Discs getting scratched

[ElJaard]

I have an Asus BW-16D1HT from approx 2017. Has worked fine. In April I started to have issues when using MakeMKV with it. Reading/extracting caused scratches to couple of discs and the operation failed. I was able to clean the discs so the drive only damaged the scratch resistant surface. No luck, disc scratched again. I even opened the drive and cleaned it. It was relatively clean anyway and there wasn't any loose parts or such. Still the issue persisted.

I thought okay, the drive tolerances and clearances have gone off and decided to purchase a new drive, the same model. But the issue got even worse! Now even a DVD disc was scratched. What is this? MakeMKV is doing some operations so fast the drive makes horrible noise as it tries to keep up. Same for old and new drive. Or at least that's how it looks to me.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this with MakeMKV or with Asus BW-16D1HT. There weren't any issues prior to April.

[dcoke22]

I have not experienced that issue.

You could try using speed control to slow down the ripping to see if that prevents the drive from damaging discs.

[ElJaard]

I have the drive installed with SATA 3.1 - USB 3.2 bridge with external power and there apparently was an issue with an USB cord which caused the drive to suddenly disappear and then re-appear immediately. I haven't noticed scratches with the new drive since I fixed that issue, keeping my fingers crossed.

[ElJaard]

Now I'm having the issue again... Seems to depend on the disc, some discs scratch, some don't. The scratches are very minor but the drive shouldn't touch the surface and cause any marks. Frustrating.

[dcoke22]

Are there any stickers on the discs? Or are the discs a bit warped maybe? Anything to make them unbalanced?

[ElJaard]

No stickers. No obvious unbalance either.

[ElJaard]

I bought Asus BW-16D1X-U which has LG drive inside and flashed it to LG firmware. Exactly same kind of scratches appear with some discs than with those two Asus BW-16D1HTs. First encountered this phenomenon in April 2025.

[16442496]

Bad Windows driver maybe?
Can you try with Linux distro to see if those drives works beter there.