Good luck, but I expect results will be identical. Your best bet is to use ISOBuster or other program that will read the DVD-R to burn a copy of the DVD-R to DVD+R, or use another burner to make a DVD+R copy which should be readable on the NEC 6650A.

The problem afflicts many NEC models which is evident if one reads the thread fully, and many have tried all suggestions made in reply to email without succeeding in fixing the problem for most of them.

I read the Whole thread mate

that is the reason i made it this far and posted this message.

the thing is that i was reading and wondering why not one man has tried to contact the company??????

the fact is that one minute the dvd drive was reading the dvd only by using ISOBUSTER but after flashing the drive with the new firmware from a month ago the drive reads the dvd on windows xp sp2 with no problem.

I didn't mean to imply you hadn't read the thread fully but that the email reply to customer seemed the responder hadn't fully read it since reply states "The thread in the link however refers to another dive model nd4550." Glad the firmware update worked for you as it has for only a few while it's failed to help most who've tried it including my NEC 3520 drive.

Well i replied to him that he wasnt reading the whole thread at the moment i got the mail from him

dont think me as a newbe :O

Whilst this hasn't totally solved the problem for me i'm now able to read my DVD-R's.
I know it;s not exactly orthadox but hey it works for me every time!!!!
I only have to proceed as if i'm erasing or formatting the dvd-r and when i get to the popup saying error i can then proceed to explore the disc and hey presto.....
I was sceptical at first but now i'm pretty confident that it's quite a good workaround and it works for me.
BIG THANKS TO mir_6

MICK

Have you tried that attempted erase or format strategy with Nero or other program, or is that only with the “DVD Write Now” program? This might be a decent work around if it works with standard programs such as Nero, but I'd not want to take risks associated with beta programs.

I haven't tried the same with Nero no but i've had no problems with
DVD Write Now being a beta and as for myself until i discovered i had this problem i also discovered that 95% of my archives were DVD-R and i only had one disc drive so i suppose it was needs must for me. It cannot be too much of problem for you , otherwise i think you would try anything , but thats just me.

Mick

My solution was to replace a NEC 3520A drive afflicted with the -R-itis with a Pioneer 111D which was before I learned about DVD Write Now in this thread, and I'd still choose the replace option rather than risk the perils of a beta program work around. I plan to use the problematic NEC drive for burner replacement in a LiteOn LVW-5005 recorder where there should be no such problem especially since I do nearly all recording on the LiteOn recorder using +R media since the recorder works best with +R media.

Thats fair enough mate i didn't consider that you'd already replaced the NEC
I'd have taken the same course but i'd only just bought a new setup and i was pretty pissed off. But problem solved now.
You should give the DVD Write Now solution a try on an old machine.

Mick

Hello,
Just did a new XP SP2 installation and still having trouble to read the same discs that I recorded on this same 4550 drive...

I think I have the same problem, although I never noticed it as a read problem. I have two Sony AW-G170A's (one with the original firmware 1.71, and one I've since flashed to Optiarc 1.04 firmware). Both worked fine when I originally purchased them and could burn and read both +'s and -'s (I burnt off the best part of a stack of 100 DVDs). And like a few other posters in this thread, I tend to hoard data over a months or years time then go on a massive DVD burning spree and burn everything off.

Anyways I didn't burn anything off for a few months then tried again, and had no luck what-so-ever. After posting here I figured it was just the rubbish media I was using, but as I posted in my thread, a brand new box of Verbatim 16x -R's wouldn't burn. So I tried a + disk and it was fine, then I saw this thread here.

Reading through all 10 pages, there's a bunch of solutions here, some of which I'll try after posting this, but still no definitive answer about how to fix/work-a-round this problem.

I have the same problem of disc copied a few months back become unreadable and mine is AD-7170a. I am searching for a solution and I come across this thread. I did as what hack2003 suggested, flash the firmware. Mine was 1.02 and I flashed it to 1.05. The problem is solved now and I have no problem reading what was unreadable b4 the flashing as I think the new firmware upgrade the media information for the writer to read. That is my guess only. So try flashing your firmware too.

Right! Firmware updates perform miracles! Go for IT!

Weird thing is firmware updates help some while it fails to help others. Quite perplexing as well as frustrating!

yesterday i have burned two dvd + dl (verbatim) and i couldn't read them on my pc but on two other pc's icould.New firmware didn't help.Changing dvd drive to master didn't help too,but when i changed transfer mode to PIO only and loaded dvd i was able to see it's content.


os : xp
dvd drive : nec nd-3540a (never had any problems with it)