HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T50N in Esprimo V6515 won't write DVDs

[Manuel_F]

Hello, HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T50N drive embedded in my Esprimo Mobile V6515 is no longer writing any kind of DVD at all, nor -R, nor +R, nor -RW, nor +RW. No problems at all on writing any kind of burnable CD and on reading CDs and DVDs. I installed a new copy of Windows, but the drive still doesn't work. Nero Burning ROM gives a general message of burning failure. VSO's Copy2DVD gives a message of wrong disc format. It seems like the drive has lost its stored infos about which kind of disc it can write. So I guess that reflashing its firmware could solve the problem. But I can't find a copy of its firmware (RW05, 2008-04-30). Where can I download firmware version RW05 for HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T50N? Alternatively: any suggestions on how to solve my problem?

[myxal]

[captain_obvious]Did you try cleaning the drive's lens?[/captain_obvious] Seems more likely than a firmware bug.

Wrt firmware reflash/upgrade - if the drive's manufacturer lists nothing, Fujitsu lists nothing, and searching for any firmware version for your drive returns nothing, you're left with asking someone else with the same drive to read the firmware for you (good luck with that). It's been a while since I've tried flashing optical drive's firmware. Back then I tried mtkflash and xsf which worked in real DOS only. There also seems to be a utility called flasher apparently more modern and working under WIndows.

A quick search reveals quite a few topics on problems with this drive, so if this is all too much hassle and it's under warranty, have it replaced and be done with it.