HL-DT-ST DVD+RW GCA-4040N

[Nikhil Menon]

I got my DVD RW replaced 4 times by HP and the same problem, i am unable to write DVD's CD's are fine but DVD's no way!!! Has anyone found out a solution to the problem?? HP does not seem to say why this is happening!!

P.S. This thread has been moevd from Disk to Optical Jukeboxes & Drives. - Hp forum Moderator

[Paul Beardsell]

Hi I've just bought a presario r3000 and I seem to be having the same problems. Let me know if you find a solution and i'll do the same

Paul

[Sérgio_1]

Pay attention on witch type of DVD you are trying to write. This model support only DVD+R or DVD+RW. It cannot write medias DVD-R/DVD-RW.

Try to change the type of media that you are using to a DVD+R/DVD+RW.

Cheers

[Ramit Bhalla]

Hey, okay I've been grappling with this problem for about a year and a half now ever since I've bought my zd7000 (I've had the drive replaced 3 times!!!). BTW HP Cheated me, I paid a 100 bucks extra for a 4x drive, and this drive only does 2x (even if it says 4x writing, check out the latest nero version's diagnostic features).

Okay, coming to the soution of the problem, it appears as though there is a problem with the firmware AND hardware, it doesnt' recognize all media and the default calibration settings are incompatible with most media which is why it never burns most of the time. So what's solution. Here's what worked for me.

Step 1. Download the firmware. On the Dangerous Brother firmware site, download the firmware for GCA-4040N/GWA-4040n. Download the 1.02 ARIMA firmware. This will allow you to write to DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW at upto 2x (even thought it will show 4x). It also make your drive region free. Dont' worry of your drive shows up as GWA-4040n after burning the firmware.

Step 2. Uninstall all CD burning software properly. Make sure all additional drivers installed by these softwares are uninstalled (same goes for registry keys)

Step 3. Install the Nero 7.0.1.2 (this is the only one that works for me).

Step 4: Get hold of TDK (1-8x) or SONY (1-16x) media. I've tried a variety of media, HP, LG, TechCom, MoserBaer etc and none of them work. The only media that seem to work with the drive and above firmware are TDK and SONY.

I hope this helps and may HP get what it deserves. This is one customer never buying anything from HP again.

[Ali Rashid]

Well Since I stumbled upon this page looking for the same solution, i guess it holds true that only the +R/+RW DVd's can be used on this stupid Dvd, I just thought I might tell you that I recently spent $4000.00, Yes 4000 Dollars on my HP desktop computer which does not include the HP Pavillion Laptop I had a few weeks before that. Guess what, I get the windows recovery thingy on the disk and no other disk provided, and on top of that, the CD Key for Windows does not match the CD key that is on the casing of my computer. HP is blaming the vendor, the vendor is blamin HP and Micsrosoft is blaming both of them. So yeah, any solution for that. And you are not the only one Nikhil, I am sure as soon as the warranty is over, I am going to throw out all the HP computers from my house and also I have stoppped recommendng people to do it. Toshiba, I love it, My oter laptop, out of warranty, out of date and I had a problem with it and it was fixed witin 24 hours and I never had the same problem again. HEY HP, I AM PROMOTING TOSHIBA HERE.

[kungstu22]

Hi Everyone,

I have the same issue withthe samedrive but in a Dell laptop. I trolled a lot of info and found that there are many people withthe same issue. Seems these drives are made to fail. One thing you can do,if you still have warranty, or are thick-skinned enough to argue customer svc into helping anyway, is boot to diagnostic for WinXP (restart holding down the f6 key) and run through the "express test." I bet you will get this error: "Error Code: 0F00:133D" if you do, it is proof your device is malfuncitoning and it hardware not soft. This means they shoudl replace it. This is kind of a short cut to spending a ton of time trying to fix a common and unsolvable problem. Too bad for me I had to spend 5 hours on with tech support to get nowhere.

[DUFAUX Jean-Aubert]

Hi,

Take a look here : http://tdb.rpc1.org/#GWA4040N

YOu should find the firmware wich help you in this task.

Kind Regards

[Selman Yarar]

My problem is similar yet slightly differs from yours. I've written about 100 DVD's with my device (as part of my compaq nx9105 notebook) with verify on and then about 20 without. Since two weeks the device doesn't recognize the verified own-written dvd's anymore. It recognizes the unverified ones without any problem.
Strange, isn't it?
Selman

[candav]

I have the same problem. Well, it's official. My zd7310ca has leprosy. Parts are dropping off. The Screen has lines, the hard drive makes bad sounds and now the DVD doesn't burn. HP sucks. I'm buying a mac.