Hello.

Been a visitor to this site fairly often but decided to sign up since I needed more personalised help this time, lol.

I have an ND-1300A and when I had first got it years back I had upgraded the firmware because it was failing to recognise a lot of the cheaper DVD-R's I was trying to use on it.

Recently I have had a number of problems with the drive - primarily that it refuses to read or burn to CD-R's using Alcohol 120% - the software just keeps saying there's no disk in the drive.  I've successfully burnt a few DVD+R's but I get more toasters than anything else so I'm starting to think I may need to upgrade the firmware since the one I upgraded to must be a good couple of years old now.

So my questions are this:

1)  How do I find out what fireware I currently have installed for the drive?  (From there we can see what version I need to upgrade to and how.)

2)  I ran a program called Aspichk.exe which supposedly checks what version of ASPI drivers you have and this came back saying the following message: "ASPI is not properly installed.  One or more components have been replaced with older versions of the software."  So, what is ASPI, what version should I have installed for my system (P4 3.06GHz running WinXP Pro SP2).

Thank you and sorry for the long post. :)

Here is a link to The Firmare Page, directly to the firmware options for you ND-1300A.

ASPI = Advanced SCSI Programming Interface
Some use the Adaptec version; I don't use it anymore and don't have any problems (other that NeroASPI... it is installed with Nero).

Try one of the many firmware options on the site, but read the directions.

You may want to pick up a new burner... that one is a little dated and the prices have plummeted.

(in reply to akumashizon)

Thank you Tracy - I'll look into those right away and yes I do believe you're right.  The drive is over 3 years old now (how time flies) so I may start looking into getting a better burner.  Any recommendations at all on what one might be a good one to go for? :D

(in reply to SithTracy)

Tough to say, BenQ used to be a no-brainer, but "Elvis has left the building"... LITE-ON snatched them up and in my opinion have not produced a burner worth a damn.

There is always Plextor, but they are pricey and LG makes an affordable burner that I am growing fond of (unless you do CD+G).  For me, I am waiting for the Plextor Premium II to arrive in America for CD burns... LG is a good DVD burner and if you want to do scans, get a LITE-ON burner to do those... I have yet to try a Pioneer drive...

For now, I am running a Plextor PX-716A, a BenQ DW1640, and a LG GSA-H10N...  I think the H10N is the only one you can still get and it has been replaced by the H12N... MP3Mogul, another member and mod here at CDRinfo.com picked up an LG GSA-H22L and has sung its praises... It, too, is a newer model based on the Panasonic chipset and does 18x speeds faster than any other... LightScribe does not interest me.

Get some opinions, read the forum and industry reviews (avoid cnet) and make a choice... Heck, another NEC might be okay.

(in reply to akumashizon)

Did I say BenQ was dead???  I stand corrected and amazed... I saw on CDRinfo's main page a refernce to two new BenQ burners... I will be looking hard at these and look forward to a review.

(in reply to SithTracy)

Thank you I'll do that.  Another quick question about the firmware I saw on the firmware page you posted... I currently have version 1.0c installed (I had 1.0a before and then upgraded to 1.0b before I had posted this thread).

Is that the latest firmware for my current burner?  I've seen various other versions but I'm not sure if they all are compatable and/or work with my burner and such. =/  It's all a lil confusing.

(in reply to SithTracy)