Hello all - been looking at the forum for a bit and decide to join to ask a question.

The rom drive in my Toshiba XS32 died last week. It wouldn't read any media, so after searching for threads here, I decide to replace it with another drive. I bought a Liteon dvd burner ($40) that is also a DVD-RAM burner. The install was straight forward and simple. I've burned 4 DVD-R (1x-4x) with no issues. The tray on the Liteon does not accept the RAM cartridge so I had to remove the disk from the cartridge to sit in the Liteon tray. The XS32 can read the RAM media but it will not write to it. I also tried DVD-RW and the XS32 will not recognize it at all. The Liteon is also a +R and 8x but the XS32 will not recognize those media type either.

So the question is what is the most compatible burner to replace the Tosh burner?
I think the original burner goes for about $300, so that's not an option. I'm satisfied with the Liteon since I can at least read and burn now but wanted to see other options. Another plus to this solution is that it actually reads the disc much quicker than the old drive. As far a burning speed, it did seem much quicker but I haven't benchmarked it. I going to update the firmware on the drive and try the other media again. I'll post if there is any changes.

Another question - has anyone successfully replaced the Hard Drive in a XS32?

Thanks in advance...

also thanks to the forum for providing me with answer to my problem.

Cheers

There was a guy on this board who put an NEC drive in his XS32. He didn't mention any problems with DVD-RW but I'm not sure if he tried burning one.

I have a question for you, one of the things I love about the Toshiba is that you can transfer content back and forth from DVD to the Hard Drive, can you still do that with the LiteOn you installed?

Also, did you use an IDE drive?

Do the DVDs mount faster with the replaced drive? I'm starting to have probs in mine as I've mentioned elsewhere. I am close to if not over my 1 year parts warranty.. So for $40, I'd consider trying this replacement myself..

Are you able to make the drive 'just work' in the normal way with the top of the case on? i.e. it's not sitting on top or something??

and DVD-RWs still work?

There was a guy on this board who put an NEC drive in his XS32. He didn't mention any problems with DVD-RW but I'm not sure if he tried burning one.

Yup saw that. That's what made me try this.... DVD-RW wasn't mentioned.

I have a question for you, one of the things I love about the Toshiba is that you can transfer content back and forth from DVD to the Hard Drive, can you still do that with the LiteOn you installed?
Transfering to and from a DVD-R and HD works.. just tried it... it also worked with a DVD-R that was not finalized on the original burner.

Also, did you use an IDE drive?

The Liteon is a E-IDE drive.

Do the DVDs mount faster with the replaced drive?

From tray close to autoplay, on a new Goblet of Fire DVD, took 12 sec. I think this was quicker than the old drive, but can't compare since I never timed the old drive, I just knew it took a long time, so I always loaded and walked away.

Are you able to make the drive 'just work' in the normal way with the top of the case on? i.e. it's not sitting on top or something??

Yes - The drive is mounted in the case where the original drive was mounted. The face plate and tray dust cover has to be removed from the Liteon in order for the front panel of the XS32 to snap back into place.

DVD-RWs still work?

Nope.. Didn't work.. I'm gonna flash the drives firmware this weekend and see what happens.

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I'm sure there are other drives out there that will work. I saw this Liteon that was also a DVD-RAM drive so I thought I'd try it since I have a few RAM discs. It's unfortunate it won't write to the RAM. I think it may have something to do with the RAM cartridges having a write protect tab. I'll do more research on it.

I'll update the thread if I discover anything else.

update -

Just got done updating the Liteon with the latest firmware and have successfully burned on a DVD-R 8x.

Still a no go on DVD-RW and -RAM. Might be the media versions.

have you upgraded the firmware on the tosh?

have you upgraded the firmware on the tosh?

I found firmware for the original burner and another for the German Version of the XS32. I don't know of any others. If you have more info on it, please post the link. I'll look into it.

Thanks

From tray close to autoplay, on a new Goblet of Fire DVD, took 12 sec. I think this was quicker than the old drive, but can't compare since I never timed the old drive, I just knew it took a long time, so I always loaded and walked away.

Actually, I wasn't very clear. Mostly I was curious about DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM mounting speed.. But since you can't actually use all of them, I guess I'm less interested in replacing my drive. (Though I have said many times I'm definitely a FAN of DVD-RAM, I've actually been *using* DVD-RW more, since it's cheaper, and I've had DVD-RAMs corrupt on me, but haven't had DVD-RWs so far..)

After mattack's response to my HD swap question in another thread, I tried an older 40gig Maxtor drive I had laying around. I got three beeps, an ER7034 on the display and the machine locked up, so I pulled the plug and hooked the old Maxtor back up.

I just got an LG 4167B oem drive for another computer, so I figured while I had the XS32 open, I'd try the LG. It worked beautifully with both R and RW!!! An unfinalized DVD-R mounted quickly. I then put in a blank DVD-R, burnt a 96 minute vhs cap, and finalized it. It played perfectly (as well as the original, anyway...) on two other dvd players. I've been using 4X Taiyo Yudens from supermediastore.

I could never get my XS32 to format any 4X Ridata DVD-RWs. It would say disk could not be formatted about 40% through. But, it formatted, burnt, and finalized in the LG. I then hooked the original XS32 drive back up and it played fine in it. Then I tried to format a blank one, and still no luck. I don't have a spare DVD-RAM to play with, but I'll try to pick up a couple tomorrow at BB or CC, and try that, too.

If the DVD-RAM works, I'm thinking about getting another LG and installing it. It was really much faster mounting and responding overall.

rickc5,
Is this the same DVD as GSA-4167B? What firmware are you running and did you upgrade it? I've been looking for the SD-W3002 replacement drive without luck but would rather have a more robust newer drive.

xonid,
Where are you getting your firmware upgrades? I only find what are supposedly Canadian up to 1416 I think. Read was not compatible with U.S. machines.

I have a XS32 soft-ZL10 drv-1309 and D-R2SU (non-HD) soft-ZN10 drv-1314 both out of warranty. Both have DVD problems but the XS32 is much worse. D-R2 will run disks that the XS32 won't touch. I attribute part of that to the higher drive firmware. I've been nursing both units by periodically blowing them out with compressed air and then running a CD lens cleaner through (which Toshiba advises against). Obviously the drives are very sensitive to dust and I am tempted to disassemble it to clean the lens (which I'm sure Toshiba advises against).

Thanks

Tape - Yes, it's the GSA-4167B. Manuf. January 2006. Rom Version DL12. I didn't upgrade the firmware. I bought it from Newegg last week for a friend's pc, and I just couldn't resist trying it...

I bought my XS32 in 9/2004, after weeks of agonizing about the black level bug, and posted it's software version back then. It worked great, no BLB, for 10 months, burnt over 300 dvds, until someone tried to erase something off of an unfinalized DVD instead of the HDD. Well, that seems to have fried the laser or sensor or? I couldn't burn anything and could only read some disks. Input anyone? Sent it to Toshiba for repair ($60). They sent me back a refurb unit with the dang older ZL10/1314. So, I don't mind playing with this one. Had I known, I would have just switched burners...

I read in another thread about the firmware upgrade, but now I'm wondering if it's compatible with US machines.

Okay, I can positively confirm that you can burn R, RW and RAM (and copy back to the HDD) using the LG GSA-4167B. I don't know about other models or firmware versions, but the one I have works great! I copied multiple titles to the DVD-RAM, then copied a couple back to the HDD. No problems. I did notice that the RAM disc mounted slowly. I used the older, but brand new, still in the wrapper, Toshiba DVD-RAM that came with my XS32. I don't have any 5X RAMs or 16X Rs handy, so I can't try them yet. When I removed the LG and put the RAM in the original XS32 drive, all the content was there and could be played and copied.

Now, if we could only swap HDDs.

The LG drive sounds good.. I'm gonna try it.. Thanks.

Tried to post the url for the burner firmware thread but it looks like I need to have 5 post to do it.

try next on the next one.

Here are the burner firmware threads I found. I haven't applied any of them since my burner is dead. Hope it helps

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312999&highlight=xs32+firmware
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdrecorders.php?DVDnameid=272&Search=Search&list=1

I have an xs32 for over a year now and have been having problems loading DVD-R's only lately. I had no issues for a year. I also at times get a failed burn where it just hangs at 0%. Well anyways, all of a sudden, I have an Error 14 on the screen on the actual box. It just flashes and never goes away even if I turn off the unit or even unplug it. I have switched to Sony -R's and things are going ok for 90% of the time, but I don't understand this Error 14. Also with the new DVD Drive is anyone able to burn faster or does the Toshiba firmare only allow upto 4X max? Also someone in an earlier post mentioned they did not have a BLB for 10 months. I don't understand how that is possible. Don't all the machines have the BLB (at least the xs32's anyways)?

:-)
Rob

Here is what someone said in another forum about Error 14:

"Pressing the "DISPLAY" button clears this.

It appears merely as the result of an R/RW writing error caused on bad media. Inspite of the error on my machine, the disc that errored still played back perfectly on this and other machines. Amazingly the UK Toshiba helpline did not know how to clear this and advised me to return it. I stumbled upon the answer myself after pressing all the buttons on the machine and remote in sequence. I passed the info on to Toshiba, so hopefully they will pass it on to other customers. Odd that this error should not be listed in the instruction manual as it is non-critical and easily cleared by the user."

Several others wrote about Error 14 on their units, and several reported that calling Toshiba got the response, "Huh?" (basically).

rgn2000 - My first XS-32 was made in June 2004, with software version ZL-11 and it did not have the BLB. When my burner died, Toshiba gave me a refurbished XS-32 made in March, 2004, and it most definitely has the BLB. I recorded a couple of the same programs on the refurb. unit, and when burned to DVD media and played on another player, they are definitely lighter than those recorded on my first XS-32. In my opinion it's not terrible, but it is very noticeable side by side.

I spoke to Toshiba today, and they said there is no firmware upgrade available or planned for the XS-32.

Also, I occaisionally got Error 14 on the display when my burner was dying and pushing "Display" did clear it.

Okay, I can positively confirm that you can burn R, RW and RAM (and copy back to the HDD) using the LG GSA-4167B. I don't know about other models or firmware versions, but the one I have works great! I copied multiple titles to the DVD-RAM, then copied a couple back to the HDD. No problems. I did notice that the RAM disc mounted slowly. I used the older, but brand new, still in the wrapper, Toshiba DVD-RAM that came with my XS32. I don't have any 5X RAMs or 16X Rs handy, so I can't try them yet. When I removed the LG and put the RAM in the original XS32 drive, all the content was there and could be played and copied.

Now, if we could only swap HDDs.

Hi, are you able to burn both -R/RW and +R/RW and at maximum speeds that the 4167 handles ie 16 speed?

My burner has died and I am thinking of trying the LG GSA4167B solution.

Interestingly, my machine is under Extended Warranty and my repairer has advised that the cost to repair it is $A800 and that the machine will be scrapped and replaced by another. A 4167B is less tha $A100 and my time is free.

Bob, sorry I can't give you an answer on 16X or +R/RW. I tried TY 4X -R, Toshiba RAM, Ridata 4X -RW, Optodisc 2X -RW and Sony 1X-8X -R. All of them copied content, finalized and copied back to the HDD just fine. I don't have any 16X media, and I didn't try +R. I've since installed the LG-4167B in a pc, so no more experimenting for now.

After my XS32's burner died, Toshiba charged me around US$70 to send me a refurbished unit with the dreaded BLB. Had I known the LG worked with my minimal testing, and that I'd get a refurb unit, I would have switched drives and kept my own unit (known history, never abused, no BLB, etc.).

If the LG doesn't perform as you'd like in the XS32, you can always just use it in a pc. I've had one as my main pc burner for about a year, and it's been okay with every CD/DVD I've fed it. Also, it was very satisfying (and a good learning experience) to have a less than US$40 drive sitting on top of the XS32, and working better than the Toshiba drive!

I already have an LG 4163B and a Liteon 812@832 in my PC. The LG burner has been more than satisfactory to date. I am going to try it in the Toshiba and I expect it will work OK.

We do not have the BLB problem in Australia which uses the PAL system.

My machine is to be replaced under extended warranty but I am going to try to buy back the machine from the warranty company. Even if I can't get the burner to work, the Hard drive is very useful just as a Video Recorder.

Interestingly, my machine is under Extended Warranty and my repairer has advised that the cost to repair it is $A800 and that the machine will be scrapped and replaced by another. A 4167B is less tha $A100 and my time is free.

But obviously you're going to take advantage of the extended warranty since you paid for it???

But obviously you're going to take advantage of the extended warranty since you paid for it???
Yes but i'm hoping to buy the old machine for salvage value and repair it, so that way I will have two machines - one for each TV.

Rickc5,

Thanks for all of the great info. I have another question though.
Did the LG drive fit in to the XS32 OK or will some modding be needed?

I too have a XS32 with a crapped out DVD and I would really like to fix it myself.

Thanks for any info you can give.

Whilst I have not undertaken the change I have had the machine apart and the LG should slot straight in. I do not know if the front would need to be taken off the tray.

The position of the screws in the DVD indicate that the Hard drive may need to be removed first, then the DVD and replaced in opposite order. The Recorder uses proprietary cables which are mated to ordinary IDE female connectors.

Let us know how you go.

Thanks BobH2. I have ordered the LG and I'll post again after the surgery.

Slug -

Sorry, work's been busy.

I didn't completely remove the XS32's drive (it wasn't bad), I just set the LG on top. If I were you, I'd connect the LG to the power/IDE cables and set it securely on top to make sure it works, BEFORE physically switching drives.

My DVD drive is set as a master, make sure your LG is jumpered the same way as your existing drive before connecting it.

A couple of ribbon cables are taped to the top of the drive; no problem pulling off the tape. The drive power cable goes from the board to the DVD drive to the HDD. Be careful when removing the DVD power connector, as a shielded flexible cable goes into the pc board right behind the power connector. The DVD drive IDE cable ends in a small pc board that plugs into the drive's connector. Gently remove it without bending or tweaking it side-to-side. I don't remember if it's keyed, so make note of the orientation. I'd suggest removing the cables before the drive. Be extra careful with the proprietary cables that can't easily be replaced!

The existing drive is a standard size drive, so the LG should fit perfectly. I'm just not sure how the drive fits into the front panel area, but after looking at it, I figured worst case I could remove the XS32's door. It may not be aesthetic, but it should work. The drive mounting bracket is secured to the chassis by four accessible screws, so it's probably easiest to remove the bracket and drive, then remove the bracket once they're out of the unit. That way you won't have to remove the HDD. My unit also has a clear plastic strip running from front to back on the right side of the drive, so you'll have to remove two drive to bracket screws on that side.

To test the LG without removing the other drive, you'll have to either disconnect the power cable from the HDD and DVD drive, or the flexible shielded cable to get the power cable around the shielded cable to the LG. You'll also have to untape the IDE cable from the existing drive. Don't forget to double check all connections before plugging the unit in.

I'd be curious to know the ROM version and date on the LG when you get it. And the existing HDD info, if you'd like to share.

I'll leave the cover off my XS32 for now, and if you give a heads up on when you are going to try it, I'll keep checking the forum, in case I can help.

Good Luck!

I'd be curious to know the ROM version and date on the LG when you get it.

RickC5,

I just got the drive today. ROM Version is DL12 and Manufacture Date is November 2005.

I am hoping to get some time tonight to try the replacement. Thanks for all of the info. I'll post any questions or just to let you know how everything came out. If something comes up I'll probably try the replacement on Saturday.

I will definitely post for all the XS32 owners to let them know what happened and what to expect.

It is done. I ran a few preliminary tests before deciding to go with the full install. Dropped a new 4x Taiyo-Yuden DVD-R in and selected a few programs that have been on my HDD for as long as the burner has been giving me issues. Copied like a champ. Removed the finished DVD and dropped it into another DVD player and it loaded with no issues. I don’t have any other media to check but since I use the TY –R for everything it is ok with me.

I did need to remove the cover off of the LG to get it in there but no worries since the burner in the XS32 didn’t have a cover on it anyway.

The XS32 DVD was easy to remove. Carefully pulled out the cables and power cords, removed two screws from the plastic shield that guides the wires, removed the 4 screws for the bracket that were screwed into the bottom of the unit, removed the brackets and attached them to the LG, wiggled the LG into place and then replaced everything.

The LG without the faceplate opens the door on the front of the XS32 with no problems. Everything seems right with the new burner. All together the process took no more than an hour with testing. At this stage I would recommend that anyone that has a nonfunctioning burner should consider this procedure. Although I have not tested all media types I can confirm DVD-R and that is definitely better than not being able to burn to DVD at all.

Rickc5 – I did forget one important thing though. I forgot to find out which HDD I had in my XS32. Sorry. I was so damn excited that the thing works after 5 months of watching DVDs on my crappy old Apex and having to delete programs that I wanted to keep because I was out of HDD space that I rushed to get it back in the entertainment center, I remembered your post after I came to the computer to write this.

Sweet!!! Glad to hear it went smoothly. It's nice to know the front door works okay, too. Thanks for the update.

I've used 300+ TY 4Xs with only a couple of glitches that could have been due to a source problem. I ran Nero dvdspeed on the first batch I used, and stopped doing it since every one was 100%. I tested a few other media types in the LG with no problems, including a blank 4X RW that the original XS32 DVD drive still can't read. I'm curious what would happen if you tried DL media?

I can understand your relief and excitement, but if you ever have it open again, check the HDD model or serial. No rush. I'd like to eventually see if there is some common denominator in specs.

Again, congrads!

Thanks to everyone who posted info about replacing the DVD burner. Mine has been giving me ERR 14 for months when finalizing a DVD. I was using the recommended TY 4x DVDs and even called Toshiba for the DVD software update. After waiting 2 weeks for the update, the DVD they sent me didn't even load!
I finally took the SONY DW-Q30A DVD/RW 16x out of my computer and put it in the XS32. Fit like a charm and so far seems to work on the Ritek Arita G04 4x DVDs I bought hoping they would work with the original DVD burner that comes with the XS32. The only catch is that I have to make sure I select to run All Tests. Otherwise I still get the Can't finalize disc error. Not sure why that makes it work, but at least I can burn DVDs again.

Oh. I forgot to mention that the HD in mine is a Seagate: ST380012ACE in case anyone was wondering. The DVD burner is a Toshiba Samsung SD-W3002.

Hi,

I today replaced my burner with an LG4163B. Took about half/threequarters of an hour and it worked perfectly first time up.

Good to know that these machines can be fixed, and cheaply.

Just successfully installed a GSA-4167B in my XS32. Thanks for the info posted by many here about this mod. My original drive would not recognize nor burn blank DVD-R's. Additionally, it would freeze when there was a layer change while playing DVD's. Sometimes it even wouldn't recognize DVD's at all. The "operation" was quite easy to do, for someone who only knows how to change a lightbulb. The only thing is burning DVD's take like forever.

Hi All
I have a few question regarding changing the DVD drive (to LG)
1) after changing the drvie do DVD-R load faster (now they load between 40-200sec)
2) can you playback DVD+R?
3) can you playback DVD+-R at X8?
thanks
MAtty :)

Matty,

I can't answer the DVD+R questions as I haven't tried them yet. As far as the loading times, my LG loads a disc in the 10 to 20 second range. Much quicker than the original drive for me.

Hi,

I today replaced my burner with an LG4163B. Took about half/threequarters of an hour and it worked perfectly first time up.

Good to know that these machines can be fixed, and cheaply.

Okay, clue this newbe in, where can I get an LG4163B? For that matter, what is it? a dvd burner, I assume. I am a Toshiba RD-XS32 fried dvd drive owner, maybe would consider fixing it for a second recorder.

Okay, clue this newbe in, where can I get an LG4163B? For that matter, what is it? a dvd burner, I assume. I am a Toshiba RD-XS32 fried dvd drive owner, maybe would consider fixing it for a second recorder.

I got mine here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827136064

Thanks, I see they are out of stock. Will try later, that would be a fix for a second recorder since I ordered a new DVR.
Bill

I followed the LG replacement procedure after months of frustration with my XS32. I seem to be able to play RW and finalized discs, however unfinalized discs are not recognized. Unforunately I have dozens of these, so this is a big concern. In addition, although the finalized discs will play, they are recognized as "pre-recorded" so I cannot copy the titles from them. Has anyone experienced similar problems or know of a possible solution to this? To rescue my all of my unfinalized discs I'll need to either reinstall the old drive and take my chances, or borrow another toshiba unit. I'll see if there's a PC based solution but I think that's unlikely. Thanks for any input...

Donnieo:

To everyone who has this unit that does not behave properly, it is most likely due to a failing DVD-RAM optical drive and not necessarily the hard drive. After exhaustive research with this unit, both on forums and Toshiba's website/tech support, as well as in our shop, the DVD-RAM overheats and the IC chips fail. We opened the drive and ran it through its paces. Just being on and empty or not spinning a disc, the laser stays on all the time and generates too much heat.

We have found the appropriate substitute drive, to include the use of RAM discs (TYPE II, non-cartridge), to be the LG GSA-H10L - made by Hitachi/LG (Zenith). The installation of this drive, excluding the bezel and tray cover, is an exact fit as well. The drive needs no firmware update from LG. You can purchase this drive for 1/2 price at Best Buy this week only (7/17/06) for $55.00! Faster disc loading and burning are noticeable. Dubbing and rate conversion to/from RAM work flawlessly.

It is important to note that you must replace the drive with a DVD-RAM drive. Hewlett-Packard Lightscribe drives will also work if the model is higher than DVD-740 and are a Super Multi Drive with RAM option. HP is made by Hitachi/LG - we verified this several ways.

We recommend adding a second chassis fan with low-profile heat sinks that stick on to the hard drive as well. We have put together a professional upgrade kit manual in English and French with color photos. It also comes with a template/jig to drill out the correct holes for the fan. Our kit ($24.95) includes both BIOS update discs direct from Toshiba 13xx and 14xx. You will want to update the BIOS before replacing the drive.

The hard drives are typically standard E-IDE Maxtor Diamond Max units and larger ones than 80GB can go in to it.

These modifications are rather straight-forward, but for those that would like the unit professionally upgraded and rebuilt, we will do it in our service shop for $50 labor, plus our exact hardware costs (no markup) - you get to choose - and S/H back to you.

For any of you that have discs that need to be finalized, we will do it for free. Just pay for the postage to return. Anyone wanting to sell used units not working properly, we would like to buy them.

Our kits are listed on eBay currently, but you can buy them direct usinig PayPal as well.

Mike Dixon
Magna Video Business Solutions
(509) 891-9007

"You will want to update the BIOS before replacing the drive. "

How crucial is it to update the BIOS? Necessary, or just something that would take advantage of increased burning speeds?

I have an XS-34 burner that is giving me fits. Planning on swapping out with the LG drive, but would like to skip the BIOS upgrade.

Thanks.

The hard drives are typically standard E-IDE Maxtor Diamond Max units and larger ones than 80GB can go in to it.

Umm, what?

I'm not the only one who has tried this -- but when we put in a drive (even the same exact size), the machine is simply HUNG with an error code (in the 7000 range IIRC). I even copied the contents from the original drive.


Do you guys know anything about repairing *corrupted* drives? (Rather, my image is now on a drive that I can't use for the reason I state above.. but the content is there.) Most of it is "just" TV shows, but some is old musical performances and stuff that won't be repeated.

Also, if the replacement optical drive does 6x DVD-RW speed, does that mean we can use faster than 2x DVD-RWs?* In other words, is it JUST a hardware issue or is it a firmware issue too?

The 1314 and 1416 BIOS updates are for the main board OS for the Toshiba RD-XS32. I do not yet have the research completed for the XS-34 and do not know if these BIOS updates will apply. The drives are the same. Swapping the drive for the LG would fix the overheating and premature failure as well as not loading most brands of media over 4X problem.

(Quoting Mattack above)


The issues with the Toshiba RD-XS32 are primarily hardware related. The LG GSA-H10L will properly write 6X DVD-RW's at 6X speed.

+R and +RW will not work.

Put the original HD back in and apply the BIOS updates to the main board. Then, install the new LG drive and use a Panasonic DVD-RAM Type II for video, Non-Cartridge, to transfer the media. Once transferred, format the HD and re-transfer the data back. If you still have the same problems, even with the new LG, then you have a bad HD.

There is no need to flash the LG drives with LG software on a PC based system before installation. Just use it as it is. The BIOS updates are for the main system board in the Toshiba.

Umm, what?

I'm not the only one who has tried this -- but when we put in a drive (even the same exact size), the machine is simply HUNG with an error code (in the 7000 range IIRC). I even copied the contents from the original drive.


Did you run a BIOS disc from the DVD-RAM drive after the install and did you have an opportunity to FORMAT the HD from the System menu using the remote?

Are you saying that it is possible to fit a larger hard drive to the machine ?

Where do you get the BIOS disc you are talking about ?

Yes, nobody knows what BIOS disc you're talking about.

I copied my entire original hard drive (that the XS32 said was corrupted) to the NEW drive, which is almost the same model #.. the xs32 would just go dead almost immediately upon power on.
I finally just reformatted the original drive.. (and I have the slight hope I could eventually copy the data BACK from the other drive to the orig drive to recover the corrupted data if someone figures out the disk format).

I did the dvd drive replacement on Monday and the last few days I have been burning to dvd-r, dvd-rw, checking discs on another dvd player and transfering content back to the hard drive. Everything has worked perfectly so far. One thing that I noticed was the burn side of the dvd-rs I made were one color. With the old burner I saw different color rings.

Thanks to the guys who came up with this mod and tipped off the rest of us.

Now I hope someone can tell us if the hard drive upgrade is really possible.

What about DVD-RAM though?

What about DVD-RAM though?

Sorry, I don't have any DVD-RAM discs. If I see any on sale tomorrow, I'll pick em up and try it.

Donnieo:

To everyone who has this unit that does not behave properly, it is most likely due to a failing DVD-RAM optical drive and not necessarily the hard drive.....

We have found the appropriate substitute drive, to include the use of RAM discs (TYPE II, non-cartridge), to be the LG GSA-H10L ....
......

Mike Dixon
Magna Video Business Solutions
(509) 891-9007

Hello Mike,
Thanks for this advice. The DVD in my RD-XS32 won't record and so I've ordered an LG GSA-H10N (couldn't get an L). Do you have any instructions/advice for changing the drive. I'm unsure about what needs to be done with the facias, trays etc.
Thanks
Caz66

Donnieo:







The hard drives are typically standard E-IDE Maxtor Diamond Max units and larger ones than 80GB can go in to it.

Mike Dixon
Magna Video Business Solutions
(509) 891-9007

Mike
Any information regarding the hard drive change would be appreciated especially upgrading to a larger drive & would this require a bios update ?

Hello Mike,
Thanks for this advice. The DVD in my RD-XS32 won't record and so I've ordered an LG GSA-H10N (couldn't get an L). Do you have any instructions/advice for changing the drive. I'm unsure about what needs to be done with the facias, trays etc.
Thanks
Caz66

Caz66 - I replaced a DVD burner in my Toshiba xs-34. Look on page 1 of this thread for some detailed directions for your xs-32 replacement. I can tell you that I first took off the tray fascia/cover (after using a paperclip to release the tray) and then took the cover off the drive itself. Small, built-in clips hold the covers on. No problems releasing.

Good luck.

Hello All,
Great advice on this site. I've replaced the DVD drive in my RD-XS32 with an LG-GSA-H10N DVD recorder and it works better than the original :) I thought other people might appreciate a step-by-step guide of what to do and so I've written one. I can't post the URL to it as this site won't let me until I make 5 posts!
Regards,
Caz66

Post it without the "http://www" and tell people to add it.

And here finally is the URL to the step-by-step guide:
http://www.esbuilder.com/rdxs32/rdxs32-replace-dvd.htm
Caz

Still no information forthcoming regarding the hard drive change

Has anyone out there done it successfully ?

Any information would be gratefully received

Or does anyone know of a thread where this is discussed ?

Hi All, I'm new here. And I have a RDXS32. I have read on another forum a guy who have a LG HDD Recorder (LG RH177) and he have upgraded his hard disk. His original HD was the same (ST380012ACE) by another seagate HD 300GB (ST3300622A) Maybe it can work too for our RDXS32???

Here is the link of the topic (french topic):
"forum.hardware.fr/hardwarefr/VideoSon/Graveur-HDD-LG-RH177-sujet-95959-1.htm"

The point is can the Toshiba RD X32 hard drive be upgraded ?
I dont doubt other makes & models can but other members have queried the upgradeability of the Toshiba.
Has anyone managed to do it ??
And if so how ???

I planned to try that... I'm trying to find a 300gb drive at my work to test the upgrade of the rdxs32. I let you know the result soon.

Make sure you've backed up any programs on the old hard drive to DVD first, as I think others have tried and have not been able to read from the old hard drive after having to revert back because the new drive did not work. I think I read somewhere that a format was required to see the old drive when it was put back in the machine.
Anyway good luck and let us have your results.

No, you CANNOT replace the hard drive, not even with one the same sized..* except for the one person in this thread who supposedly has 'upgraded' firmware.. nobody has been able to do it.

Anobody know the filesystem used bu the xs32? It is ext2,ext3,ufs,hpfs,ffs,etc??? Fat32,NTFS (I don't think so...but)

Because maybe if we pre-format the HD with the right filesystem it will work.... Because the hard drive in the xs32 was a normal HD. It's sold for PC too. You can find on ebay some of them for sale..

For the people who have tried to swap the disk for another one, do you have simpy exchange the disk? Or you have tried to do some manoeuver?

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.

I have obtained 3 différents HD for test.

One Seagate 80go but not exactly the same model than the original
One Seagate 160go
One Seagate 250go

Anobody know the filesystem used bu the xs32? It is ext2,ext3,ufs,hpfs,ffs,etc??? Fat32,NTFS (I don't think so...but)

Because maybe if we pre-format the HD with the right filesystem it will work.... Because the hard drive in the xs32 was a normal HD. It's sold for PC too. You can find on ebay some of them for sale..

It is very likely a CUSTOM filesystem. (Similar to how the video on a Tivo uses a custom filesystem, though a Tivo also has partitions with 'standard' filesystems.)

If anybody knew more about the filesystem, we could recover stuff from corrupted drives (I'd pay for that).

You said you don't have the exact same model -- same with me. I tried getting a drive as close to the same model as I could, but it didn't work.. It *DID* already have the filesystem on it, since I copied from my corrupted drive (and the fact that it was corrupted was not the issue, since the system recognized the drive, but corrupted, with the original drive).

Plus, the fact that the XS32 goes into the 'error 7000' mode very very quickly makes me infer that it's something in the firmware on the XS32 that recognizes that the drive is not what it expects. That is, it doesn't even try to really read the hard drive, I suspect.

Do you have tried to do a "ghost"? of the original drive on the new drive? I suppose It can work for the file system restriction...

And to know the filesystem exactly do you have tried with Partition Magic?

I DID AN EXACT BYTE FOR BYTE COPY. I don't use Windows, but as far as I understand, that "Ghost" stuff is ONLY RELEVANT FOR WINDOWS PARTITIONS..

There exists more in the world than Windows.

I have said ''ghost'' but I doesn't use it too. I'm on linux and I have at my work some specialized soft for that kind of job. Gparted,partition magic,easy recovery professional etc.

If I always want to try the HD swap. If it doesn't work with a other disk, I can replace the original one in the xs32 without problem or this manoeuver will put the xs32 in error forever?

Sorry for my bad english.

@+

Yes, at least based upon my limited experience, the XS32 does not "lock you out" if you try to use another drive. (But again, I have very serious doubts that you'll be able to get it to recognize any other drive.)

You should be able to put the original drive in (without it being modified in any way) and the system then function fine.

But don't blame me if it doesn't work!

Ok that's fine. Well, anybody have the knowledge to modify the firmware...? ;)

Ok that's fine. Well, anybody have the knowledge to modify the firmware...? ;)
Given the original firmware source code and details of the target CPU then Yes. :)

Not able to do reverse-engeinering??? :rolleyes:

I DID AN EXACT BYTE FOR BYTE COPY. I don't use Windows, but as far as I understand, that "Ghost" stuff is ONLY RELEVANT FOR WINDOWS PARTITIONS..

There exists more in the world than Windows.

Mattack, what did you use? dd?

Mattack, what did you use? dd?

Yes, I used dd.. and IIRC, the drives have exactly the same number of bytes.

If you're going to claim that dd didn't actually copy everything, then I give in! (I copied from /dev/rdisk1 to /dev/rdisk2 or something like that -- you get the idea..)

Yes, I used dd.. (...)
If you're going to claim that dd didn't actually copy everything, then I give in! (...)
No, nothing like that.
I was just going to suggest dd if you hadn't tried it yet, that's all. :-)

If a dd copy didn't work then Toshiba must have taken special measures to keep users from attempting to replace the HDD. Maybe they've encoded the original HDD's serial number into the firmware at the factory, or some other such thing.

Yeah, and/or something based upon the hard drive's firmware since it's a slightly different version.

If it's based on the serial number of the drive it was easy to fix....

How are we supposed to get faulty hard drives changed then?
I suppose its a return to Toshiba and pay an exorbitant price for a £30 drive and 10 minutes work.
Has anyone had one replaced yet ??

Hi there,

i see that some of you successfully replaced the SD W3002 drive with another one from the XS32 DVD Recorder.

But did anyone replaced on a D R1 model?
Mine has a lot of issues with RAM discs, and doesn't read well my -R discs. Only comercial DVDs are correctly played. So i decided to replace the drive.

Unfortunatelly, not many threads about the D R1 (difficult to make searches with such short items like "D" and "R1"). So please don't blame me if this has been already asked and answered.

Thanks

I read through some of this thread again (my burner has been acting up for a while, seems like it thinks DVD-Rs are bad once they're partially full.. so obviously I can't finalize them then).

I see one mention that someone was UNABLE to use non-finalized DVDs after an upgrade.

Has anyone else *been* able to use unfinalized DVD-Rs (and DVD-RWs) after a DVD drive exchange?

To replace the DVD Drive in the Toshiba RD-XS32 does it have to be a RAM drive or can it be a standard IDE -R/-RW drive? Can it be any brand or is LG the only one found to work?

Thanks.

Have tried NEC ND 4550a but it does not work will not read any DVDs

Successfully changed the DVD with the LG GSA-H10N
Obviously had to remove the Front Panel & the drawer Front on the new drive but apart from that the changeover was easy.
Software level now shows up as JL10.
Most functions seem to work but I don't seem to be able to play audio CDs nor a couple of DVds recorded on other machines. Pre recorded DVDs seem to work & I think that I am able to play unfinalised DVDs previously recorded on the Toshiba.
DVD manual states the the drive is region specific (region 2 as I am in the UK) but it gives 5 changes of region until it locks on to the region you choose (from the 5th & final DVD inserted )

This LG drive looks like a good replacement (if you are not worried about the CD playing feature)

Having replaced the DVD Drive, as in the last post, should I upgrade the DVD Software on the machine to version 1416 or should I keep the current DVD software as JL10 that came with the LG Drive ???

Successfully changed the DVD with the LG GSA-H10N
Obviously had to remove the Front Panel & the drawer Front on the new drive but apart from that the changeover was easy.
Software level now shows up as JL10.
Most functions seem to work but I don't seem to be able to play audio CDs nor a couple of DVds recorded on other machines. Pre recorded DVDs seem to work & I think that I am able to play unfinalised DVDs previously recorded on the Toshiba.
DVD manual states the the drive is region specific (region 2 as I am in the UK) but it gives 5 changes of region until it locks on to the region you choose (from the 5th & final DVD inserted )

This LG drive looks like a good replacement (if you are not worried about the CD playing feature)

I have used the LG GSA-H10N as a drive replacement in a Toshiba D-KR2. So I'm guessing the LG will work in other Toshiba recorders as well.

I have used the LG GSA-H10N as a drive replacement in a Toshiba D-KR2. So I'm guessing the LG will work in other Toshiba recorders as well.

Nextoo
Did you upgrade the software as well or just swap over the drive ??

Nextoo
Did you upgrade the software as well or just swap over the drive ??

I did not upgrade the firmware.

Just joined this forum from the UK having read the above posts about replacing the DVD drive. I have now fitted a LG4167 which works fine except for the same problem that someone on page 2 of the thread had. Namely it won't read unfinalised discs (-R) even if they have just been recorded in the unit. The burn process seems to go OK but the disc is flagged up as damaged or dirty when you reload it. If I finalise the disc when I burn it (DVD video create) it works fine when I reload it. Any one got any ideas, might a firmware update help or should I try another type of disc (+R maybe). I have tried two brands of -r's and none of them work.

Hi All
before i changed the dvd drive i was region free with no problems (even when i change the old DVD back into the machine i go back to be region free)
when i use the LG 4163 in the machine i am locked and can not play other DVDs from other regions. I found a spical region free FW for the DVD drive (2 different version one region free and one reset that resets the number of changes allowed)
tried both of them the results are not good:

1. with the region free version (checked A105 and A106) - does not read any DVDs after upgrade
2. with reset option - reads only local DVDs and not other regions

if i release the LG back with the TOshiba drive all regions are free so it must be in the DVD FW and not the OS.
anybody have the same problem and if yes did anybody solve this issue?
thanks
MAtty

my xs32 dvd unit was failing. it is dvd 1309 and software zl10.
i could burn a tv program if i burned quickly before
the recorder got warmed up.
i updated the drive firmware 1315 and no difference.

encouraged by others successes
i purchased the lg gsa h10n from newegg and
replaced the dvd drive. it can play movies, both
purchased and previously burnt by me.
but when i try and burn, it will burn the program
then error on finalizing. i updated the firmware of
the unit (i put it in a computer and updated
with the firmware from lg) and still has the problem
finalizing.

is there another dvd drive that might work?
perhaps the successes with this model were due
to ZL11?

i did my duty and called toshiba and let them know
another person is having a problem.
tech support was responsive and no waiting but no help either.

since there is an interest my recorder has the maxtor 5400rpm 80Gb drive.

Just to let everyone know that I successfully tested the HP DVD840 which is actually the LG GSA-H20L. It loads everything including infinalized discs made with the original drive.

One thing to note is that when you test the new drive (by sitting it on top of the original one) make sure you eject and close the new drive with the botton on the XS32 and not the button on the new DVD Drive. I was doing that and the discs were not loading and I was just about to give up thinking it was an unsuccessful test until I used the button on the XS32. Anyways someone earlier in this thread said that any HP drive that as DVD RAM should work and I would say that it is probably the case from this test. The HP drives are made by the same people as the LG drives.

:-)
Rob

Just to let everyone know that I successfully tested the HP DVD840 which is actually the LG GSA-H20L. It loads everything including infinalized discs made with the original drive.

Very interesting. Could you give a specific link for this drive?

Also, are you now able to use 4X or higher DVD-RW?

Not sure on the 4X-RW. I have always used 8X DVD-R's with old drive, but I don't think it will record faster then what the internal software is setup for.

Here is a link, but it is too much money. You can just do a search on Google for HP-DVD840. Someone also posted that you can use any HP drive above DVD740 as long as it has the DVD-RAM option. I cannot prove this to be the case, but I am pretty confident that it is a true statement.

Here is a link, but it is too much money. You can just do a search on Google for HP-DVD840. Someone also posted that you can use any HP drive above DVD740 as long as it has the DVD-RAM option. I cannot prove this to be the case, but I am pretty confident that it is a true statement.

http://www.meritline.com/hp-dvd840i-lightscribe-dvd-burner-and-10-hp-lightscribe-52x-cdr.html

Has anyone replaced the fan in the XS32? I am fed up with mine and was wondering where you can find the replacement part?

Thanks

Not sure on the 4X-RW. I have always used 8X DVD-R's with old drive, but I don't think it will record faster then what the internal software is setup for.

My question is not about actual burning speed, but the technology for DVD-RW changed above the 1-2x DVD-RWs, so drives need new firmware AFAIK. I *think* that the XS32's software wouldn't actually need to have fixes, but am not 100% positive.

2X DVD-RWs (at least cheapo ones at Office Depot!) are becoming more rare, so being able to use faster ones that are the ones put on sale nowadays would be yet another reason to replace the drive.

Not sure on the 4X-RW. I have always used 8X DVD-R's with old drive, but I don't think it will record faster then what the internal software is setup for.

According to the compliment slip sent to me by Toshiba with the uprade Cd the upgrade to version ZL12 was supposed to allow the use of 4x -RWs. No other Cd is available from them in the UK & their technical support team does not seem very knowledgeable or helpfull.

This CD made no difference to the DVD software level & I have subsequently changed to the LG drive mentioned in earlier posts.

I like their (Toshibas) notebook PCs but I would not buy another DVD recorder from them.

According to the compliment slip sent to me by Toshiba with the uprade Cd the upgrade to version ZL12 was supposed to allow the use of 4x -RWs. No other Cd is available from them in the UK & their technical support team does not seem very knowledgeable or helpfull.

Hmm, I thought I was on ZL16 in the US.. It sounds like they (reasonably) are using different numbering schemes in different countries.

I could swear at one point I *did* try 4X DVD-RWs, and returned them. I probably talked about it in this very thread. I am less certain of whether this happened after I originally trashed the hard drive (after which I got the new firmware upgrade).

Hmm, I thought I was on ZL16 in the US.. It sounds like they (reasonably) are using different numbering schemes in different countries.

I could swear at one point I *did* try 4X DVD-RWs, and returned them. I probably talked about it in this very thread. I am less certain of whether this happened after I originally trashed the hard drive (after which I got the new firmware upgrade).

It wouldn't suprise me if you were on a higher software level in the States the UK support team seem to be pretty far behind with upgrades, until recently they denied the existance of any upgrades for XS 32 . They still deny that an upgrade is possible for the DVD software ( although I don't need it now having replaced my drive with the LG one)

Mattack Have you managed to sort out or replace your hard drive ???

Hi All
before i changed the dvd drive i was region free with no problems (even when i change the old DVD back into the machine i go back to be region free)
when i use the LG 4163 in the machine i am locked and can not play other DVDs from other regions. I found a spical region free FW for the DVD drive (2 different version one region free and one reset that resets the number of changes allowed)
tried both of them the results are not good:

1. with the region free version (checked A105 and A106) - does not read any DVDs after upgrade
2. with reset option - reads only local DVDs and not other regions

if i release the LG back with the TOshiba drive all regions are free so it must be in the DVD FW and not the OS.
anybody have the same problem and if yes did anybody solve this issue?
thanks
MAtty

This locking of DVD regions is certainly the norm for computer DVDs (which after all is what is in the XS32) that are supplied to the UK. You are normally allowed about 5 chances to sort out what region you want to use ( this is sorted by the actual region of the DVDs that you insert) on the last go it locks to the region of the DVD inserted at that time. On some computer DVD software it actually tells you that you have x number more changes before it locks to that particular region.
I have not had a lot of luck with the region free hacks for PCs.
Looks like we (in the UK) will still have to wait months to see your new flims.

Mattack Have you managed to sort out or replace your hard drive ???

I made a copy of the trashed hard drive (I wasted $40 on eBay for an 80 gig Seagate drive that was _almost_ the same model # -- hoping I could plug it in and it would work).. and then just reformatted the original.

I hope at some point, someone figures out the filesystem of these recorders. I'd bet that 99% of my data is still there. and/or if someone makes an "MPEG file" recovery tool, that might be useful to try. (I realize there is likely lots of fragmentation, but even if I found *parts* of a movie that would play in movie player software, that would be a good start.)

Since all of the recordings were made so that I could high-speed dub them, it seems to me that they're likely in the same format that they'll end up on a DVD.. So something that could scan for valid MPEG data would be interesting.. But my speculation is that since MPEG-2 costs so much to license, nobody has written a file recovery tool.

So, is it possible or not ?

And does anyone know how to update the software version ZL10 to ZL1x ??

TIA!

To update the software, you just power on the machine with the firmware DVD in the drive.

You can't replace the hard disk, unless you figure out how to bypass the firmware check or whatever the heck it's doing.

Sorry, I meant where can one find operating software firmware updates such as ZL11 or higher?

You have to call up Toshiba and have them sent you a CD/DVD (don't know which it is).

my xs32 dvd unit was failing. it is dvd 1309 and software zl10.
i could burn a tv program if i burned quickly before
the recorder got warmed up.
i updated the drive firmware 1315 and no difference.

encouraged by others successes
i purchased the lg gsa h10n from newegg and
replaced the dvd drive. it can play movies, both
purchased and previously burnt by me.
but when i try and burn, it will burn the program
then error on finalizing. i updated the firmware of
the unit (i put it in a computer and updated
with the firmware from lg) and still has the problem
finalizing.

is there another dvd drive that might work?
perhaps the successes with this model were due
to ZL11?

i did my duty and called toshiba and let them know
another person is having a problem.
tech support was responsive and no waiting but no help either.

since there is an interest my recorder has the maxtor 5400rpm 80Gb drive.

My unit is the same 1309 and zl10 as yours and I was able to successfully replace the drive with the HP DVD840. Have been able to finalize new as well as disc from the previous drive. Except for slowere loading the drive seems to have the same functionality as the previous drive. I did not need to perform any firmware updates.

First, thanks to all who posted here on this VERY helpful thread. I'm in the same boat and plan to replace the burner.

Second, is the concensus that the HP-DVD840 is the best replacement unit? And, if so, is this DVD840i *it*, for sale at NewEgg?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827140019

Many thanks again!

I made a copy of the trashed hard drive (I wasted $40 on eBay for an 80 gig Seagate drive that was _almost_ the same model # -- hoping I could plug it in and it would work).. and then just reformatted the original.

I hope at some point, someone figures out the filesystem of these recorders. I'd bet that 99% of my data is still there. and/or if someone makes an "MPEG file" recovery tool, that might be useful to try. (I realize there is likely lots of fragmentation, but even if I found *parts* of a movie that would play in movie player software, that would be a good start.)

Since all of the recordings were made so that I could high-speed dub them, it seems to me that they're likely in the same format that they'll end up on a DVD.. So something that could scan for valid MPEG data would be interesting.. But my speculation is that since MPEG-2 costs so much to license, nobody has written a file recovery tool.

Just did a GOOGLE search on MPEG2 file recovery it appears that there is a lot of file recovery software out there.

Looked at a site with software called "Recover my Files" (all on word I think)
they supply a free download of the program that will let you know if the data is recoverable. If you want to recover the data you would need to buy the program or another one like it (I am not affiliated with or recommending this company as I have not used their products just suggesting it)
I used a recovery programs (not this one) on a camera SD card and it worked fine (unfortunately it does not do MPEG2)

I don't know how much experience you have had with the internal workings of computers ( so forgive me if I seem to tell your grandmother how to suck eggs as they say ). This may help those with no experience in this field.

You will need to download the recovery program to your PC and have the drive out of the XS32 ready to temporarily fit into your PC

Power down the computer (if mini / tower for ease lay it on its side)

Touch the case of the computer or a radiator to discharge yourself (anti static precaution)

Open the case and for I would suggest remove the ribbon cable & power cable from the CD rom. If you have 2 CDs I suggest removing both as it saves messing about with Master / slave links

Lay the hard drive component side up somewhere on the computer case where it will not drop inside & plug in the ribbon (observe polarity red stripe on ribbon cable nearest to the power cable plug) & power cables

Power up computer and go into BIOS ( usually by pressing delete key on power up ) and check that the drive from the xs 32 is recognised as well as the main PC drive. save settings and exit from BIOS & restart PC

When Windows (tm) has loaded run the recovery program & see if it finds your data. Recover data as per program instructions. You will probably need quite a bit of free space on your PC drive to take the recovered data

Being a retired PC engineer I have used most of the above procedure countless times to recover & transfer PC data. I cannot guarantee that it will work with the XS 32 as I do not have any knowledge of its file structure.

On completion of data transfer reverse the above procdure

NB All work is done at your own risk

Good Luck

Hope the above info is usefull to someone

First, thanks to all who posted here on this VERY helpful thread. I'm in the same boat and plan to replace the burner.

Second, is the concensus that the HP-DVD840 is the best replacement unit? And, if so, is this DVD840i *it*, for sale at NewEgg?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827140019

Many thanks again!


That one should work. It is the OEM version, but they have been out of stock on that for a while now.

Rob

First, thanks to all who posted here on this VERY helpful thread. I'm in the same boat and plan to replace the burner.

Second, is the concensus that the HP-DVD840 is the best replacement unit? And, if so, is this DVD840i *it*, for sale at NewEgg?



Many thanks again!

Yes the DVD840i is the same unit. Also, CompUSA is running $79.99 plus a $30 rebate.

Thanks. Yes, finding one of these in stock anywhere (and at a reasonable price) is appearing to be the issue. The NewEgg price is pretty good... I may wait a while and see if they restock before Xmas.

Just did a GOOGLE search on MPEG2 file recovery it appears that there is a lot of file recovery software out there.

Looked at a site with software called "Recover my Files" (all on word I think)
they supply a free download of the program that will let you know if the data is recoverable.

1) I don't have a Windows machine (err, ok I could install it with Boot Camp on one of my Macs)..

2) As the software says:
Recover My Files is compatible with Windows XP and works with FAT 12, FAT 16, FAT 32, NTFS and NTFS5 file-systems.

The XS32 does not (as far as anyone knows) use a standard filesystem. It uses its own filesystem.

1) The XS32 does not (as far as anyone knows) use a standard filesystem. It uses its own filesystem.

Looks like we're all snookered then

mwave.com has the hp dvd840 for $39.99 plus shipping. Not Bad

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA46000&RSKU=AA46000

mwave.com has the hp dvd840 for $39.99 plus shipping. Not Bad

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA46000&RSKU=AA46000

Thanks! I never came across them before. I might grab that!

Some of the others here mentioned LG as a viable replacement drive. I've been muddling through that, trying to understand the various models. Those mentioned here have been:

LG GSA-H10L
LG GSA-H10N
LG GSA-H20L

I seen that NewEgg currently has an LG GSA-H22N for $31.49 + $5.49 shipping. Seems like this would be a later generation model of those mentioned above.

Any idea whether this would work?

TIA

How are we supposed to get faulty hard drives changed then?
I suppose its a return to Toshiba and pay an exorbitant price for a £30 drive and 10 minutes work.
Has anyone had one replaced yet ??

Interesting discussion here-

I found this thread looking around after my Toshiba DVR developed hard drive issues.

I removed the hard drive, used the Seagate diagnostics to find 2 bad sectors, use Seagate program to force a re-allocation, reinstalled the drive and the unit seems to work fine so far.

I've got a Toshiba RD-KX50SU (same family as XS52..)
Bought the DVR last Dec 13th 2005. One year warranty.
Dec 15th, 2006 hard drive starts acting funny, makes lots of seeking noise.
Next day, DVR stops recording, stops playback, then gives generic hard drive error message and refuses to see the hard drive.


Tried formatting drive from DVR menu - doesn't help.
So, time to open the case.


Here's what I've learned so far:

My KX50SU came with a Seagate ST3800 12ACE drive - 80 gig. ACE is a no-error checking drive, hard to come by.

REMOVAL
Seven screws hold the case on. First obstacle to removing the drive is that the rather delicate ribbon cables are taped to the drive, with some very sticky black tape. You have to carefully peel back the tape before you can remove the drive.

The drive sits in a mounting frame, which suggests that the units were originally designed for a larger drive.

Good news is that you can remove the HD from the unit by merely unscrewing the 4 screws, then sliding it out sideways.

Watch for a five-wire connector that is located at the front of the unit - it's fragile,
and easy to pull wires out.


After getting the drive out, I see that it's set for cable select.
Switch the jumper to slave, plug the ST3800 into an old desktop as slave.

Windows sees the ST3800, but doesn't assign a drive letter.
FDISK sees the drive as 10781 meg drive, with 10781 megs free.

Next step - download drive repair software from Seagate.

Seagate diagnostics says that the drive is setup at 9729 cylinders, 255 heads
and 63 sectors. Interesting, because the default specs for the drive are different,
16,383 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 sectors is the default -
That may suggest other drives or drive combinations?

Other information is the driver serial number, firmware revision is 9.51

Seagate repair program tests the drive, sees 2 bad sectors
one at 1074266 and another at 1402631.

Seagate repair program does allow you to force a re-allocation, which I did.

Power down the computer, remove the drive, change the jumper from slave to cable select, re-install the drive.


Power up the DVR - during boot up, the DVR displays a message about hard drive problem, says that only playback will work. Go to the DVR menu and format hard drive, power down machine, power up again, no error message.

So far the unit records and plays back fine.
When inserting a DVD-RAm the unit gives a "you may add this to the library" message that I don't remember seeing before... I guess it doesn't "remember" that it formatted those DVD-RAM disks.


So, that's what I've found out.


Hal

Interesting discussion here-

I found this thread looking around after my Toshiba DVR developed hard drive issues.

I removed the hard drive, used the Seagate diagnostics to find 2 bad sectors, use Seagate program to force a re-allocation, reinstalled the drive and the unit seems to work fine so far.

I've got a Toshiba RD-KX50SU (same family as XS52..)
Bought the DVR last Dec 13th 2005. One year warranty.
Dec 15th, 2006 hard drive starts acting funny, makes lots of seeking noise.
Next day, DVR stops recording, stops playback, then gives generic hard drive error message and refuses to see the hard drive.


Tried formatting drive from DVR menu - doesn't help.
So, time to open the case.


Here's what I've learned so far:

My KX50SU came with a Seagate ST3800 12ACE drive - 80 gig. ACE is a no-error checking drive, hard to come by.

REMOVAL
Seven screws hold the case on. First obstacle to removing the drive is that the rather delicate ribbon cables are taped to the drive, with some very sticky black tape. You have to carefully peel back the tape before you can remove the drive.

The drive sits in a mounting frame, which suggests that the units were originally designed for a larger drive.

Good news is that you can remove the HD from the unit by merely unscrewing the 4 screws, then sliding it out sideways.

Watch for a five-wire connector that is located at the front of the unit - it's fragile,
and easy to pull wires out.


After getting the drive out, I see that it's set for cable select.
Switch the jumper to slave, plug the ST3800 into an old desktop as slave.

Windows sees the ST3800, but doesn't assign a drive letter.
FDISK sees the drive as 10781 meg drive, with 10781 megs free.

Next step - download drive repair software from Seagate.

Seagate diagnostics says that the drive is setup at 9729 cylinders, 255 heads
and 63 sectors. Interesting, because the default specs for the drive are different,
16,383 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 sectors is the default -
That may suggest other drives or drive combinations?

Other information is the driver serial number, firmware revision is 9.51

Seagate repair program tests the drive, sees 2 bad sectors
one at 1074266 and another at 1402631.

Seagate repair program does allow you to force a re-allocation, which I did.

Power down the computer, remove the drive, change the jumper from slave to cable select, re-install the drive.


Power up the DVR - during boot up, the DVR displays a message about hard drive problem, says that only playback will work. Go to the DVR menu and format hard drive, power down machine, power up again, no error message.

So far the unit records and plays back fine.
When inserting a DVD-RAm the unit gives a "you may add this to the library" message that I don't remember seeing before... I guess it doesn't "remember" that it formatted those DVD-RAM disks.


So, that's what I've found out.


Hal

Wow. I nominate this for the best first post ever!

This info is huge for me because I also have the RD-KX50 and after finishing this reply I'm going to go to the Seagate site. Download the repair software and store it safely away. Thanks again.

Wow. I nominate this for the best first post ever!

This info is huge for me because I also have the RD-KX50 and after finishing this reply I'm going to go to the Seagate site. Download the repair software and store it safely away. Thanks again.


Thanks,

I realized I missed some editing


My KX50SU came with a Seagate ST3800 12ACE drive - 80 gig.
ACE is a no-error checking drive, hard to come by.


I've notice that high speed dubbing tends slow down at certain points - so I guess
that the drive does normal error checking during reading, but 'fast' error checking during the initial recording...




The drive sits in a mounting frame, which suggests that the units were originally designed for a larger drive.


In other words, the case seems to have been designed for an older, wider ATA drive instead of the 3.5" size drive.



Good news is that you can remove the HD from the unit by merely unscrewing the 4 screws, then sliding it out sideways.

Watch for a five-wire connector that is located at the front of the unit - it's fragile,
and easy to pull wires out.


There's a five wire connector from the motherboard to the faceplate that snakes around the HD. You don't have to unplug the wire, you can carefully slide the drive around the wire. Unplugging and-replugging the wire caused a wire to break on my DVR, which meant splicing in a new connector.



Seagate diagnostics says that the drive is setup at
9729 cylinders, 255 heads and 63 sectors.
...
the default specs for the drive are different,
16,383 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 sectors is the default -

That may suggest other drives or drive combinations?


Anyone know what the cylinder/head/sector settings are for the 120 or 160 meg HDs in the other units?

Is 255 the maximum number of logical heads? Would that suggest that you could upgrade to a larger HD if it maps to XXX cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors?



When inserting a DVD-RAm the unit gives a "you may add this [disk] to the library" message that I don't remember seeing before...



Actually, the DVR includes that message on power-up, even without a DVR or DVD-Ram. It does take a bit longer to boot up, and I have noticed that during high speed dubbing it takes forever and generates lots of seek noise while dubbing the first 1%, then the rest goes much faster. I'm guessing this is where the bad sectors were, so the unit is "bouncing" back and forth reading the re-allocated sector?

Hal2Archangel

Is 255 the maximum number of logical heads? Would that suggest that you could upgrade to a larger HD if it maps to XXX cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors?


Actually, the DVR includes that message on power-up, even without a DVR or DVD-Ram.

No, you can't upgrade to a larger hard drive. AFAIK, nobody has even gotten it to recognize a new hard drive OF THE SAME SIZE. I bought an 80 gig almost-identical model off of eBay and the unit almost immediately gave a ~7000 error code (hard drive problem). I instead made a copy of my corrupted hard drive to it, and then used the unit to reformat the original corrupted hard drive.

I definitely don't see the 'add to library' message upon powerup.. but I think I did see it more after reformatting. I think that the library info is stored on the drive and not in RAM.

So has anyone even managed to replace a hard (even of the same size ) at all.
Surely it must be possible.
How does Toshiba manage (on warranty returns) with hard drive faults & replacements.

My unit is the same 1309 and zl10 as yours and I was able to successfully replace the drive with the HP DVD840. Have been able to finalize new as well as disc from the previous drive. Except for slowere loading the drive seems to have the same functionality as the previous drive. I did not need to perform any firmware updates.


Thanks for the tip. I replaced the drive with HP840i, and it works!

Thinking the situation was hopeless and feeling I was missing all
my entertainment I bought the XS55. I feel disappointed.

TVGOS leaves much to be desired. Cannot choose shows
by the title like TIVO. It stopped working at the new year, Comcast probably
had an update. Toshiba tech support was very good. Hold time was short,
knew about the problem and it was fixed quickly. Unplug unit for 5 minutes
was the fix.

My main disappointment comes from video quality is not as good as the
xs32. my videos are noticeably blurry, like vaseline placed over the lens.

thanks for contributing to this forum

I am trying to install an HP840 in my RX32 and, during testing, I am getting an ER7071 message. I can't find this in the manual and have only found one reference in a search here. My 32 has not recorded in some time, but plays dvds and shows recorded material from the HD. When powering up to test the HP, it lights up and the door opens and closes from it's button but not from the remote button. I can't tell if it is loading as the 7071 comes up and nothing goes to the tv. On the ESbuilders page, it mentions setting the dvd to "master". How is that done? Does it apply to the HP? When replacing the plugs to the Tosh dvd burner, everything works as before. I freely admit to being "somewhat" :confused: electronically challenged so any advice would be appreciated. Fortunately, my new 2001G is on the way and I can use the HP in my PC, but I would like to get the Tosh working again. I have also posted in the RX32 thread in hopes of some help. Thanks Dave

I am trying to install an HP840 in my RX32 and, during testing, I am getting an ER7071 message. I can't find this in the manual and have only found one reference in a search here. My 32 has not recorded in some time, but plays dvds and shows recorded material from the HD. When powering up to test the HP, it lights up and the door opens and closes from it's button but not from the remote button. I can't tell if it is loading as the 7071 comes up and nothing goes to the tv. On the ESbuilders page, it mentions setting the dvd to "master". How is that done? Does it apply to the HP? When replacing the plugs to the Tosh dvd burner, everything works as before. I freely admit to being "somewhat" :confused: electronically challenged so any advice would be appreciated. Fortunately, my new 2001G is on the way and I can use the HP in my PC, but I would like to get the Tosh working again. I have also posted in the RX32 thread in hopes of some help. Thanks Dave

You might try changing the jumper on the back of the HP to master as was suggested. Look at the back of the drive. You'll see two row of pins. Two of these pins will be joined with a jumper. Also on the top of the drive there should be a legend that depicts how to set the jumper for master, slave, or cable select. Typically new drives are set to cable select not master. These settings can be abbreviated as MA (master) SL (slave) CS (cable select). Look for the MA setting and move the jumper to the appropriate pins. A needle nose pliers may help.

Nextoo, this is why I come to you folks. Knowing what to look for, I found the jumper and it seems to work great. I'll try recording later but I am already feeling the joy! Downside, now I have to buy another HP840 to try the lightscribe in my PC. As I said in my post, I bought the 2001G because of comments and insights gained here and a Panny 58GU60 for the same reason and I have to say, the Panny is everything it was said to be. Thanks again for a great site and your help with this ia particular. Dave :)

Nextoo, this is why I come to you folks. Knowing what to look for, I found the jumper and it seems to work great. I'll try recording later but I am already feeling the joy! Downside, now I have to buy another HP840 to try the lightscribe in my PC. As I said in my post, I bought the 2001G because of comments and insights gained here and a Panny 58GU60 for the same reason and I have to say, the Panny is everything it was said to be. Thanks again for a great site and your help with this ia particular. Dave :)

Great.

The next problem you might have is playing commercial DVD's. Maybe, maybe not. I don't remember this being a problem when changing a burner on my Toshiba KR2 but new DVD drives typically do not have a region set. When installing a new burner into a DVD recorder this fact can sometimes hinder proper playback of commercial DVD's that look for a region to be set. I'm not sure how Toshiba handles this but if it is a problem post back. The solution is easy.

I threw two commercial dvds in to see if it worked at all and they came right up. Thanks again Dave

One thing I found to be interesting with the HP840 is when I finalize discs it does now show the percentage complete. It just stays at zero and the bar does not move. Than it finishes. It actually does finalize, but you don't see the progress. No bid deal, but interesting.

Loading discs is super fast now.

Also to note, my drive always worked great for the first year. Never had any issues. I think what screwed things up was one day I decided to put in the RAM disc with cartridge and I remember it was slow in ejecting and things did not sound right. Anyways, I think something happened to the drive during that proces because it was always a problem after that. Right now I feel like I have a brand new unit because it works so great.

Now all I need is a fan, but I cannot find a 50mm x 50mm x 25mm fan. I am thinking of trying a 50 X 50 X 15 if I can find a 2 wire plug one. Does anyone know if the current on a new fan is different if it will be ok. The fan in the XS32 is a .07a and nobody seems to have that current. These fans are not easy to find.

I have been working with PCs for some years now and have had to change a considerable number of fans, I personally don't think that an exact match amperage wise would cause any problems ( unless it were considerably different ) You say if you can find a 2 wire plug one, you can use a 3 wire one if that is all that is available you just do't use the speed sensor lead. I would suggest that you try out the fan using a battery first in order to find out which of the 2 leads you need to use. By the way these fans are polarity conscious so you will need to get the + & - right. The 50x50x15 fan probably wont shift as much air as the 50x50x25 one due to the smaller total blade area

I just founf out something yesterday that is quite interesting yet bothersome. First of all if you look back at some past posts you will find people having problems loading previously unfinalized DVDs while others having no problem after installing a new dvd drive.

I have loaded an HP840 drive and am buring DVDs no problem, finalizing, and playing DVDs.

Well yesterday I was trying to load a an unfinalized disc and it was not loading. I knew that I was able to before so I tried another and it also failed. After some testing, I found out that I was able to successfully load unfinalized discs that still had some room to record on. The discs that were pretty much full did not load. I was finally able to load a couple some how though after leaving it in DVD mode and the DVD in the machine and powering down and starting back up. It worked on a full disc. Then I was able to load another right after that without turning off. The next DVD failed and I tried to recreate what I did before and I was getting failures. Basically I get the message that the DVD may be dirty or need to be cleaned which I know is not the case.

All I know is that if I put a DVD that is 3/4's filled it will load no problem.

I have no idea around this at all or why it would be a problem. It seems ridiculous, but it is definitely happening on my end.

Last year i replaced the burner with the LG GSA-4167b per instructions in this thread. I had been having disc problems for quite some time prior to this. I still have many finalized discs that are probably bad, and I wish I would have realized the problems much sooner. Once I put the new drive in I was able to burn again with virtually no errors. Earlier I had reported problems with unfinalized discs. What I found is that with -R discs I have to burn an entire disc in one shot (i.e. use the Create DVD option from the Edit menu). If I burn a title without finalizing and then remove the disc then it becomes a coaster. Also, I had dozens of unfinalized discs from before the replacement, and I was able to finalize maybe half of them. Some became more problematic when I tried to finalize. For titles I was more concerned about, I tried to copy the files either to the hard drive or extract them to my PC with a recovery tool before attempting finalization. After failed finalization attempts some discs are seemingly unrecoverable no matter what I've tried.

OK, so the current issue is that I'm having a hard time finding the TY 4x -R discs now, and am wondering if people have had success with the 8x discs. I just ordered some as well as some DL to test (I'm assuming the DL will not work, but that would be sweet).

Don't worry about the 4x discs anymore-- the 4167 is a very good burner across a variety of media. I am having VERY good luck with Verbatim 16X DVD-R media in my XS32 with an LG H22L burner. Any good 16X media will be fine. (I'd say Verbatim is THE BEST but if you can't find it, TDK and Sony would probably be ok as well)

There's no way DL will work since the Toshiba won't know how to burn it. Basically, you have a 4167 locked to 4X, DVD-R/RW/RAM only (I tried a DVD+R disc and it wouldn't recognize it) So anything a 4167 will burn well is good media (and the 4167 is a very good drive)

Can anyone confirm that they have no trouble loading non finalized DVD's? Like I mentioned in an earlier post it appears that the non finalized DVD's that are not close to full will load easily. The full ones do not load regularly, but I do find that they are loadable. From Power down and Power up I have been able to load some but I found nothing consistent. Today I tried another method. After the DVD failed to load, I opened the tray and turned off the machine while it was open. The machine automatically closed the tray. Then I powered up and it loaded fine. This was all in DVD mode. I tried it 2 times again and it did not work. So these discs will load, but the problem is finding how to do it consistently. I just can't figure out what the problem could possibly be.

I just picked up a LG GSA-H10L mfg 08/06. Do you know if this drive will work in the xs32. I saw H10N mentioned but not L. Would the 4167 be a better burner? I just ran across this LG at Sams this morning and picked it up.

I just picked up a LG GSA-H10L mfg 08/06. Do you know if this drive will work in the xs32. I saw H10N mentioned but not L. Would the 4167 be a better burner? I just ran across this LG at Sams this morning and picked it up.

It should work. The N I think just means that it is not Lightscribe which you do not need anyways. Also, if it is DVD-RAM capable then the drive should work. But you might want to run ALL tests before fully installing it. That means, not just loading DVD's, but also copying, finalizing, Loading unfinalized DVDs, Using RW vs R and anything else that is important to you. It seems as though everyone is having different types of issues when changing out this drive.

I am not sure there is anyone out there that can confirm that EVERYTHING works with their new drive.

It should work. The N I think just means that it is not Lightscribe which you do not need anyways. Also, if it is DVD-RAM capable then the drive should work. But you might want to run ALL tests before fully installing it. That means, not just loading DVD's, but also copying, finalizing, Loading unfinalized DVDs, Using RW vs R and anything else that is important to you. It seems as though everyone is having different types of issues when changing out this drive.

I am not sure there is anyone out there that can confirm that EVERYTHING works with their new drive.

Whoops, I screwed up, you have the L which means that it is lightscibe, but it can't hurt you, but of course it is not going to be needed.

Last year I posted about replacing the DVD drive in my XS-32 with an LG 4167B, and how it worked flawlessly. Since then, I put an LG4167B in a friend's XS-32, and that's worked fine for months.

On Wednesday, my XS-54 did the same kind of thing as the XS-32. In the middle of a HDD-DVD burn, it stopped and beeped with the warning "Check the disc. It may be damaged physically or require cleaning." There was no prior indication of problems, bad burns, etc. I tried different DVDs (store bought, finalized, non-finalized), different brands, -R, -RW, Ram, hard resets, pulled the power plug - but no luck. That message even came up when I powered the unit on with the HDD selected and an empty drive! I was hesitant to try the newer LG drives, and wanted to go with a drive that I knew worked in the XS-32. I had trouble finding a new LG4167B, but finally located one at Geeks.com, and it arrived today.

Under the cover, the XS-54 is similar to the XS-32. I pulled the DVD drive's power connector and the little pc board that fits into the IDE socket, set the LG on top and plugged it in. The XS-54 powered up fine with no error messages. Since then, I've copied stuff back and forth and finalized DVDs with no problems. It's read every previously unfinalized DVD I tried, and the ones I then finalized went fine. The only problem I had was when I put in the DVD that the burn halted on. The loading icon never went away, and the drive kept spinning up. After about 10 minutes I did a power button reset, and got an ERR7000 when the unit powered up. I ejected the DVD, pulled the plug, and everything was normal on the next power up. I mostly use 4X TYs, but the others I tried all work fine, too. I haven't yet checked if the LG will interface with the XS-54 door like with the XS-32.

I'd guess that the LG4167B will work with all the XS-3x and XS-5x series units. I think it would be a good idea to stash an extra one away, while brand new ones are still available, especially if you have more than one XS-xx.

When I search for LG4167B at geeks.com, I get a CD burner.

For DVD burners, I see
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-GSA-4165B-DO&cat=DVD

which doesn't do DVD-RAM.

So have you tried anything ABOVE 4X? I'm unsure whether it's the drive, or the XS32 firmware (or both), which specifies the drive's maximum speed.

Seems to be the Toshiba, it's pretty much stuck at 4x...

I guess geeks is out? The LG GSA-4167B that I got last week was $37. It's the same as the one in post #11 of this thread, except with a mfg date of 11/2005. After checking in here, there seemed to be some uncertainty about how well the newer LG drives (H10, H42) worked, that's why I stuck with the older 4167B.

Newegg has the open box LG GSA-4167B for $34.

No, I didn't try anything over 4X in my XS-32. I still have a bunch of 4X TYs, but I should get some 8X for the XS-54, and I'll try them in the XS-32.

I bought an XS32 on ebay this week and don't know if anything is wrong, but I'd like to upgrade the drive from the things I've heard on the stock drive being so slow. The following drives have been mentioned: LG GSA-H10L; GSA-H20L; 4163B; GSA 4167B; H22L, and the HP 840i. Some of these are hard to find new, most of them are used. I'd like to go new if I can therefore avoiding any possible mishaps from over-using.

My question is, has anyone recently used the newer drives on the market today with the Toshiba XS32, the one's I'm looking at mainly are: LG GSA-H42N, GSA-H22NI, GSA-H10LI, and the GSA-H22N?

You won't get any additional speed from ANY replacement drive, but you will get immensely better writing quality. The stock drive on the XS32 quite frankly sucks, and neither mine nor my dad's was very good at writing discs that didn't have massive bad sector flaws or the like. I ended up doing most of my writing to DVD-RW and re-burning copies to DVD-R on the PC. (We never returned them since both did the same thing; although they were both very early in the production run and quite possibly they got this problem fixed).

Based on what we've been seeing, you're more than likely fine with any of the drives you mentioned. But keep in mind you DO lose some functionality on the unit. Right now with my H22L I am having issues using DVD-RAM at all, and it's looking like I can't dub back to the HDD from discs burned on the H22L but I need some more time to figure out what's going on... but if you just want to record to the hard drive and then burn DVDs, a replacement drive might be a very good idea just so you're not burning worthless discs.

Thanks for the advise :) . I decided to go with the LG.GSA.H10LI because it got the best reviews on newegg. Even tho I won't need or be able to use the Lightscribe option with this drive, maybe purchase one like this for my PC later to use this option. Speed isn't a big issue with me, mainly loading times, compatibility and dependability. I don't plan on using the RAM portion, just the burning from HDD to DVD. I'll keep all up, how things go when I get it replaced in my XS32 this or next week.

I have changed to the LG GSA H10N (very similar to yours ) & it seems to work fine apart from some things it wont read (see my earlier posts) If you go to another thread on this site on this subject you will see a link to the way to change the drive if you need assistance

Thanks for the advise :) . I decided to go with the LG.GSA.H10LI because it got the best reviews on newegg. Even tho I won't need or be able to use the Lightscribe option with this drive, maybe purchase one like this for my PC later to use this option. Speed isn't a big issue with me, mainly loading times, compatibility and dependability. I don't plan on using the RAM portion, just the burning from HDD to DVD. I'll keep all up, how things go when I get it replaced in my XS32 this or next week.
Whenever you have a chance, could you let us know how it goes? I'm interested in using the same drive for my xs32 as well.
Thanks,
Mickey

Thanks for the great info---glad you folks figured out the DVDdrive can be changed-out.

I found a GSA-H10N (on am-ah-zon) but then I found a GSA-H4SN. Is this just a more recent model? Will it work? Any issues with it? Anybody know?

TIA,
Tom

Hi Guys
Many thanks for a very informative thread.

After reading through all the posts here I'm trying to come to some conclusion about which DVD burner to go for??......(yes I am another victim of the Tosh RDXS 32 dvd drive failer) :mad:

The main ones mentioned are:-
LG-4163B
LG-GSA-H10N
LG-GSA-H20N = (HP-DVD-840)
LG-GSA-H22N-L
LG-GSA-H42N

There seems to be conflicting results with some posters having preference for the older LG-4163B and others for the later models...

I am mainly interested in copying back and forth between hard disk & DVD Disk and reading & finalizing un-finalized DVD disks.

I have currently seen most of the above models advertised here in the UK so I have a good choice.

Does anyone have any strong recommendations for which model to try for please? :o

Thanks in advance

Regards to all JPC

I've just bought a LG GSA-H12NBA

It appears to work just fine, though I've not tested burning un-finalised disks or DVD RAM.

Nice and quick too! Its just a pity the Toshiba won't let me use double layered disks...

Does anyone have an update on their XS-32 burner replacement with an LG H10, H22, etc? What specifically does and doesn't work, can you dub back and forth, read unfinalized discs, etc.

I just got some TY 8x (premium line) from supermediastore, and they work fine on my XS-32. They burn at the same speed as the TY 4x. I haven't tested any yet with Nero CD-DVD Speed, but they play great.

I also found out that my XS-54 reads and finalizes unfinalized XS-32 discs with no problem. But, the XS-32 won't read XS-54 unfinalized ones. I used the same LG GSA4167B burner in both.

I am having a problem with the XS32 in that shows previously recorded on Fuji DVD-RW's are not readable. After reading a little about replacement drives, it this a common problem? This is very frustrating as I record a lot of shows on DVD-RW's to be watched months later.

The stock burners in the XS32 are very, very poor burners. I gave up even trying to burn to DVD-R on either my dad's unit or my own after about 5-10 discs were mostly worthless. Talking to Toshiba support back in 2003, they pretty much said the burners were fine and if 2 units were doing the same thing it must be something I was doing. (using Taiyo Yuden 4x media and everything)

After a burner replacement it works MUCH better. Your burner isn't defective, as much as it was a piece of crap from the day it was built. ;) The broken burners won't even recognize discs anymore.

The only problem I ever had with the stock dvd burners was on about 5% of the time a previously burned rw-dvd would not read. I burned hundreds of dvd-r's so I hope those are still ok. To date I haven't had one that couldn't be read (keep my fingers crossed).

What should I do now? Replace the burner or look for another unit if having dvd-rw's are important to me? Actually the reason I burn so many dvd-rw's is I watch a lot of shows and have a backlog of 80-100 during the peime viewing season. If I had a 160 or great hard drive I wouldn't have to rely on the dubious burned rw-dvd's!

I am backing up all my favorite shows on my vcr from now on!

After a burner replacement it works MUCH better. Your burner isn't defective, as much as it was a piece of crap from the day it was built. ;) The broken burners won't even recognize discs anymore.

Which burner did you replace with? Were you able to use UN-finalized discs from before the replacement?

I've just bought a LG GSA-H12NBA

It appears to work just fine, though I've not tested burning un-finalised disks or DVD RAM.

Please try both!

Sorry for three separate posts, but I originally wanted to ask this question, and since it's a pain to reply to multiple messages at once, I just posted separately.

Anyway, I was at Fry's returning something, and found a drive I had seen in their ad.

Has ANYBODY tried either of these drives:
HAMMER 16X DVD+- RW DOUBLE LAYER DRIVE W/ DVD-RAM
$20 after rebate. Frys.com ID 4478196

Sony DRU120C DVD+-RW BURNER Frys.com ID 5058535
$50 (I could swear there was a better price in store, but now maybe I'm misremembering.. Plus, I could just use some of my Sony credit card accumulated cash back to pay for it)
The online info says "Sony's DRU-120C entry level multi-format DVD burner supports all DVD/CD recordable formats".. and if this is the same one I saw in store, it DID do both DVD-RAM and DVD-RW.

Has anybody used EITHER of these in an XS32? I'm most interested in being able to use unfinalized discs, but if that's not possible, even if it works well just with NEW discs, that'd be great.. (ESP if either works with > 2x DVD-RW!)

Replacement drives will not burn media any faster than the original Toshiba can handle, unfortunately. I am pretty sure I've used unfinalized DVD-RW from before the replacement but never had any DVD-Rs from before. I keep meaning to try to make some test cases with my dad's XS32 and try out various circumstances but never do.

I'd be wary the Hammer, it's probably a rebadged Panasonic which aren't the greatest burners, although at the speed the XS32 operates may be ok. Not sure who makes the Sony, it's probably a LiteOn, who are sort of iffy-- they're not usually the best.

I have been having issues using DVD-RAM at all with my LG H22L in my XS32. It doesn't seem to recognize them anymore. :/ I have a feeling there's something going on with how the XS32 wants to handle CPRM copy protection... I need to find some of my older 2x-only stash of DVD-RAM (pre-CPRM) to see if it works any better.

Replacement drives will not burn media any faster than the original Toshiba can handle, unfortunately.

Of course. You're probably referring to my question about > 2x DVD-RW.

I'm referring to the speed *of the DVD-RWs themselves*, not the speed that the drive will actually burn them at.

I don't know the technical details in the matter, but the way that DVD-RW drives work changed between 1-2x and above... and the orig Toshiba drive only works with 1-2x DVD-RWs.. and the 1-2x DVD-RWs are starting to disappear (and/or at the very least aren't going on sale like the > 2X ones are.)

It sounds like maybe I should just gamble at getting the $20 drive.. but wait until I use it for a week or two to see if it actually works before sending in the rebate. I really don't want to buy something with the likely intention of returning it, that's why I was asking whether anyone else had used it.

Oh, that makes sense. Unfortunately all I have is 2X -RW media (and I have a lot of it, lucked into a clearout of 50 jewel cased Verbatim RWs for $17.99) so I can't test. I will say the XS32+LG22 combo will burn 16x media just fine (whereas I don't think the original XS32 burner liked 16x) so it's possible it'll work, but only if the media supports a 2X burn speed on the drive you're using. (I.e., if you could use the 4x media at 2x on a PC, it would probably work, but if it doesn't support a 2X burn speed, it probably won't work, as the burner is expecting data at 4x and the Tosh is only delivering it at 2x [maybe it would kick into buffer underrun protection a lot?])

Just wanted to let everyone know that an LG GSA-4163B works
perfectly in the RD-XS32 unit, both physically and functionally.

It can record and read back unfinalized + finalized discs on DVD-R.

My old SD-W3002 would record but had problems finalizing with Sony DVD-R,
however you could copy & finalize all in one step and it would work.

Regarding HDD upgrades ...

Did anyone with an exact model replacement of a Seagate/Maxtor drive
try copying the contents via DD and then tried swappng the controller
board between the 2 drives?

If this works we know the difference is between the eeproms.

Even swapping the controller boards without doing a previous copy
of the contents might give us clues - since we might get a different error #

Thanks.

Just wanted to let everyone know that an LG GSA-4163B works
perfectly in the RD-XS32 unit, both physically and functionally.

It can record and read back unfinalized + finalized discs on DVD-R.

My old SD-W3002 would record but had problems finalizing with Sony DVD-R,
however you could copy & finalize all in one step and it would work.

Regarding HDD upgrades ...

Did anyone with an exact model replacement of a Seagate/Maxtor drive
try copying the contents via DD and then tried swappng the controller
board between the 2 drives?

If this works we know the difference is between the eeproms.

Even swapping the controller boards without doing a previous copy
of the contents might give us clues - since we might get a different error #

Thanks.


Have you tried a FULL unfinalized disc? I am finding that most unfinalized discs that are partially full are no problem, but Completely Full ones are not loading.

Thanks

There was about 1:50h on a 2:00 hour disc - pretty full ...

It can record and read back unfinalized + finalized discs on DVD-R.
....
Did anyone with an exact model replacement of a Seagate/Maxtor drive
try copying the contents via DD and then tried swappng the controller
board between the 2 drives?
...


What about DVD-RW & DVD-RAM? Do they work, esp unfinalized DVD-RW?

I still may try out the $20 (after rebate) drive I mention above, though I feel guilty buying something and being *likely* to return it.

I have an *almost* identical drive model 80 gig (iirc) drive I paid a ton for (well, it was close to $50 with shipping, when multi-hundred gig drives were about $100) back when my XS32 drive got hosed(*). Copying the old drive to the new one would NOT work.. it would just put up an error # in the 7000s almost immediately. I didn't try moving the controller. (I still hope someone does a utility to look for MPEG-2 data some eon, so I could possibly scrounge stuff off..)

(*) Nowadays, I put partial blame on myself. I shouldn't've powered it off while it was recording, but it did seem completely hung. With the weird bugs I've seen on the XS32 since, similar ones like "hidden" menus that don't go away until something else weird happens... I think that's what happened. I put in a DVD-R that it didn't like while it was recording, and somehow it got 'stuck' putting up the error message.. which caused me to power cycle after many minutes.. and hosed the drive. But when the hard drive got full or the recording ended (the former since I put in the DVD-R to dub stuff off), the situation probably would have fixed itself.

I am pretty sure people have tried to clone the HD and it won't work.

We REALLY need to get a service manual for the XS32. I'm sure it's just a matter of figuring out the right codes to get the XS32 to reformat the new drive into whatever format it wants. It's not like there are "Toshiba XS32 only" hard drives coming off the manufacture line, they just have some special way of initializing them.

How did the Pioneer service disk/codes get released to the internet?

What about DVD-RW & DVD-RAM? Do they work, esp unfinalized DVD-RW?

I've successfully used the following DVD media (this includes both HDD-DVD and DVD-HDD dubs on each type of media), with my XS-32 and LG GSA4167B burner:

TY 4X -R
TY 8X -R
RIDATA 4X -RW
OPTODISC 2X -RW
OFFICE DEPOT ?X -RW
TOSHIBA RAM

Recently, I took a TY 4X -R that was half full from my orig. XS-32 burner in May 2005, dubbed more to it and finalized it. No problems at all.

I have had ZERO problems reading, adding content to, or finalizing any unfinalized DVDs except for the TY 4X -R that was in the orig XS-32 burner when the burner went bad (oh, and unfinalized TY -Rs from my XS-54).

I haven't been able to get any audio CDs to work. The display shows CD, the burner spins up to about 10,000,000 rpm, then the "Disc may be damaged message appears."



I picked up a cheap XS-32 with a bad burner, and I'm going to switch HDDs between the two and see what happens. Anyone have any suggestions about anything specific I should try?

Also, which LG burner should I get - H10, H22, H42...? Since they're all about the same price at newegg, I'd like to get the newest model that anyone here has had the fewest problems with.

I don't think there's any need to get a newer burner for the XS32, since you're burning all media at 4x, or slower. Newer drives are much more optimized for high speed burning than 4x, so you quite probably will be getting better results from a 4167 (awesome, awesome drive, BTW) than a newer 20X LG that they've tweaked to burn discs that fast, with probably little, if any, work done.

I've noticed I have a lot more problems burning on 16x media in my LG H22-equipped XS32 (err -14 on finalize, worthless disc when done) than I do using 4x or 8x media (no failures, yet). I would imagine-- this is a guess-- it would be worse on newer models as they just won't do slow burns as well.

(unless I misunderstood and you're trying to get a burner for ANOTHER XS32. But I'd still look for older, rather than newer, burners.)

jmscott42 - Thanks for the reply.

Let me be more clear, I have an XS-32 with an LG GSA4167B and an XS-54 also with a GSA4167B. Fabulous drive, I agree. I just picked up a second XS-32 for almost nothing. It works, but won't play DVDs (I assume it's the burner), so I do need to buy a burner for that one. It's now harder to find a new 4167B, and my stash of TY 4X media won't last forever, so if the Hxx series drives will reliably burn 8X and 16X media (even if it's only at 4X), I figured I'd try one. I think it would be smart to find a newer LG drive that's as reliable as the 4167B, and will be easier for us all to find in the future. I'd rather experiment now with my extra XS-32, than have to find a new burner in a rush.

Also, it seems to me that my XS-54/4167B now takes a little longer to burn dvds, and I'm wondering if somehow the 4167B could be the reason. I'm sorry that I didn't time dubs with the original burners and various media.

What brand 16X are you using? I've not had a single coaster in nearly 1000 TY 4X value line, and one failure out of the 50 TY 8X premium line I've used so far. I was hoping that most problems were with unfinalized discs from the original burner, rather than with new burners and new blank media. If you're correct that the newer burners are optimized for higher speed at the expense of low speed burn reliability, well, that would suck.

I've tried Sony and Verbatim 16X DVD-Rs. The Verbatim media with serial numbers (inner hub printing) starting with "MAPA" were fabulous in my XS32/LG22 (producing some of the best quality scans I have ever seen from ANY burner), but codes starting with "MAP6" result in about a 66% failure rate on finalize. (when scanned on my PC, the MAP6 media starts with VERY high PIE error levels at the beginning of the disc, which may be the issue)

I burned around 5 MAPA Verbatims with no failures, and around 20 MAP6 Verbatims with around 15 problems.

Sony SONYD16 media, made in Taiwan, has around a 33% failure rate on finalize. (only burned around 5-6 of them before I got mad at the failures).

(sorry my numbers aren't exactly adding up, I never really kept track, just know I learned to hate MAP6 Verbatim discs very quickly.)

The XS32/LG22 does VERY well on my Valueline TY 4x and Premium TY 8x. (probably a little better on the 4x than 8x, but I just got my supply of 8x in so I haven't had enough burns to really know) I haven't had one fail yet, out of around 20-30 4X and 4-5 8x.

I haven't tried any of my Taiyo Yuden-made 16x Sony DVD-Rs in it, since I have a ton of TYG01 and TYG02 media and figure it's better to use them up.

I think the LG H10 is a better overall burner than the H22, so it might be worth getting if you could get it quickly.

Recently, I took a TY 4X -R that was half full from my orig. XS-32 burner in May 2005, dubbed more to it and finalized it. No problems at all.

Sorry, that's what I really meant by unfinalized..

Written by the original DVD burner, then attempted to use/record more stuff with the new DVD burner.

If you could find out if you're using > 2x OD DVD-RWs, that'd be nice to know.

But especially whether you had old unfinalized DVD-RWs from the previous drive that NOW work in the new drive. That unfinalized DVD-Rs work is good info too.

Whether DVD-RAMs recorded with the orig drive still play/record new stuff would be the last bit of info.

I'll try to provide the info about my attempt with the Hammer drive after I get to Fry's.

I am pretty sure people have tried to clone the HD and it won't work.

We REALLY need to get a service manual for the XS32. I'm sure it's just a matter of figuring out the right codes to get the XS32 to reformat the new drive into whatever format it wants. It's not like there are "Toshiba XS32 only" hard drives coming off the manufacture line, they just have some special way of initializing them.

But I *did* clone the drive to another almost-identical Seagate drive. It still gave the 7000-something error. I believe it's due to a drive firmware lock or something like that. Since the drive had the same exact bits on the media as the orig one, there has to be something else the XS32 is keying on.

Yeah, I'd be interested if anyone has issues with DVD-RAM, my XS32+LG22 does NOT like newer Panasonic DVD-RAM (made in the US) with CPRM (sees it as DVD-RAM but won't write anything to it, saying it's write protected)

I realised that LG drives have always done something that's made the newer DVD-RAM discs (With CPRM copy protection) not work anymore in Toshiba/Panasonic units, so I wonder what the firmware is doing... I need to try to find some older disks.

As for the service code-- that what I mean, we need to find whatever codes that the Toshiba uses to format a drive. Cause I'm sure the techs at the support places just pull new drives off the shelf, put in the service code, force the drive and XS32 to like each other, and off you go. (check the Pioneer 5xx threads about how they do it, I am pretty certain an equivalent method MUST exist for the Toshiba. We just need to figure it out) A clone may never work (paranoia about copyrights?) but if we could figure out how to replace the XS32 hard drives, they could live forever!!! ;) [evil laugh]

But especially whether you had old unfinalized DVD-RWs from the previous drive that NOW work in the new drive. That unfinalized DVD-Rs work is good info too.

Whether DVD-RAMs recorded with the orig drive still play/record new stuff would be the last bit of info.

I don't think I still have any -RWs from the original drive that I didn't finalize, as I use mostly -R, and I might have finalized any RWs that I did have without thinking about it. I only have OD 2X -RWs and Ridata 4X -RWs. I tried a DVD-RAM in my XS32/4167B. It's the RAM that came with my XS32, and it's the only one I had with stuff on it from my original XS32 burner. The XS32/4167B took a long time to read it, but once the loading icon went away I was able to dub content both to and from the HDD just fine. I had a few TY 4X -Rs that were unfinalized in the orig burner, that I've added content to and finalized in both my XS32/4167B and XS54/4167B.

Are you sure you don't want to get an LG, and stay away from the Hammer?

I think the LG H10 is a better overall burner than the H22, so it might be worth getting if you could get it quickly.

Thanks, I'll probably look for an H10 at a good price. I've mostly stuck with TYs since they've worked in everything I've tried them in. I've also had good luck with MIJ Sony -Rs.


Regarding HDDs:

If memory serves, there's an IDE routine to query an HDD for it's model no., serial no., sectors, etc. I suppose Toshiba could store that info on each HDD during formatting so that the unit's firmware only needs to query the drive and see if it matches the stored info. I would think it's too much work to flash the firmware with new info just to change a HDD. But maybe not...

But I don't think anyone has to do it-- there's more than likely routines stored in the Toshiba (or possibly a "utility disc") that basically say "I am putting in a new hard drive, please format it and make it ready for use."

The Toshiba line HAS to be able to accept new hard drives-- repairs have to be made. We just have to figure out what needs to be done. Check out page 4 of this PDF to see what I mean: (how it works on the Pioneer lines)
http://www.pioneerfaq.info/filer/DVR-630/replacing_HDD_X30H.pdf

There is absolutely no reason the Toshibas wouldn't work the same way-- we just need to figure out the trick. (and if we're REALLY lucky, Toshiba just hid it deep in a hidden menu with no need for a special disc..) It's like hacking a DVD player to be region free.

I have the XS32 firmware disc around here somewhere, I should look around and see if there are any obvious signs of a service menu... (although I think that firmware was just for the DVD drive and not the unit itself)

But I don't think anyone has to do it-- there's more than likely routines stored in the Toshiba (or possibly a "utility disc") that basically say "I am putting in a new hard drive, please format it and make it ready for use."

The Toshiba line HAS to be able to accept new hard drives-- repairs have to be made. We just have to figure out what needs to be done. Check out page 4 of this PDF to see what I mean: (how it works on the Pioneer lines)
http://www.pioneerfaq.info/filer/DVR-630/replacing_HDD_X30H.pdf

I guess the Pioneer is on the opposite end of the complexity spectrum from the Polaroid 2001G, which seems to be almost a simple plug in replacement.

I was trying to think of what other ways it could be done. I think mattack's HDD didn't have a recognized FAT32, etc., file system. When you do an HDD format on an XS32, does it fully format a new HDD, or does it do the equivalent of a quick format, back to however Toshiba formatted the HDD in-house?

I could see it either way. A Toshiba service tech installs a new HDD, then uses a service remote or CD to force the FW to recognize/format the new HDD. Or, the tech simply installs a Toshiba pre-formatted HDD and it's done.

I've found some service manuals for the XS series at nodevice.com. These pdf manuals have parts lists, pc board patterns, exploded diagrams, etc. The only references to the HDD are about removing and installing the physical HDD. There are no details about the HDD and firmware, etc. The manuals and parts lists don't mention service remotes, firmware updates, etc. Two HDDs are listed for the XS32: The Seagate ST380012ACE and Maxtor 4R080L0, which we already know.

But I *did* clone the drive to another almost-identical Seagate drive. It still gave the 7000-something error. I believe it's due to a drive firmware lock or something like that. Since the drive had the same exact bits on the media as the orig one, there has to be something else the XS32 is keying on.

If the drives were almost identical then you can swap the controller boards ...
This would probably make the copy work - if it does then all we need to do
is get a program to read/write eeprom on the controller board.

This might be similar to a locked xbox hard drive,
which as some of you know can be cloned as well :)

Are you sure you don't want to get an LG, and stay away from the Hammer?

I'm not sure, but
(1) I'm trying to be frugal, and
(2) I'm enough of a tinkerer that it'd be interesting to get more data about another drive that does/does not work.

Isn't the LG you're talking about $60+?

I'm glad that you ARE able to use 4X DVD-RWs on your drive. So it sounds like it is 100% a drive firmware issue, not at all an XS32-software issue.

But I really should try calling up Toshiba and see what THEY say that a drive replacement would cost. (IIRC, the last time I asked this, it was someone from Canada who called Toshiba Canada who said they weren't available at all.. Maybe the situation is different from Toshiba US.) A "real" replacement would be best because of course it would be fully supported... but I don't really expect them to be available.

I'm not sure, but
(1) I'm trying to be frugal, and
(2) I'm enough of a tinkerer that it'd be interesting to get more data about another drive that does/does not work.

Isn't the LG you're talking about $60+?

I'm glad that you ARE able to use 4X DVD-RWs on your drive. So it sounds like it is 100% a drive firmware issue, not at all an XS32-software issue.

But I really should try calling up Toshiba and see what THEY say that a drive replacement would cost. (IIRC, the last time I asked this, it was someone from Canada who called Toshiba Canada who said they weren't available at all.. Maybe the situation is different from Toshiba US.) A "real" replacement would be best because of course it would be fully supported... but I don't really expect them to be available.

I completely understand the frugal tinkerer concept. No, I haven't seen the LG drives for more than $30-$40. The new LG GSA4167B I got a few weeks ago was around $35. I'd keep checking newegg and geeks, as stock seems to come and go. Geeks has refurbed 4167Bs for $33. I can't find a new LG H10L now (I want an L so I can try Lightscribe media in my pc). We've all had generally good luck with the LG drives, so if you can't find a 4167B, then an H10, H22, H42, etc., might be a better base to tinker from, rather than an unknown Hammer. Just a thought.

It can't hurt to call Toshiba, but I'll bet you'd get another SD-W3002, and end up in the same place a year down the road. When I sent my XS32 to Toshiba, they sent me back a refurbed unit with an SD-W3002 drive. I'd rather have an unsupported LG, than a supported W3002. :)

I have a SD-W3002 and I'll probably just throw it away ...

I bought an LG GSA-H42N for my PC which I flashed to H44N
and installed the LG GSA-4163B in my RD-XS32 - works great.

H42N, 4163B and 4167B have the renesas chipset which is great,
there are some drives with panasonic chipsets which i don't like.

H42N, 4163B and 4167B have the renesas chipset which is great,
there are some drives with panasonic chipsets which i don't like.
I can't vouch for the accuracy of this info, but the LG GSA H42x drives with the newer Renesas chipset seem to be liked by pc users.

GSA 4167B -- Renesas (older)
GSA H10L -- Renesas (older)
GSA H10N -- Renesas (older)
GSA H22N -- Panasonic (older)
GSA H42N -- Renesas (newer)
GSA H50N -- Panasonic (newer)

H42N is for some reason hard to find ...

H50N unfortunately has the Panasonic chipset.

I replaced my 4163 which was great with H42 drive.

Decisions... decisions...

I have a 32 with about 200 burns on it. Using the yellow Maxell 4x TY media, 100% successful burns (!) (knock on wood)

I've been wrestling to get another pre ATSC DVD HDD burner from a "survivalist" perspective, however, I'm also tempted to just stick it out with the 32. Thoughts of the Pio640 and the Toshi35 are units that I ponder.

Any suggestions? As long as I can get media for the 32 and it works, I would be happy.

_______________

BTW, all these Toshi models confuse me: 32, 34, 35, 54, and a couple more. I'm interested in the latest models that would have the best media compatilibity.

They way I look at it, is most manufacturers install junky dvd burners...
Once I installed the LG 4163B in mine, it's been great!

I buy Ritek 8x DVD-R mostly and it now works great with them,
before I had to buy some Sony 2x media, bah!

Decisions... decisions...
I've been wrestling to get another pre ATSC DVD HDD burner from a "survivalist" perspective, however, I'm also tempted to just stick it out with the 32. Thoughts of the Pio640 and the Toshi35 are units that I ponder.

Any suggestions? As long as I can get media for the 32 and it works, I would be happy.
I can't speak about other brands, as I've only had Toshibas, but most people seem to be happy with the XS35 picture quality and feature set.

Disadvantages - XS35 fan is always on. My XS32, and XS54 are very sensitive to copy protection signals, for example, Encore Mystery/Westerns from Dish Network.

Advantages - Great features, editing, etc. My XS54 can read and finalize all the unfinalized DVDs from my XS32. If the XS35 can do that too, that would be good in case your XS32 quits with a backlog of unfinalized DVDs.

From a survivalist point of view, I'd at least buy an LG drive soon, for the day when your XS32 burner WILL die.

H42N is for some reason hard to find ...

H50N unfortunately has the Panasonic chipset.

I replaced my 4163 which was great with H42 drive.

newegg has both the H42N and H42LK for under $35.

I bought the H42N for $40 canadian - but it was special order :)

The H42L is a lightscribe and not required for a standalone dvd unit,
but it can also be flashed with h42n or h44n firmware to disable that.

No need to crossflash to remove the Lightscribe (it'll void your warranty if you do), the "L" variations will just work fine as is...

True but it can be flashed back anytime :)

Hello, some of what I've been reading seems to be a bit over my head except the part about replacing the dvd drive in the -32.
I finally replaced mine with the LG-H22L, after trying a samsung, a philips and an empex (which said sony on the top), all from Fry's. The LG was actually from Best Buy. The other units gave me an error of...7700?
However, I still can't do anything with the ram disc. It will no longer play mp3 discs, (cd's?), or vcd's. I thought that possibly loading the curent firmware in might work, but the Toshiba service center didn't seem to think so. The current firmware displayed, after the LG installation says ZL10, 1.00.
Other wise, the unit works as advertised.
Any suggestions on getting the mp3/cd's ,and vcd's to work?
Thanks!

I don't think anyone has gotten CDs to work on ANY replacement drive for the XS32.. it's the big "gotcha" in the drive switch.

Has anyone determined what actually fails in the 32 drives? If it is a common failure, it might be worth learning how to repair them.

Thanks jmscott42. Just thought that might be a simple firmware load of some sort.
Thanks

I have a SD-W3002 and I'll probably just throw it away ...


Hey, don't throw it away! I can be even MORE frugal, and use someone's *actual* XS32 drive! I'll pay shipping.. seriously.

Has anyone determined what actually fails in the 32 drives? If it is a common failure, it might be worth learning how to repair them.

This isn't an answer to your question, but mine isn't completely dead yet (no Monty Python jokes)...

It just doesn't seem to like to write DVD-Rs past ~50% (I only have a couple of data points on that, admittedly). Trying to write past that ends up giving "there is an error with the disc, reading is the only option" or something like that. Though I haven't tried writing ONE long program like that. This is with discs that I keep putting a bunch of musical performances on, one or a few at a time. (But I did run into the problem in less than a day of use, it wasn't one that had sat around for months unfinalized, though I have lots of those too!)

It seems to work fine with the DVD-RWs I already have mostly.. (I had one DVD-RW go corrupted as I described here a while ago -- I wasn't even writing to it at the time.) DVD-RAMs started going corrupted around a year or so ago.

Other people's problems seem to be that they can't write to ANY discs.

My XS32 failed to recognize ANY disc... it seemed like the motor was seizing or something, as after the drive door closed, I'd hear a thunk or two and wouldn't hear or feel any sign of anything spinning, and it would never recognize a disc-- no error, no messages, just wouldn't light up a light.

Strangely, it happened a week or two before my PC burner died almost exactly the same way. ;)

So I got the "Hammer Storage" drive from Fry's yesterday. This is the one that's $20 after rebate. What I noticed on the package yesterday, and confirmed on the drive (which is still in the XS32) is that it is a Panasonic drive. It also had a DVD+R and a 2-3x DVD-RAM in the package.

Unfortunately, it apparently doesn't work in the XS32.

It actually seems to me like the XS32 basically doesn't see that there's any DVD drive connected. (I was scared at first, since the XS32 starts up a LOT faster than with the original drive!!)

If I close the drive tray, whether or not there is a disc in it, it immediately opens again. I was able to power off the machine with a disc in it, it still didn't realize there was a disc in it upon powering up.

Upon looking in the machine again, I noticed that the small ribbon cable near the back left of the was disconnected I don't know for sure if it was disconnected while I was trying or not, but I reconnected it (the machine was powered down of course), but the results were no different upon powering up.

I made sure that the drive was 'master' and that the cable was securely plugged in.

Did anybody else have issues like this with other drives they tried? Are there any other ideas about making the machine even see that there was a drive there? (Since eject on the remote ejects the drive, of course it sees it at some level.)

I guess I'm going to return it this weekend. Darn, the fact that it's a Panasonic drive made me more hopeful that it would work. I would have been HAPPIER with some kind of immediate error code like you get when you try to put another hard drive in.

I've replaced the burners in a few XS32s with LGs, and I've never had a drive keep opening like that. If you plug in just the drive's power but leave the IDE off, and the drive opens and closes normally, you can make sure that it isn't simply a bad drive. Also, you could hook up your original XS32 burner and make sure it works okay, then try the Hammer again.

When I've replaced the burner the replacement burner's front face plate has to be removed. This allow it to fit into the Toshiba. But the problem is the replacement burner still has the eject button exposed. Sometimes the drive cover on the Toshiba, when it swings open, will hit the eject button. Thus starting the open/close thing. The easiest thing to do is back the replacement drive away from the door a bit so this doesn't happen. At least this is the case with a DKR2 so it may apply to the XS32 as well.

Another thing is to check the DVD software version in the Setup/Management Settings menu. If it matches the ROM version on the Hammer/Panasonic label, then the XS32 is definitely recognizing the burner, and the problem is most likely either an incompatible or malfunctioning burner.

I'll play with it again with the top off. I didn't think of the obvious eject button.

Though I think I did see the eject light blinking, which I seem to remember that the instruction booklet said was bad..

Also, I just checked the first page in this thread and this one apparently isn't it -- wasn't there a thread where someone gave specific instructions about how to physically get the new drive in? I didn't try to put the little foam holder on the new one yet to make sure it fit the opening.

I'll play with it again with the top off. I didn't think of the obvious eject button.


I'd bet that it's the Toshiba front drive cover ever so slightly touching the eject button on the replacement drive when it closes. I've seen it happen before.

Also here's a tip with the replacement drive. If you ever have a hosed disc that you can't eject using the remote or the eject button on the machine you can flip open the front drive cover and push the eject button on the replacement drive using a pen or something similar. This will eject the disc.

I tried the new drive with the top off of the 32 and the new drive carefully resting on top of non-sensitve parts to make sure I wouldn't get an error of 7700 after installing it. An error I got with several other drives. (A philips and an empex). Once I realized that the -32 saw the new LG, I disconnected it and popped off the face plate. I think that I may have that problem also with the tray opening and closing.
After looking around originally on the AVS UK forum I saw a part of the one the threads indicating that Toshiba shipped a number of of these -32's with defective lenses.
Hey, Mattack, if yo're still interested in my old drive let e kow if you really want it shipped.
One more thing. Anyone ever upgrade their hard drive with a larger HDD?

I haven't heard of anyone successfully swapping XS32 HDDs yet, but I'll have my replacement Maxtor drive in a day or two, and will post the results here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=839070

Also check the XS54 HDD swap thread for more info. We've been able to swap HDDs in XS54s and an XS34.

Partial success.

Yes, it must be the door on the XS32. (Can you remove the door easily? I didn't look very hard, but I don't know if it'll pop off easily like a remote control flap for example.)

The good:
So, with the new DVD burner connected, but tilted up so access was not through the regular door (i.e. top off the XS32), I WAS able to put in a DVD-R, burn new recordings to it, and finalize.
I "wasted" one DVD-R, because I only filled it up around halfway full (I have a ZILLION ~3 minute song recordings, and was getting sick of doing a few at a time). I confirmed that the recordings were actually there on the disc (ffed through some, didn't actually play any of them), and were viewable on computer after finalizing before deleting from XS32.

I was ALSO able to see recordings on an unfinalized DVD-RW and I think an unfinalized DVD-R. I never got a DVD-RAM to work, though I only tried one I think, and I was also possibly running into the following problem.

The bad:
The XS32 only seems to recognize the disc that is inserted WHEN IT IS TURNED ON. It recognized a DVD-R and a DVD-RW (and lit the correct light on the XS32) when that was in upon power up. It does NOT recognize disc changes. If I try to go into the content menu after switching discs, it just says "the disc is empty". Also, "Open" remains on the front of the XS32.. so it's essentially never getting the 'inserted' message.

The ugly:
This is very very minor comparatively, and is possibly related to the above major problem, but I the display on the front keeps changing modes on me. I leave it in 'time' mode, and the only time it usually changes is when I go into disk space remaining mode (and it goes back into time mode when I hit the free space button again on the remote). But it keeps changing to one of the other modes.. possibly when I am inserting discs. No, I'm not accidentally hitting the 'front select' button or anything.

88redhonda -- even if I *do* keep this drive, I think I am interested, esp if you really are just going to throw it away. If it works at all, I think I'd rather use the 'real' drive until it goes kaput too, since it's by definition better supported.

Anyway, I don't suppose there's any way to get this to work any better, is there? I'll go search to see if there are firmware upgrades for the drive or anything, but I doubt it.

I forgot, even with the DVD-R in upon startup, it did NOT say "a blank DVD is loaded" or whatever.. but I was able to write to it. I am 99% sure I did NOT manually dismiss the alert.

Oh yeah, the DVD-R I used was the 8X NEXXTECH from Circuit City which wouldn't even start burning on the orig recorder.

That REALLY surprises me since the Panasonic chipset should be nearly identical to the LG 4166/H22 drives that many of us have had success with.

That said, I bought one of the Pansonic 9585 drives after having an awesome external Panasonic USB DVD-RAM drive, and it's (the 9585) undoubtedly one of the worst burners I have ever used. Doesn't support much media, not very good quality burns except on absolute top notch stuff, etc. It lives now in a "spare parts" Frankenputer running Win 98 as a DVD-RAM drive to transfer bigger files. (The 98 machine doesn't have network access) Hammer just rebadges Panasonic drives...

(it really amazed me because for a long time Panasonic made very, very good burners-- as long as you used good media. This drive just burned acceptably on good media... it really needed a firmware update (or 5) but while I could find what claimed to be proper firmware, the updaters always said it was the wrong drive.)

Mattack, I've been using the LG GSA-H22L. I bought it from Best Buy, but you can get it from Fry's also. I've been able to burn to Playo, from Staples, a GQ from Fry's, and the Nexxtech. Also, I've successfully burned and erased on a maxell dvd-rw.
Jmscott42 passed on some info on the firmware in that there hasn't been anyone known that has been able to update the firmware after installing the new LG burner. I called Toshiba to ask for help and they couldn't help.
The management settings menu. After I installed the LG, the software version and the dvd drive software changed completely to ZL10 and 1.00. If I'm not mistaken one of those numbers said 1314 with the original tosh. burner. So, the LG changed things completely.
The only problem I have is that I can't play mp3 discs or vcds. As jmscott42 mentioned, that's the gotcha in this drive swap.
Sorry but I can't comment on the other problems, mattack, the bad and the ugly.
If you want this old drive who knows wether or not the software version will revert back to the original.
By the way, I put the cd-rom that came with the LG into the the toshiba just to see what would happen. I was hoping to somehow get the tosh. to play mp3's/vcd's. No luck.
Anyway, maybe you could give the -H22L a try, and if it's still not working...I'll hang on to this original burner until I hear from you. You also have to just kind of look closely at the faceplate on all sides and wiggle it a little bit to see how it's attached and go from there. One of those jewelers screwdrivers will greatly help, too.

mattack - A tab on each side of the door pivots on a pin that fits into a hole on the XS32 inner panel. Open the door and gently pry the pins out of the holes by pushing in on the tabs. Remove the spring from the pin on the right side. With the door open fully, wiggle the right side tab out first, then tilt the door and wiggle the left tab out.

Or, as nextoo said, you could leave the new burner set back a little from the front cover. 88redhonda's right - a screwdriver, some looking and jiggling, and you should be able to figure out how to remove the cover. There's a bit about this in the last posts here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10364495#post10364495

The XS32 updates the Setup Menu Drive software version to show the ROM version of whatever burner is installed. With my LG 4167B it shows DL12, with my LG H42L it shows SL00. I think the original burners show 1308, 1410, or similar.

I got my new LG H42L burner and tried it in my XS32 with TY 8X -R , and it's dubbed, burned and finalized fine. Of course, won't play CDs, but it does read and finalize TY 4X -Rs from the original burner. To be repetitive, the LGs seem to have fewer compatibility problems overall.

mattack - don't remove the front cover from the XS32. The mounting answer is simple. It requires an "Apollo 13" approach. Or what others might call the "MacGyver" solution.

You need to move the replacement drive back a bit from the front cover. You can test where the best spot is by testing using the eject button. When you find the right spot you'll notice that the mounting bracket screw holes won't line up with the drive. Now the MacGyver part. Use duct tape to secure the drive. I'm not suggesting 40 lbs of it but a few lengths of it. A couple to strap the bracket to the drive and then one or two straps perpendicular to the bracket should do it. Duct tape holds the world together and if it can get Apollo 13 back home it will work in your XS32. It works fine in my DKR2. The drive is fully secured and the tray operates as it should.

..........The bad:
The XS32 only seems to recognize the disc that is inserted WHEN IT IS TURNED ON. It recognized a DVD-R and a DVD-RW (and lit the correct light on the XS32) when that was in upon power up. It does NOT recognize disc changes. If I try to go into the content menu after switching discs, it just says "the disc is empty". Also, "Open" remains on the front of the XS32.. so it's essentially never getting the 'inserted' message...........


Remember you can't use the eject button on the replacement drive when inserting a disc. When you're testing a replacement drive and it is sitting on top of the OEM drive with the case open it is very easy to do this. If you do the XS32 will not recognize the disc. You have to use the eject button on the machine or the one on the remote when inserting a disc.

This also holds true when closing the tray. You can't use the button on the replacement drive. The XS32 does not see this action so "open" will remain on the display. You have to use the remote or the eject button on the machine. Just pretend the eject button on the replacement drive isn't there. You'll be fine.

Hey I'm just here update you all on replacing my DVD drive in my Toshiba XS-32. The drives that have been listed on here in the past weren't available, at least that I could find. I did however find a blog that someone had replaced their drive with an LG GSA-H10N so I found an LG GSA-H10L at newegg for around $20. I bought my DVR on ebay and it did work for about a month and finally it had probelms with finalizing and finding thumbnails for finalizing and I had to go through 5 DVD-R's to finally figure that I needed to change out the drive. FYI I'm using Memorex 16x DVD-R's.

The only difference in the LG drives mentioned above are that mine is the lightscribe, of course this feature isn't available in the DVR, BUT it does record and copy and how! I think to record 8- 30 minute shows on a DVD-R it took about 30 minutes, and now it takes less than 10!!! PLUS the finalizing took about a minute or two with the old and less than 1 with the new!!! I haven't tried the DVDRAM yet, but I don't really care about it anyways, this is what the HDD is for.

I was told in the instructions to test the drive before installing it and I did, and now I'm here to tell you the the LG GSA-H10L DOES WORK!!! A great replacement for your unit. I recommend this all the way! My unit didn't even have any error messages on it, it just had finalizing issues, and couldn't read a disk once all the tv shows were written on a disk.

It includes pictures and great instructions, these are the ones I used. You should be able to get the drive I used from newegg just use key words. I hope this helps. :D

Remember you can't use the eject button on the replacement drive when inserting a disc. When you're testing a replacement drive and it is sitting on top of the OEM drive with the case open it is very easy to do this. If you do the XS32 will not recognize the disc. You have to use the eject button on the machine or the one on the remote when inserting a disc.

This also holds true when closing the tray. You can't use the button on the replacement drive. The XS32 does not see this action so "open" will remain on the display. You have to use the remote or the eject button on the machine. Just pretend the eject button on the replacement drive isn't there. You'll be fine.

I'll try again.. But I could swear that some times, I DID use the remote's open/close button. Usually I just pushed the tray partially in so it injects. (That works on the ORIGINAL DVD burner, IIRC.)

BTW, about the firmware -- really stupid question. None of you guys are implying that you can/do CHANGE the firmware on the replacement drive, right? The firmware is obviously locked to the hardware (in the DVD burner)

I don't know what is in these xs32's, but they are definitely messed up. I switched out my drive about 4 or 5 months ago the HP840 which is the LG GSA-H20L. Other then not being able to load FULL unfinalized discs I have had no problems loading blank DVD-R's (Sony) and finalizing. All of a sudden last night this thing decides that it can't finalize. It basically stops and then tries to load the disc says something is wrong with the disc and it will be Play only. What could have possibly changed with this thing over the last few months? This is insane if you think about it. It can't be the media because it burned the info with no issues so finalizing should not be an issue. This is just a simple box, with some simpe software and nothing has changed, but yet it decides to all of a sudden not work. I just don't get it.

Finalizing appears to be where a LOT of bad media gets caught in the XS32. I've never had a disc fail while burning with my LG H22 burner in, but have had discs fail at finalize. (Err -14) It's happened to me on every type of media except Taiyo Yuden (including Sony).

Did you change brands of media lately?

Keep in mind, you are using a drive that most definitely was not intended to end up inside a Toshiba. It's sort of a minor miracle the drive swap works as well as it does. ;)

Finalizing appears to be where a LOT of bad media gets caught in the XS32. I've never had a disc fail while burning with my LG H22 burner in, but have had discs fail at finalize. (Err -14) It's happened to me on every type of media except Taiyo Yuden (including Sony).

Did you change brands of media lately?

Keep in mind, you are using a drive that most definitely was not intended to end up inside a Toshiba. It's sort of a minor miracle the drive swap works as well as it does. ;)

No I have not changed media. Been using Sony's for over a year maybe 2. But I was able to get it to finalize when doing the burn and finalize all at once by selecting create dvd. Usually I burn then I do the seperate finalize command. I started doing it that way when the original burner started to fail and worked much better. Now all of a sudden this new burner failed 4 times in a row so I tried it the other way (doing the copy and finalize in one command) and it worked. I can't believe it is the media if it would finalize one way and not the other. Boy this machine is tempermental for such a simple piece of equipment.

Thanks

I put my original XS32 burner back in after using an LG 4167B for a while, and it burned and finalized 4-5 DVD -Rs before giving a "check the disc" type message again. I then put in an LG H42L, which has worked perfectly, and out of curiosity I just put the orig burner back in and it can recognize DVDs again!?!? Anyone else try this?

I've only been using TY -Rs, and I always burn and finalize separately.

Remember you can't use the eject button on the replacement drive when inserting a disc. When you're testing a replacement drive and it is sitting on top of the OEM drive with the case open it is very easy to do this. If you do the XS32 will not recognize the disc. You have to use the eject button on the machine or the one on the remote when inserting a disc.

This also holds true when closing the tray. You can't use the button on the replacement drive. The XS32 does not see this action so "open" will remain on the display. You have to use the remote or the eject button on the machine. Just pretend the eject button on the replacement drive isn't there. You'll be fine.

Nope, still not fine.

I still don't see exactly what is causing the 'repeated eject' problem when the drive is in its normal position (opening the front door manually shows that nothing is getting near the eject button on the drive). But I suspect it may be because the new drive is slightly below the lip of the opening. I think upon opening/closing it may see the slight bump as an eject/inject.

But anyway, with the drive pointing up above the top of the XS32 (boy that cable is short), the situation is still the same. I was ONLY using the remote or machine's eject button. "OPEN" no longer stayed on the display, but it did NOT recognize new discs (even commercial DVDs) being inserted... only the one upon power up.

Oh, the one thing I forgot to check was if any of the pins on the IDE cable got bent, but I highly doubt that's the case. I guess this drive is going back.

88redhonda says we can get the "LG GSA-H22L" at Fry's? I looked around a bit one time I was there recently, and didn't see it. I'll probably look around *before* I return this one.

I think I'm still interested in your old working XS32 drive though. Even if it only works for a few more years, at least we know it's the supported drive.

Hmm, I was getting a bunch of musical performances off my hard drive (and Tivos) to make more room.. The drive started going nuts (sort of the airplane noises I think people mentioned with the original drive) at one point, and I couldn't add more content. (I admit I didn't try with different clips, but I don't think it mattered.) It still had ~1 hour left at 2.0.. It was somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 full IIRC..

I *could* still finalize the disc -- which wasn't possible with the original burner with the "too much info" problem.

So I guess this drive is going back for sure.

Hey mattack, I did see the h22 at Fry's more recently and cheaper than where I originally got it for, which was at Best Buy.
Don't give up! ;)

Hey mattack, I did see the h22 at Fry's more recently and cheaper than where I originally got it for, which was at Best Buy.
Don't give up! ;)

Do you remember how much?

You weren't at a SF Bay Area Fry's, were you?

I may have to ask them for
LG GSA-H22L
there.. but I sure didn't see it looking on the shelf weeks ago.

Sorry, I don't get to this very often, mattack.
I was in the Frys down here in so. cal. a couple of days ago and there was a stack of h22's going for about...40-48(?) dollars.
Let me know again on the drive, and I can get to you for the shipping.

Tried to replace the drive on my RD-XS34 today with a LG GSA-H55NK, LG GWA-4161B and a Lite-on® LH-20A1P. None of them worked. THe 4161 was the only one that didn't give me an error message, but still wouldn't read any DVD movies I put into it.

Strangely, after replacing the "broken " original drive after it failed to read any media, I inserted the orginal DVD-RAM cartridge that came with the unit, it worked! Then I throw a normal DVD in, it worked! Don't know WTF happened but apparently my unit is working now?!?!?

Tried to replace the drive on my RD-XS34 today with a LG GSA-H55NK, LG GWA-4161B and a Lite-on® LH-20A1P. None of them worked. THe 4161 was the only one that didn't give me an error message, but still wouldn't read any DVD movies I put into it.

I've used LG 4167B and H42 burners in an XS32 and XS54, and they're still working great.

Strangely, after replacing the "broken " original drive after it failed to read any media, I inserted the orginal DVD-RAM cartridge that came with the unit, it worked! Then I throw a normal DVD in, it worked! Don't know WTF happened but apparently my unit is working now?!?!?

I had a similar thing happen with my XS32 (see my above post). It only worked for a few DVD burns before giving the check disc message. Now it's dead again.

Ok, Rick, that's good info.. Just to be clear, you used this one, right:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MR1Y24

It says it is GSA-H42NK

(Based upon a little bit of searching, the last letter seems to vary.. Obviously it indicates something, I just don't know what. I've seen K, I, and something else.. I = international?)

I think today's my last day to return my previous drive to Fry's, and I'll probably look at Fry's again too.. but if I don't find this same one, I'll probably order from Amazon after confirmation that this works perfectly with the XS32.

I actually finally emailed support for the old drive, and DID get info about some new updates.. one of them was a region free update which presumably won't change the 'won't mount except at poweron' issue. Another one was some kind of an update.. I'd probably try updating them (from some Windows machine I can find), if I had found out earlier.

Ok, Rick, that's good info.. Just to be clear, you used this one, right:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MR1Y24

It says it is GSA-H42NK

(Based upon a little bit of searching, the last letter seems to vary.. Obviously it indicates something, I just don't know what. I've seen K, I, and something else.. I = international?)
I used an H42LK. - It's a Lightscribe unit, and I wanted that so I could try it in my pc if I get some Lightscribe media. A couple of others (maybe posts in this thread?) also used an H42 model with good results. I've used the H42 in my XS32 and XS54 with only one unexplained burn failure (in the XS54) out of 150+ TY 4X and 8X. It's also worked flawlessly with RW and RAM. Of course, still can't play cds. I think the LG GSAH42 models go something like this:

H42LK or H42LK-BK - Lightscribe black
H42LB or H42LB-BG - Lightscribe beige
H42NK or H42N-BK - Non-Lightscribe black
H42NB or H42N-BG - Non-Lightscribe beige

There shouldn't be any difference between the Lightscribe and non-Lightscribe models in an XS32. You should have better luck with an H42 than the rebranded Panasonic. There must be another brand that works well in the XS models, but I'm reluctant to try another unknown model. I don't know if anyone's tried a Samsung.

Ok, thanks.. I think I'll risk it and try this..

Hey mattack, I did see the h22 at Fry's more recently and cheaper than where I originally got it for, which was at Best Buy.

Yeah, when I returned my old drive yesterday (off by one error, I could only get store credit due to being 31 days after buying), I saw the
GSA H22L at Fry's. It was $50.. with the other one I mentioned above was $40 from Amazon including shipping. Even though I am slightly wary of buying something from Amazon I might have to return, others said that one did work fine in the XS32.

(I used about $10 of the Fry's credit already, and will use the rest, so I'm in no hurry to use it up.)

My amazon searching skills earlier today weren't too great, I couldn't even find the H22L at Amazon (just for price comparison), even looking through a couple of pages of the LG items.

Just for yucks, I hooked the old burner up, and succeeded in burning ~half of a DVD-R, and tried to burn something else to a DVD-RW.. Same kinds of problems, it burns a bunch, then eventually gets an error.. actually, I had to power off once since it was supposedly dubbing, but made no progress in many many minutes, and got no error.

so I will probably just get that one from Amazon.

Argh, the price went up to almost $47 for that same drive at Amazon. I could swear it was just under $40 a few days ago.

What about this one
http://www.amazon.com/18X-Internal-DVD-Dual-Rw/dp/B000JM1BXE
Is that one known to work?

What about this one
http://www.amazon.com/18X-Internal-DVD-Dual-Rw/dp/B000JM1BXE
Is that one known to work?

I could be wrong, but I think someone posted unfavorable results of a LITE-ON in an XS32. It would be great to find another brand of burners that work well, so feel free to try, but I still think the LG is a safer bet. Out of 100's of TYs in my LG 4167B and LG H42, I had only one coaster.

Right now, newegg has the H42N-BK for $29 + shipping (+ tax if you're in CA).

cool, thanks.. I was this close to just ordering it from Amazon tonight since I couldn't even successfully burn a 1 hour show at the lowest quality on my orig burner anymore (for me, the probs originally were when burning over around half of the capacity, problems would happen)..

newegg charges a 15% restocking fee if I do have to return it, so I guess I'm gambling again (amazon's always much better about that).. but the positive results mentioned here make me hopeful. I just ordered it from newegg.. through ebates, for another 1% back. (Of course, it takes years and years and years to get enough back through ebates to get enough to get a check sent.. I had one $5-ish sent in 2000!)

I have an RD-XS54 with a dead DVD ram drive. What is the best brand to replace these with?

The LG H10L or H42N or H42LK?

I think I may try throwing a Liteon that I have in there just to get the error code then swap back to the SW-9574-E and see if it will work again......

I have an RD-XS54 with a dead DVD ram drive. What is the best brand to replace these with?

The LG H10L or H42N or H42LK?

I think I may try throwing a Liteon that I have in there just to get the error code then swap back to the SW-9574-E and see if it will work again......

I've used both an LG 4167B and an LG H42LK in my XS54 with near perfect results, except - CDs no longer play, and if you leave any DVD in the burner and unplug the XS54, the unit locks up with a 7000 error when you plug it back in. The only way to remove the DVD is via the eject button on the burner (not on the XS54).

Mechanically, you have to remove the burner face plate, and I propped open the door on my XS54, as the LG burner tray catches on the door when retracting. The LG doesn't fit as far forward, and the screw holes don't line up, so I used gaffers tape to secure it. I currently have the LG H42LK in and it works great.

From the reading I've done, the H42 has a newer Renesas chipset and seems to be preferred by many users rather than the H10, which has an older Panasonic chipset.

Go ahead and try the liteon and let us know if it works and how well.

I've used both an LG 4167B and an LG H42LK in my XS54 with near perfect results, except - CDs no longer play, and if you leave any DVD in the burner and unplug the XS54, the unit locks up with a 7000 error when you plug it back in. The only way to remove the DVD is via the eject button on the burner (not on the XS54).

Mechanically, you have to remove the burner face plate, and I propped open the door on my XS54, as the LG burner tray catches on the door when retracting. The LG doesn't fit as far forward, and the screw holes don't line up, so I used gaffers tape to secure it. I currently have the LG H42LK in and it works great.

From the reading I've done, the H42 has a newer Renesas chipset and seems to be preferred by many users rather than the H10, which has an older Panasonic chipset.

Go ahead and try the liteon and let us know if it works and how well.

It's not going to work. I read the box when I got home from work and it doesnt do DVD RAM disks. I just ordered a H42LK should be here soon. Now if I can just find a source for a extra Seagate ST3250823ACE I'll be happy.

Hiya,
Just to let you know, we tried the LG GSA-H10L (found at Computer Geeks) and have had some luck, but unlike the old drive....
*It won't play home-burned +R DVDs but will play store-bought ones & home-burned -Rs & (finalized) -RWs.
*When we try to record a single show on a DVD (not using up much space on the DVD) and eject it, it won't recognize it again. Argh!! We CAN finalize it immediately after recording on it, however, and it will play just fine, but that's a lot of wasted space. We wait until we have enough to fill up a DVD before we burn one. Our work-around is to save our programs on RWs and the RAM until we know we have enough of one program for a full disc, THEN we copy them back to the HD and burn them at once to the DVD-R. It's a pain, sure, but it is a work-around.
*It won't play CDs---of any kind, that we've tried so far. (Store-bought or home-burned.) Sigh. But at this point, we have plenty of CD players around the house, so no biggie there.
*RW-DVDs won't play on other players (that we have, anyway) even after they are finalized. Grrrrr. (Remember, though, it will play RW-DVDs that are finalized on the computer.)
Good things:
*It does load (or tells you that it can't) much faster! It also seems to burn faster, but that may be my imagination! :o)
*It burns & plays the RAM that came with it beautifully. Just take it out of the cartridge carefully.

Now, it could be we have something else wrong with our drive, we're not 100% sure, so we're going to see if we can get the old one to work in a computer. But until then, we're assuming our problem was with the old burner as we suffered through the same problems as everyone else.

In short, for us, this wasn't the perfect replacement, but we can beat it with a stick to get it to go where we want....eventually. We just have to be aware of its moods... Yeah, yeah, go ahead and say it...these things MUST be female. ;o)

Good luck!
Tina

Yesterday I ordered a GSA42LK from thenerds and this afternoon when I got home for lunch it was waiting for me. Man those dudes are fast! So I installed it. I burned a DVD-RW with it and it played back just fine! Now I need to try playing it on the DVD player in the bedroom because I KNOW that one plays RW DVDs. I also played a retail movie disk and it played fine too! Me soooo happy! Now I don't have a $500 doorstop!

Incidently - The LG GSA42LK fits into the Tosh's mounting bracket and all four mounting screws and holes can be used. You just have to push a little on the back of the LG to make the holes line up with the bracket while you screw in one screw. The door opens and closes prefectly on the Tosh!

Someone posted they had a problem with another brand and the eject button on it hitting the Tosh's case. You can, if you're bold enough, desolder that button and remove it so it doesn't bump. The SW-9574-E has a place on the circuit board marked off where the eject button would have been. I would think if you had a disk hung in it you could apply power to the drive unit and shunt the contacts that are there for the switch that isn't and open the tray.

I'll make some more burns over the next few days and if I find anything different than most of you have already reported I'll post it here.

Yesterday I ordered a GSA42LK from thenerds and this afternoon when I got home for lunch it was waiting for me. Man those dudes are fast! So I installed it.

How much was it? I ordered mine (GSA-H42N-BK) from newegg and it supposedly was delivered today, according to the online tracking.

I tried just simply searching for variants of "GSA-H42N-BK" and "GSA-H42N-LK", or without the dashes, and I'm certainly not seeing it there.

I'll definitely try this on my unit, but my biggest concern is using *unfinalized* discs (DVD-R and DVD-RW), and already-recorded-on-DVD-RAMs... and if someone can try 4X DVD-RWs, that would just be more future use info (though now I admit I probably have more DVD-RWs than I will ever use... I will probably eat my words in a few weeks.)

How much was it? I ordered mine (GSA-H42N-BK) from newegg and it supposedly was delivered today, according to the online tracking.

I tried just simply searching for variants of "GSA-H42N-BK" and "GSA-H42N-LK", or without the dashes, and I'm certainly not seeing it there.

I'll definitely try this on my unit, but my biggest concern is using *unfinalized* discs (DVD-R and DVD-RW), and already-recorded-on-DVD-RAMs... and if someone can try 4X DVD-RWs, that would just be more future use info (though now I admit I probably have more DVD-RWs than I will ever use... I will probably eat my words in a few weeks.)

It was 45.00 and some change including the shipping....I still can't believe I got it over night.

The RW I burnt played fine on one DVD player but not on the other and they both do RW disks. But one of them is 25.00 POS unit I got for free w/purchase of the 50" TV I bought and has a VERY high failure rate.

...my biggest concern is using *unfinalized* discs (DVD-R and DVD-RW), and already-recorded-on-DVD-RAMs... and if someone can try 4X DVD-RWs...

mattack, I guess you forgot that I answered the unfinalized -R and 4X RW questions for you in April. I've been able to finalize every unfinalized -R from my XS32 original burner, in my XS32/LG H42 (and in the XS54, too). The only exception was the -R that I was burning when the original drive failed, which is understandable. I've also had zero problems with 4X RW media in the XS32/H42. I don't use RAM, but the only one I tried also worked fine in the XS32/H42.

Last night I had a power outage for a few seconds. Now I have ER 7000. I guess the next replacement is the hard drive. What the heck is going on with this unit.

Edit: After reading a little on here I discovered that if you have replaced your burner and leave a blank disk in you will get this error the next time you unplug or loose power. All you have to do is remove the disk and power back up again.

I finally put in my new drive, and recorded a bunch of stuff to a DVD-R.. and didn't finalize it.

Upon ejecting and inserting the DVD-R, it doesn't recognize it anymore. I *think* this was mostly stuff I didn't care too much about.. but honestly I don't remember all of what I had recorded.
(Unfortunately I was trying to make some room to record something at high quality while I was gone, otherwise I would have left it on the hard drive until I knew it was burned/finalized to DVD-R.)

I *was* able to eject and reinsert an unfinalized DVD-RW (all recorded on the same DVD recorder).

So I'm going to be more wary... But at least this one is recognizing insertions of DVDs, unlike the old one.

It *is* having the same "front display is changing" problem as the other one, but I admit that now maybe that was happening all along with the original recorder. That is, if you high speed dub, it changes to the percentage display, IIRC. then when it's done, it changes to one of the other displays (not the TIME display which I usually have it on).

I'll have to try inserting and ejecting DVDs without recording anything to them to make sure, but maybe I'm just noticing it behaving differently.

It sure would be great to be able to search for MPEG-2 files in these coaster unfinalized DVDs. (heck, and on my original trashed hard drive, but I presume they're by definition not fragmented on the DVD).

Hi All,

Rather than re-read 200 posts, could someone give me a definitive answer to the Toshiba XS32 dvd drive problems?

I've had my machine for 3 years and it has a lot of good features that beat all the other brands, such as it's strong editing capabilities and ease of use.

Now I find I am having problems retaining programs saved to both the dvd-R's and DVD-RW's. I would use a recommended DVD-R like Fuji and save several episodes of a show before finalizing it. I get really upset that the last show I copied to a partially filled dvd-R is not recognized with the error message saying it dvd is damaged or needs to be cleaned. Sometimes the next day the problem goes away but lately it's been happening more often. I often have to copy back to the HD the shows on the dvd and then recopy everything to a new one and hope it works and can be finalized.

If the problem can be solved by replacing the dvd burner with a better one, I am all for it, otherwise I will buy a Pioneer.

Can someone shed some light on this and summarize the solutions if any?

BTW, I asked two major retailers in Canada why they don't carry the Toshiba anymore and they both said it had a ton of problems.

Thanks,

Don

Have you cleaned the lens on the dvd drive?

I remember reading somewhere that because of the fan in the unit, the dvd drive's lens was more prone to attract dust. Use a lens cleaner disc or a computer air duster to spray the lens.

Concerning the media, are your fuji discs made in japan? If not, you could get mixed results or you could have had a few bad discs in your case. Get dvdinfopro (trialware) and scan the disc in question for errors. It could be a bad disc.

Exhaust all these other options first. If after doing these things you feel that your dvd drive is failing, then replace it. The recommended replacement drives for this unit are the LG 4167B and LG H42.

You are in the right thread. When you have the time, take a moment and read through it.

Hi All,

Now I find I am having problems retaining programs saved to both the dvd-R's and DVD-RW's. I would use a recommended DVD-R like Fuji and save several episodes of a show before finalizing it. I get really upset that the last show I copied to a partially filled dvd-R is not recognized with the error message saying it dvd is damaged or needs to be cleaned. Sometimes the next day the problem goes away but lately it's been happening more often. I often have to copy back to the HD the shows on the dvd and then recopy everything to a new one and hope it works and can be finalized.



This is a similar problem to mine of last year. I replaced the DVD with an LG Multi which solved the problem. It is still going strong.

Have you cleaned the lens on the dvd drive?

I remember reading somewhere that because of the fan in the unit, the dvd drive's lens was more prone to attract dust. Use a lens cleaner disc or a computer air duster to spray the lens.

Concerning the media, are your fuji discs made in japan? If not, you could get mixed results or you could have had a few bad discs in your case. Get dvdinfopro (trialware) and scan the disc in question for errors. It could be a bad disc.

Exhaust all these other options first. If after doing these things you feel that your dvd drive is failing, then replace it. The recommended replacement drives for this unit are the LG 4167B and LG H42.

You are in the right thread. When you have the time, take a moment and read through it.

Thanks for the advice.

I called Toshiba Canada and they might think the lens is going. They don't recommend lens cleaners, but I don't know who to believe. They recommend taking it to a local service center. I called the service center and told them of my problem. They said it might be the dvd drive or lens. I will have to pay a non-refundable estimate fee of $30 for them to diagnose the problem. If the drive is kaput, they probably will not recommend replacing it as Toshiba drives aren't very good. I wonder if I could ask them to replace the drive with the LG one talked about in this thread? I could buy it from another place and have them install as I don't know how to do this myself.

I want to keep using my machine but it it costs $300 for a new dvd drive then I have to forget about it and get someone to install the LG drive for me unless it is pretty easy to do.

My Fuji dvds are not made in Japan but they mostly worked all the time.

This is a similar problem to mine of last year. I replaced the DVD with an LG Multi which solved the problem. It is still going strong.

Please tell me the model number and it there are any problems? I think this will be my solution if I have to replace the drive.

Please tell me the model number and it there are any problems? I think this will be my solution if I have to replace the drive.

Hi , it was the LG GSA-4163B but I think any later model LG would also work so long as it had DVD-Ram capabilities.

There have been no problems at all. The install was fairly straight forward - earlier posts within this thread tell you what you need to do.

Good luck.

I replaced my Toshiba's bad drive with an LG "GSA-H42N-BK" (from the newegg order email).

It *cant* use unfinalized discs from before my old drive went bad. As I stated a few posts back, at least with ONE attempt, it didn't even recognize a bunch of stuff I burned to a DVD *in this drive* after I ejected it and inserted the disc again.

I *was* able to use an unfinalized DVD-RW (all burned on this drive IIRC), and last night I used a couple of DVD-RAMs that had stuff on them (from the original drive) and put more stuff on them... The original drive had been corrupting DVD-RAMs for a while now so I haven't touched them in a long time.

But since this new drive at least will recognize disc insertion (unlike that Hammer drive I mentioned way back), and I won enough in two poker games to basically pay for this drive.. it's better than nothing, though unfortunately I'll presumably have to finalize all DVD-Rs I use with it... at least after I do a few more tests (i.e. possibly make coasters). If it really was a one time thing I may start risking more unfinalized discs. But I'll still need a solution to get the stuff off my OLD unfinalized discs (hopefully use the original drive in there temporarily and/or find another orig XS32 drive).

I find it strange that apparently others have had NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER with these drives in an XS32.

mattack, the ONLY DVDs that my new LG burner couldn't read were the few that kept failing in the original XS32 burner as that burner went bad. At first, I kept trying different media, not knowing that the burner was the problem. So, I think those failures are understandable, if the original burner currupted the media to an extent that no other burner can read it. I've had that happen in pc burners for years. All other unfinalized -Rs have worked perfectly in my XS32 with the new burner.

When my XS54 burner failed, I recognized the problem right away, and only that single DVD-R that I was burning when I got the "There may be a problem with the disc" message, can't be read. I've been able to add content and finalize every other DVD from the original XS54 burner, no matter how much or how little was on the disc. I also recently found a few unfinalized -Rs from my original XS32 back in early 2005. I've been able to add content and finalize them in both the XS32/4167 and XS54/H42, and they play in every player I have.

Well, I'm pretty sure that I put in some OLD unfinalized DVD-Rs.. some of my oldest ones are some of my the stuff I'd be most bummed about losing. (I know, it's DVD-R, but I've seen enough weird stuff happen that I could imagine even without finalizing that it could be messed up.)

I'll try some more, and maybe even put the orig drive back in temporarily to see if I can salvage some stuff from some of these 'messed up' discs.

But also the fact that on some of these discs, the new drive actually sits for MUCH longer before it decides to give up (literally like 10 mins), it's annoying.

But that it mounts DVD-R and DVD-RW generally much FASTER is good...

Yup.. I tried this again, and I burned around an hour long show to a DVD.. it saw it, I could play it..

then I ejected the DVD, and inserted it, and it wouldn't recognize it.

So now unfortunately finalize my DVD-Rs upon recording to any of them, which removes some of the usefulness to me. I will probably make one or two more coaster(s) in trying this with the other brand(s) of DVD-Rs that I already have. But I really doubt it makes any difference.

This also means I may have stuff I can't get to on lots of old unfinalized DVD-Rs.. but hopefully I can put the OLD drive in and still at least *read* the discs to move back to the hard drive.

I have the xs32 and have swtiched drives. I have posted on here before about having problems reading unfinalized discs (that are full) and now having problems with finalizing when it was fine when I first installed the damn thing.

Anyways, I have another question. I am thinking of upgrading to an xs35 or xs34. I know they are discontinued, but may get one on ebay. Does anyone know if the unfinalized discs burned on a xs32 will working in a xs34 or xs35? I am thinking they should because the software is probably relatively the same and they should record in the same format. But does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks