11-04-2010, 10:37 PM

Hi,

I'm new to the forum as a member, but am a longtime Mac user in need of advice.

I have an iMac (Intel Core 2 Duo) that's 1-1/2 years old, running Snow Leopard 10.6.4. The internal Superdrive just died. I don't want to take up weeks with repairs, so opted to just buy an external DVD drive. I bought a Samsung Slimline External DVD Writer model SE-S084. It's suppose to read/write everything and be Mac compatible. It works okay for some of my needs, but is hanging up big time in one major area.

First, what works:
1) It reads music CDs, so I can import songs into iTunes.
2) It burns home movies from iDVD onto DVD-R.
3) It burns backup files from my computer via a Burn Folder onto DVD-R.

What doesn't work:
-- It will not burn anything to DVD+RW (Vebatim brand that worked flawlessly in the late Superdrive) in spite of the box saying this format is supported. This is my preferred format for major backups, since it can be reused and I only backup once every other week, which is way too often to use several DVD-Rs. I've tried using the Burn Folder, and I've tried using direct drag-and-drop. I've tried more than one disk from the same spindle, all fresh disks. I've even tried erasing the disk with Disk Utility, but the drive doesn't really erase it, just like it doesn't burn it. It will start the process, and then either 1) tell me that no matter how small the files that there is not enough room on the disk to hold them, or 2) give me a communication error code Ox80020022. After each failed attempt to burn, the ejected DVD+RWs have a narrow burn ring around the middle, but nothing shows up as readable on the disk. It only does this with the DVD+RW. The DVD-Rs seem to work fine.

Does anyone else have experience with this drive or a similar problem? I don't have access to different brands of +RWs to try, and all the software for this drive is for Windows. Samsung customer support was nice but promptly threw me over to Apple, which I have yet to try. Decided to try here first.

Thanks for any and all suggestions on how to resolve this problem.

WoodenBear

11-05-2010, 08:40 PM

You will most likely get no help from Apple since that's a Samsung external drive. The fault is probably with the Samsung drive and not the brand of media.

I quit using DVD+RW media long ago because of their unreliability. I have had nothing but difficulty using them both in Windows and OS X and it didn't matter which program I used.

As inexpensive as as DVDR media is, I see no reason to take a chance with using +RW media. You can generally buy a 50 disk or 100 disk spool of DVDR media on sale most anywhere.

Also - have you considered using Time Machine and an external hard drive for your backups? It's much easier to use and so much more reliable than DVDs.