MakeMKV thinks BH16NS55 is empty when it's not...

[pupvogel]

Hi there,

I have a BH16NS55 drive, currently flashed with the WH16NS60 LibreDrive 1.03 - Firmware.

I noticed several times in MakeMKV (v1.16.1), that after inserting a disk, the contents will be shown, but then, next second, it shows the drive as empty - even though I didn't do anything and the disk is still in there.
Ejecting and reloading the disc is all I would have to do then, it didn't happen often...BUT...
last week I noticed very slow backup speeds on UHD discs, so I made that registry change "0=99", and now, I guess because of the intermittent speed changes while reading the disc, the same thing happens almost every time while the program is deep into ripping a UHD-disc. The rip will abort and then the drive is shown as empty.

I tried reflashing with Libredrive-Firmwares WH16NS60 1.02 and BH16NS55 1.05, but no change.
So for now I I just reverted to slow backups...

Any ideas on this..? Really appreciate your help guys !

[Billycar11]

Shut down your pc and remove power then turn back on see if it works.
After that check if windows sees the disc
If not then clean the laser
Then it's time to get a BU40N

[pupvogel]

Hmm, I really don't think I need another drive, I am pretty sure this is some kind of a communication problem.

Cleaning the laser might be a good idea if there were any reading errors, but I don't have any reading errors, ever.

Ejecting and reloading the disc does the trick to show the disc again, no need to restart the PC.

I just tried reducing the speed setting to "0=50", but same problem, abort after 20 minutes of reading, then "No disc".

Still - ripping won't fail, if I remove the speed setting...it will just take a loong time.

[d00zah]

How is this drive connected to your system? Internal? External enclosure?

[pupvogel]

Internal SATA-connection.

Forgot to mention: I also already tried out three different SATA-adapters with different chipsets and changing from AHCI- to IDE-mode, didn't help.

[d00zah]

Each w/ their own external supplies, I imagine? So much for that idea. If cleaning doesn't help, I'm leaning towards the "dodgey drive" theory.

[dcoke22]

Ejecting and reloading the disc does the trick to show the disc again, no need to restart the PC.

As you're probably aware, an optical drive is a tiny computer strapped to a laser. I have desktop SATA drives in powered external enclosures. From time to time a drive has trouble reading a disc and the drive ends up working pretty hard. It usually ends in a failure. In any case, after the drive does this it usually seems to have trouble reading discs afterwards. If I remove power from the drive (by flipping the power switch) and then power it back on after a short while, the drive behaves much better. Powering on the drive after a power outage 'reboots' the tiny computer in the optical drive. On internal drives, a standard PC reboot isn't enough to achieve the same effect. This is why the recommendation is to remove power from the PC for a short while and then power up again.

In my view, making the drive do a cold reboot is relatively easy and surprisingly fruitful in scenarios where a drive is behaving weirdly.

[pupvogel]

Yeah a cold restart may be fruitful in many cases - but in this case, the drive behaves just fine without a reboot.
I just need to delete the "0=99" setting and can go on ripping, slower, but without any issues.

Before MakeMKV loses contact to the drive during ripping, I don't hear any strange noises or other recognizable problems.
Definitely no retries how they would occur when there are read-errors.
Also these aborts seem to happen while the drive is NOT reading very fast, so it's also not a speed issue.

That's why I still think this is a communication issue that leaves the drive unresponsive until the disc is reloaded, due to an unspecified command or whatnot.

But, of course, if no-one else has these issues, well, then I guess it's the drive. Damn it...