctioning. The drive was working quite ok until about 9 month later when it began to malfunction.

The problem i face now are listed below:

Can only burn at 8x,any higher burn rate result in Burn error.
Does not play Audio Cd properly as it skips tracks.
Does not open some Cd's and DVD's that i burnt using Nero.
I get cyclic redundancy eror when i'm trying to backup to CD recordable and DVD-R/RW.

I've tried searching for firmware update,perhaps it would solve the problem,but i'm yet to find any. Panasonic and Toshiba website aren't helpful.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Have you ever succeeded burning at higher burn rate with the same brand & type of DVD before ? Yes & No will lead to different direction of solution

I was able to burn at 16x which is the maximum burn rate for about 6 month but has been restricted to only 8x ever since. I'm not so concern about the burn speed but rather only worried about my drive not recognizing cd's that i burnt succesfully with the drive. I cannot open all my backup cd's ever since.

You did not answer my question. You were able to burn at 16x with different type of DVD-R about 6 months ago ? It might have got something to do with the DVD-R and the softwares you use. Any device will deteriote over time but there's always some other factors that cause it to happen. Have you done anything to the hardware or added other burning softwares to your system ?

I think they refer to CD-Rs, as the max burn rate for DVD-Rs on the uj-820 is 4x. 8x is also the fastest any laptop burner will burn DVDs. Perhaps deleting the ide drivers which Windows will re-install upon re-boot will help. As noted the drive is getting old and may have just worn out. Good Luck.

Panasonic has not to give support for this drive because it is Toshiba OEM.

This is not an "old" drive. I have one in my brand-new Lenovo laptop. The trouble is that mine will not burn DVDs at faster than 2x no matter what the media brand or what speed it is recognized as. In opther words, media that is identified as 8x will nevertheless burn at 2x. Actually, it's 1.8x. This is frigging slow. I have not yet tested the CD burning speeds.

I have been to several sites which link to a firmware upgrade for this drive, but this actually gets you something for a Sony Vaio. I can tell you that there is nothing in the universe less likely than finding a Panasonic drive in a Sony product. These two companies are mortal enemies.

It would be very nice to communicate with someone who has experienced this same slow burning. Forget about getting any help from Lenovo that isn't addressed by the ultra-elaborate recovery system.

I have owned four Matshita drives. None of them have been all the good.

Well, OK, but does your UJ-850 burn at more than 2x? This is what I'm trying to figure out; this drive supposedly burns DVD-/+R at 8x. Mine burns at 2x max no matter what the media is.

And I am wondering why the drive identifies itself as "Matshita" when the company is "Matsushita". (i.e. Panasonic)

It might have been misspell

No, that's how it's spelled in the drive ID string.

You didn't answer my question: does your UJ-850 burn at more than 2x?

Yes it does, but it for some reason seems to have a higher failure rate than other drives I have owned.

They can do of course, but only when DMA is enabled and when good media is used.

And good media is TY or Verbatim!!