I recently purchased a Pansonic LF-D521U drive and used a blank 4.7 GB DVD-R to back up my CD and LP collection in mp3 format, organized into roughly 150-200 files per folder. The brand of the disc is Panasonic. The problem is, when I put the disk in my LG DVD-ROM drive it takes forever to mount the disc; in some cases it doesn't. When it does, many of the folders show up as empty. When I put the disk in the Panasonic DVD-R drive it also takes a while to mount it, but when it finally does all the files show up properly. So I'm trying to figure out what the trouble is. I assumed Panasonic brand disks would be good quality, so that should not be it should it? Someone told me that because I had around 1000 small files on it that could be why it is taking so long to mount, as he said DVD was not meant for that. I don't know if he has any idea what he is talking about though.

So maybe the problem is with my LG drive, but so far it has been excellent for everything else. It's a GCC-4120B CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive. I tried a DVD-RAM disk also and it works perfectly, though I can't read it in the LG drive of course. At the moment I have not bought any more disks, just the two that came with the drive. So anyway, being new at all this I thought I would ask about it here. I'd also appreciate any recommendations on good media brands.

Thanks

First thing to do is upgrade the firmware on the drive. That usually solves some problems.
Edit: I took a look around the Panasonic site, and couldn't find where to download firmware upgrades. Go figure.

I checked with Nero InfoTool and it already has the latest firmware version. The drive is fairly new so I guess they haven't released any updates for it yet. Thanks for the suggestion though. Maybe it's just a bad disk, hopefully. I've ordered some Imation brand disks and I'll give them a try.

you have version 2.02 for the GCC-4120B ?

http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php

Yes, it came with 2.02 when I bought it. The Panasonic is version A112.

well I don't want to sound rude but
may I be asking why u've bought panasonic?
is it any better than the other brands?
does it have a unique thing to it?

I'm just wondering, bc I've just heard that panasonic has a dvd writer

The LG DVD-ROM all of a sudden will not read media. Maybe it just needs cleaning? When debri from a disc gets on the laser it just needs cleaning. Also consider the drive tray. Debri such as cigerette ashes, food crumbs can fall into the tray and have the same effect.

I wanted a DVD-burner mainly to back up my files and archive important stuff like family photos I've spent months restoring, and DVD-RAM appeared to be the best suited for that. It's also great for software updates and programs since it holds up to 9.7 GB per cart and when an updated version comes out I can just save it to the same disk and delete the old copy. So I narrowed it down to the LG GCC-4040B and the Panasonic LF-D521U. Both drives can write to DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-R and CD-RW, but the Panasonic drive can use cartridge based DVD-RAM while the LG cannot. I wanted that extra protection so I went with the Panasonic. It also received very good reviews, and Panasonic is a founding member of the DVD-Forum so I figured they knew what they were doing.



Well not exactly. It still reads everything else perfectly fine (retail DVDs, CDs, CD-R, CD-RW). It's just having trouble reading the DVD-R I created. I don't know if it is just a bad disk, or if the LG simply has problems reading blank DVDs. I've been told it could also be the fact that I have so many small files on the DVD that it is taking a long time to mount it.

UPDATE: I took the disk to a friend's house and tried it on his Pioneer DVD-ROM, and the disk mounted immediately and worked perfectly. Looks like my LG just doesn't like it for some reason. I'll try some better quality media and see if that helps, and I can always just use my Panasonic to read them if I have to. I mainly just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to lose any of the disks I made.

Thanks again

this happens because u bought panasonic instead of lg
now lg refuses to read the dvd's
u made it jealous haha

I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to buy some LG brand disks for it, and maybe some flowers.

you can also try looking at www.dvdrhelp.com and see what media is recommended for your dvd writer. I did that and have bought ONLY that media that is most compatible, and have never had a headache. So give that a try, that site is usuallly pretty good!

WoRdUp48

Thanks, I'll check it out.