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Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

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  • falkor

    • Aug 2014
    • 5

    Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

    I found a disc whose 4 VOBs will rip to a different percentage on different DVD-Writers, so have been testing a number of drives out recently to give an indication of their ripping potential. The drives that rip this one disc the best are also, generally, the more powerful and consistent I find - though more testing with different types of scratched discs would yield more accurate results. Also, some are more powerful at reading the TOC than others.

    Has any other tests ever been carried out of this kind before? What other brands would you recommend I purchase? Are Blu-ray drives any better at reading DVDs?

    Samsung SH-216BB OCT 2012 INT(SATA) 100.00%
    Samsung SH-224DB JUN 2014 INT(SATA) 99.99%
    Asus DRW-24F1ST APR 2014 INT(SATA) 85.25%
    Plextor DVDR PX-891SAW SEP 2013 INT(SATA) 64.50%
    Philips/Lite-On 2 eTAU-108 FEB 2010 (WHITE ROUND) EXT 49.25%
    Toshiba/Samsung TS-U633F SLIM INT (SATA) 46.00%
    Aopen DSW2012PA SEP 2007 INT(IDE) 41.75%
    Emprex INT(IDE) 41.50%
    BTC BDV-316B FEB 2002 INT(IDE) 41.50%
    Toshiba/Samsung TS-U633J SLIM INT (SATA) 39.50%
    Philips/Lite-On DH-16A6S INT(SATA) 38.75%
    Philips/Lite-On DH-16AES INT(SATA) 38.25%
    HITACHI-LG GH82N INT(SATA) 37.75%
    Pioneer DVR-221LBK JAN 2014 INT(SATA) 34.00%
    Philips/Lite-On PLDS DH-16ABS APR 2011 INT(SATA) 34.00%
    Matshita DVD-RAM UJ890AS SLIM INT(SATA) 21.75%
    Philips/Lite-On 1 eSAU208 JUN 2007 (BLACK FLAT) EXT 33.25%
    BTC DRW1108 2005 INT(IDE) 29.00%
    Matshita UJ8E1 SLIM INT (SATA) 25.00%
    HP dvd1260i FEB 2013 INT(SATA) 25.00%
    Samsung SE-S084 APR 2011 EXT 24.00%
    Pioneer DVR-219L INT(SATA) 17.50%
    BTC BCO 5216IM OCT 2003 INT(IDE) 14.75%
    Toshiba/Samsung TS-H653G May 2009 INT(SATA) 9.50%
    Philips/Lite-On 3 (BLACK ROUND) EXT 6.00%
    Pioneer EXT On order
    Sony AD-5260S-01 INT(SATA) On order
    BenQ DW1640 INT(IDE) On order
  • PepsiCan
    dBpoweramp Enthusiast

    • Apr 2014
    • 106

    #2
    Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

    Try the LG HL-DT-ST BH10LS38. It is one of the cheapest Blu-Ray drives on the market.

    Comment

    • schmidj
      dBpoweramp Guru

      • Nov 2013
      • 519

      #3
      Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

      Very interesting data. A couple of rhetorical questions: How repeatable is the data? If you had ten of the top rated Samsung drives, would they all perform as well, or is it random component/alignment chance for those drives to have done so well.

      Also, what is the lifetime of any particular drive? and is there useful maintenance? Some of your good drives have been around a while, but were they used much? The drive in my laptop started reading less and less discs. I replaced it. A few months later, the replacement one exhibited the same symptoms. I opened the original one up, cleaned the lens and made sure the mechanism moved freely, and now it works fine again.

      I know that back in the mid 1990's when "professional" CD players were field repairable, we found that the lasers had real lifetime issues in heavy use. Not sure how true that is today??

      Comment

      • mjt5282

        • Aug 2009
        • 21

        #4
        Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

        when I recently re-ripped my 2,200+ CD's I found that a newer Matshita BD-CMD UJ141AL USB bluray reader totally outperformed my Apple standard Optiarc's DVD RW AD-7170A when ripping scratched disks.

        Comment

        • falkor

          • Aug 2014
          • 5

          #5
          Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

          I tested 25 scratched discs today on several of those drives and am getting comparable results to the percentages of the 1 scratched disc used for the test data, so the ranking order of those drives hasn't changed based on multiple scratched discs (the 1 miracle disc is a microcosm for the many scratched discs). I am also hearing reports elsewhere that Blu Ray drives are even more powerful than DVD writers for reading DVDs, so I shall be testing that next since I have some drives on order. It's good to get confirmation from you guys, but then unless you can compare with the top end DVD writers in the list above - the Blu Ray drives could be overrated since there are many poor DVD writers on the market compared to the Samsung newer internal series.

          The Samsungs from 2012 and 2014 were almost identical in performance, but the one from 2009 from a Toshiba-Samsung collaboration with a different series number - hence must reflect different internal design - was the poorest of the bunch.

          Drives do have a limited lifetime, hence I ordered 3 BTC drives and 1 Emprex 2nd hand since it was claimed they were good rippers. One BTC was ripping identical percentages to the Emprex. Another BTC seemed to not be consistent in a weird way - indicating it had worn out - now retired. Most drives I used were brand new or hardly used - from my work place.

          I think the way the drives must wear out is through possibly writing and gathering dust as opposed to age - but I am just speculating.

          The new Pioneer external has come in at 4th place - best of the SLIMS so far, but there are many more of those on the market (generally of lesser quality to the bulky desktop tower internals).
          Last edited by falkor; August 19, 2014, 11:08 PM.

          Comment

          • falkor

            • Aug 2014
            • 5

            #6
            Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

            For example, these 3 drives - from multiple comparisons of scratched discs - still perform in the same ranking order as the 1 "miracle" disc indicated they would (the miracle disc ripped to different percentages on different drives, i.e. it never got stuck on a particular percentage so had sustained "borderline" damage - ideal for testing)

            Code Title VOB Asus DRW-24F1ST APR 2014 INT(SATA) Plextor DVDR PX-891SAW SEP 2013 INT(SATA) Aopen DSW2012PA SEP 2007 INT(IDE)
            5723 Swordsman full disc 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 89.00% 89.00% 89.00%
            5742 Sword Stained with Royal Blood TV disc 2 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 35.00% 36.00% 38.00%
            s676 Silver Hawk 1 83.00% 83.00% 83.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 - - -
            4 - - -
            s685 Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon DVD 1 65.00% 66.00% 65.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            s100 Sword Shot at the Sun 1 100.00% 1.00% 0.00%
            2 79.00% 0.00% 0.00%
            3 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
            4 100.00% 100.00% 0.00%
            s112 Shaolin Avengers ENG 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2114 Blood Warriors 1 5.00% 5.00% 5.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            w207 World of Drunken Master DVD Full Disc 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 70.00% 71.00% 71.00%
            Champion damaged 1 100.00% 100.00% 23.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 17.00% 12.00% 15.00%
            Champions Damaged Shanghai Lil and the Sunluck Kid 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 84.00% 83.00% 81.00%
            4 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
            u30 Unpralleld Judo Knife 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            t53 Taiwan Escort 1 4.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 68.00% 73.00% 80.00%
            s327 Shaolin King Boxer 1 100.00% TOC FAILED TOC FAILED
            2 100.00% 0.00% 0.00%
            3 100.00% 0.00% 0.00%
            4 100.00% 0.00% 0.00%
            s333 The Skyhawk 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            s454 Shaolin Temple Against Lama NM EXP WIDE ENG 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 94.00% 23.00%
            4 89.00% 4.00% 4.00%
            1221 18 Bronzemen eng + Dutch sub 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 99.98%
            4 22.00% 34.00% 0.00%
            r86 Revenge of the Kung Fu mao NTSC EXP 1 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            2 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            3 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
            4 25.00% 24.00% 25.00%

            Comment

            • falkor

              • Aug 2014
              • 5

              #7
              Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

              So without factoring in the TOC error, those 3 drives performed on average to these percentages:
              86.89% 79.62% 75.41%

              EDIT: actually, from taking out the TOC disc completely, the percentages are looking like this:
              85.74% 86.21% 77.06%

              The Plextor could have the edge over the ASUS, but then another 50-100 discs would settle that!

              And I already know from unrecorded tests that the Samsungs out perform all the rest by a long shot.

              A couple of tests here: Samsung, Asus, Plextor:
              100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
              100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
              100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
              80.00% 25.00% 24.00%

              100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
              100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
              100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
              82.00% 26.00% 26.00%

              The Samsung is way ahead on VOB 4 in both those tests!
              Last edited by falkor; August 19, 2014, 11:16 PM.

              Comment

              • thexfile
                dBpoweramp Enthusiast

                • Jul 2010
                • 177

                #8
                Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

                You could pick up something like a JFJ Easy Pro. :smile2:

                Comment

                • falkor

                  • Aug 2014
                  • 5

                  #9
                  Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

                  First Blu Ray drive I've tested: Asus BW-16D1HT MAY 2014 INT(SATA)

                  This has come in at a lousy 10th place on my list of drives! Very poor as a DVD ripper indeed, but can write Blu Rays at 16 speed!

                  Comment

                  • drcain

                    • Mar 2017
                    • 6

                    #10
                    Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

                    @falkor *falkor - dude, it seems you are the ONLY ONE in the world performing such testing with several drives and with several damaged media.
                    This thread is quite old - have you been testing some more? I'm currently trying to save my photo libraries burned cca 20 years ago on several CD-R media and I am currently slowly completing my ISO images with old german command line tool h2cdimage (similar to isopuzzle) - you can bring your iso image to different PC/drive and h2cdimage will continue to try to read only the sectors that you are still missing.
                    I have gone through 9 different drives - leaving me with 4 CDs with different numbers of unread sectors.

                    After I have found this thread, I have purchased old Samsung SH-216BB drive from ebay and managed to read even more sectors! This is slowly getting me closer to my goal - to FULLY read all the faulty media. I believe, that with one or two more good drives I would be able to complete reading all sectors from all my damaged media. You have helped me a LOT with this thread and recommending SH-216 drive - it really started to read sectors, that all other 9 driver failed to read with multiple attempts. Do you have by any chance any other recommendations from further testing?

                    Comment

                    • Oggy
                      dBpoweramp Guru

                      • Apr 2015
                      • 697

                      #11
                      Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

                      Originally posted by drcain
                      @falkor *falkor - dude, it seems you are the ONLY ONE in the world performing such testing with several drives and with several damaged media.
                      This thread is quite old - have you been testing some more? I'm currently trying to save my photo libraries burned cca 20 years ago on several CD-R media and I am currently slowly completing my ISO images with old german command line tool h2cdimage (similar to isopuzzle) - you can bring your iso image to different PC/drive and h2cdimage will continue to try to read only the sectors that you are still missing.
                      I have gone through 9 different drives - leaving me with 4 CDs with different numbers of unread sectors.

                      After I have found this thread, I have purchased old Samsung SH-216BB drive from ebay and managed to read even more sectors! This is slowly getting me closer to my goal - to FULLY read all the faulty media. I believe, that with one or two more good drives I would be able to complete reading all sectors from all my damaged media. You have helped me a LOT with this thread and recommending SH-216 drive - it really started to read sectors, that all other 9 driver failed to read with multiple attempts. Do you have by any chance any other recommendations from further testing?
                      Hi drcain,

                      Saw your post a couple of weeks ago, around the time a colleague had asked how I had ripped the hidden track on White Ladder by David Gray and had been given a particularly badly scratched CD of Think Tank, by Blur. Coincidentally, this also has a hidden track and this reminded me that I had an unloved PC with a couple of Pioneer drives. I pulled these and went about trying to get as many AccurateRips off the scratched disc as possible.

                      I borrowed a Samsung SH224 (Oct 2013) from a friend and ripped the Blur CD on six drives. A slimline external USB Samsung drive, the laptop's internal HP drive and the three old ide drives:-

                      Lite-On LH-20A (May 2007) this is my go to drive, and despite needing a helping hand opening the draw, has served me extremely well over the last couple of years. The two Pioneers were DVR-111DBK (July 2006) and DVR-118L, labelled A18LBK (Aug 2010).

                      The two PATA Pioneers and SATA Samsung SH224 were connected to the USB port, via a powered adaptor.

                      The Lite-On took 7 1/2 minutes, with 5 tracks non-AccurateRip.

                      The laptop internal HP TS-L633N and Samsung slimline, both took around 15 minutes with 5/6 tracks non-AccurateRip.

                      The Samsung SH224 (good results from falkor's tests) took 15 minutes with 5 tracks non-AccurateRip.

                      The older Pioneer, the DVR-111, took 4 1/2 minutes with 2 tracks non-AccurateRip.

                      The second Pioneer, the DVR-118, took 20 minutes with 6 tracks non-AccurateRip!

                      On this one disc test, the Lite-On showed itself to be faster than all except the DVR-111, which obviously only had two tracks to re-rip.

                      After hoping for good things from the Samsung SH224, on this Blur CD, it was about the same as the majority of these drives, but was by far the quietest.

                      Really don't know why the newer Pioneer 118 was the slowest, but this result was disappointing after the Pioneer 111.

                      Following this, I tried my "new find" Pioneer PVR-111DBK on a copy controlled, cactus disc, that the Lite-On and laptop drive didn't like the previous day. Result - all AccurateRips, and no audible errors on a cursory listen.

                      I then used this drive to rip the David Gray CD. The hidden first track, Through To Myself, came up as Complete after the four passes and gave sound on playback. A number of drives will rip this track, but give silence.

                      Delighted with the results the Pioneer DVR -111DBK was giving, I tried a disc I've not been able to rip previously, another cactus infested disc, Afterglow, by Sarah McLachlan. Success! All tracks giving AccurateRip, and on a very quick listen, no audible errors.

                      All good things must come to an end, and the Pioneer gave errors on three unmarked discs, which then ripped first pass on the laptop drive.

                      Conclusions? On one badly scratched CD, one example of a Pioneer DVR-111DBK gave better results than 5 other drives, coped with 2 copy controlled discs and a difficult to rip, hidden first track. You may also need a different second or third drive, for whatever reasons your main drive baulks at a disc.

                      I may add that normally I would have lived with the rip from the Lite-On, as the errors were inaudible. A replacement CD could be bought for £1.69 delivered.

                      I like thexfile's comment about a professional buffing machine, and if I had a rare and valuable CD which was important to me, and I hadn't achieved a satisfactory rip, I might consider getting the disc professionally buffed.
                      Last edited by Oggy; March 26, 2017, 04:12 PM.

                      Comment

                      • drcain

                        • Mar 2017
                        • 6

                        #12
                        Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

                        Hi Oggy,

                        thanks for additional testing. I have found your reply only now and by chance as I did not receive any notification about new reply and then I realized I'm not subscribed to this thread (fixed now )
                        I don't care about the noise or speed, the only thing I care about is the results For example I have now one CD spinning in Samsung SH-216BB nonstop 24/7 already for several weeks with cca 1630 failed-to-read sectors and I'm still getting 1 more sector successfully read per 4-5 read-runs. One read-run of these 1630 missing sectors takes around 5 hours to complete. So yeah - going forward VERY slowly, so I want to try different drives. Might I add I'm trying to read old burned DATA discs (basically photo albums - CD-Rs with jpeg files on them) - not audio discs; and I'm not sure how big difference does this make.

                        So what you're saying is that you got the best results using two drives - Pioneer DVR - 111DBK (July 2006) and HP TS-L633N - correct?
                        I'm not sure about the buffing process - I always had the impression, that it only polishes the bottom of the disc, but I think my problem is in the reflective layer that deteriorated with age.

                        Comment

                        • Oggy
                          dBpoweramp Guru

                          • Apr 2015
                          • 697

                          #13
                          Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

                          Originally posted by drcain
                          Hi Oggy,

                          thanks for additional testing. I have found your reply only now and by chance as I did not receive any notification about new reply and then I realized I'm not subscribed to this thread (fixed now )
                          I don't care about the noise or speed, the only thing I care about is the results For example I have now one CD spinning in Samsung SH-216BB nonstop 24/7 already for several weeks with cca 1630 failed-to-read sectors and I'm still getting 1 more sector successfully read per 4-5 read-runs. One read-run of these 1630 missing sectors takes around 5 hours to complete. So yeah - going forward VERY slowly, so I want to try different drives. Might I add I'm trying to read old burned DATA discs (basically photo albums - CD-Rs with jpeg files on them) - not audio discs; and I'm not sure how big difference does this make.

                          So what you're saying is that you got the best results using two drives - Pioneer DVR - 111DBK (July 2006) and HP TS-L633N - correct?
                          I'm not sure about the buffing process - I always had the impression, that it only polishes the bottom of the disc, but I think my problem is in the reflective layer that deteriorated with age.

                          Hi drcain,

                          Firstly, all the best in retrieving your photos. CD-R longevity and performance can vary massively, confused further with using certain pens and how the dye from the printed label can cause varying degrees of deterioration across the disc! As others have sadly found, CD-Rs are not a guaranteed, reliable backup.

                          You are absolutely correct in that buffing the bottom of a disc to remove scratches, is a completely different problem to an age related deterioration of the reflective layer. The only time I've managed to rescue a failing CD-R, which nine times out of ten couldn't even have the TOC read, was to copy it , and got very lucky.

                          Regarding the Pioneer, on ONE badly scratched CD (see post*11) this one example of this drive, gave better results than the one example of the other drives I tried. It also ripped two CDs with hidden first tracks, and two copy controlled discs, one of which I hadn't managed to previously rip.

                          The HP laptops drive, the HP TS-L633N, I tend to use if I've only got a few CDs to rip, and know they haven't got any sort of copy protection, as it gives multi 100s frame errors. However, occasionally it rips error free, on seemingly unmarked discs, that the Lite-On and now the Pioneer give a few errors on. I firmly believe that there is no one CD, DVD or Blu-ray drive that is the best for all drives - the depth and direction of a scratch and the subsequent problem for the laser, is never the same from disc to disc.

                          Deterioration of the reflective layer through time on CD-Rs and the very rare instances of bronzing, pin holes, or disc rot, is a different problem to a scratched disc, and as you have found, extremely difficult to overcome.

                          By some horrible coincidence, I've just attempted to rip a CD that looks slightly bronzed and has some nasty looking marks below the surface - not scratches. This may more accurately reflect the deterioration of your CD-R.

                          I tried this CD on three drives used in my previous post:-

                          Pioneer DVR-111DBK

                          HP TS-L633N

                          Lite-On LH-20A

                          I tried to rip the first track, and aborted after I had the number of frames that needed re-ripping, and how long it took to get to this stage.

                          Firstly the Pioneer, which took a bit of time to read the TOC. In 10m 50s gave 11846 errors!

                          The HP took 4m 25s, giving 1278 errors.

                          The Lite-On finished the first run before I had returned with coffee, but was on 678 frames with errors after 5 odd minutes. I ran this again and got 360 frames after 3m 2s. As this was so much better, I ran it a third time getting 547 errors in 3m 18s.

                          I haven't (and won't!) attempted to complete ripping the CD, but as you can see, the difference between the drives, on this one bronzed disc is large, and a little bit unpredictable.

                          From this one disc, you would consider the Lite-On to be the better drive, and before the recent rediscovery of the Pioneer, was my most used drive.

                          Just to show the unpredictable nature of scratched discs (other people's definition of Very Good, is clearly different to mine!), this is the result of the next disc I ripped:-

                          Lite-On on three attempts gave errors on track one. 126, 28 and 106 frames, but gave an AccurateRip after a couple of minutes.

                          The Pioneer and HP ripped first pass.

                          I may try some of my other drives on the bronzed CD, when I've got some spare time. I certainly don't expect a different drive to suddenly perform a miracle on a clearly deteriorated disc, but it will give information.

                          I repeat that this is only on one specific CD, with one sample of the drive with varying degrees of use. I don't know how repeatable this would be with a second or third make / model.

                          Luckily somewhere around 95% of my discs have ripped first pass without issues. YMMV!!
                          Last edited by Oggy; April 22, 2017, 09:39 AM.

                          Comment

                          • Oggy
                            dBpoweramp Guru

                            • Apr 2015
                            • 697

                            #14
                            Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

                            Originally posted by Oggy
                            Hi drcain,

                            Firstly, all the best in retrieving your photos. CD-R longevity and performance can vary massively, confused further with using certain pens and how the dye from the printed label can cause varying degrees of deterioration across the disc! As others have sadly found, CD-Rs are not a guaranteed, reliable backup.

                            You are absolutely correct in that buffing the bottom of a disc to remove scratches, is a completely different problem to an age related deterioration of the reflective layer. The only time I've managed to rescue a failing CD-R, which nine times out of ten couldn't even have the TOC read, was to copy it , and got very lucky.

                            Regarding the Pioneer, on ONE badly scratched CD (see post*11) this one example of this drive, gave better results than the one example of the other drives I tried. It also ripped two CDs with hidden first tracks, and two copy controlled discs, one of which I hadn't managed to previously rip.

                            The HP laptops drive, the HP TS-L633N, I tend to use if I've only got a few CDs to rip, and know they haven't got any sort of copy protection, as it gives multi 100s frame errors. However, occasionally it rips error free, on seemingly unmarked discs, that the Lite-On and now the Pioneer give a few errors on. I firmly believe that there is no one CD, DVD or Blu-ray drive that is the best for all drives - the depth and direction of a scratch and the subsequent problem for the laser, is never the same from disc to disc.

                            Deterioration of the reflective layer through time on CD-Rs and the very rare instances of bronzing, pin holes, or disc rot, is a different problem to a scratched disc, and as you have found, extremely difficult to overcome.

                            By some horrible coincidence, I've just attempted to rip a CD that looks slightly bronzed and has some nasty looking marks below the surface - not scratches. This may more accurately reflect the deterioration of your CD-R.

                            I tried this CD on three drives used in my previous post:-

                            Pioneer DVR-111DBK

                            HP TS-L633N

                            Lite-On LH-20A

                            I tried to rip the first track, and aborted after I had the number of frames that needed re-ripping, and how long it took to get to this stage.

                            Firstly the Pioneer, which took a bit of time to read the TOC. In 10m 50s gave 11846 errors!

                            The HP took 4m 25s, giving 1278 errors.

                            The Lite-On finished the first run before I had returned with coffee, but was on 678 frames with errors after 5 odd minutes. I ran this again and got 360 frames after 3m 2s. As this was so much better, I ran it a third time getting 547 errors in 3m 18s.

                            I haven't (and won't!) attempted to complete ripping the CD, but as you can see, the difference between the drives, on this one bronzed disc is large, and a little bit unpredictable.

                            From this one disc, you would consider the Lite-On to be the better drive, and before the recent rediscovery of the Pioneer, was my most used drive.

                            Just to show the unpredictable nature of scratched discs (other people's definition of Very Good, is clearly different to mine!), this is the result of the next disc I ripped:-

                            Lite-On on three attempts gave errors on track one. 126, 28 and 106 frames, but gave an AccurateRip after a couple of minutes.

                            The Pioneer and HP ripped first pass.

                            I may try some of my other drives on the bronzed CD, when I've got some spare time. I certainly don't expect a different drive to suddenly perform a miracle on a clearly deteriorated disc, but it will give information.

                            I repeat that this is only on one specific CD, with one sample of the drive with varying degrees of use. I don't know how repeatable this would be with a second or third make / model.

                            Luckily somewhere around 95% of my discs have ripped first pass without issues. YMMV!!

                            Further to these drives, I've borrowed the Samsung SH224 again, and dug out the Pioneer 118, a 1998 HP8100 and a 2003 Asus, which I forgot to write the model down!

                            As the Pioneer 111 was so out compared to all the other drives, I tried it again, as the CD may have had some light dirt, which came away after the first rip. I also tried the HP laptop drive again.

                            These are the results from track one of the bronzed disc.

                            Pioneer DVR-111DBK re-run - 3m 6s with 1111 errors.

                            HP laptop drive 3m 16s 895 errors.

                            Pioneer DVR-118L 1m 52s with 352 errors.

                            HP8100 2m 20s with 1739 errors.

                            Asus 1m 2s with 1007 errors.

                            Lastly, but certainly not least, the Samsung SH224, which had done well in falkor's test, but not so well in my badly scratched test - 3m 16s, but with only 153 frames needing re-ripping!

                            The Samsung and second Pioneer, which had performed the least well with the scratched disc, performed noticeably better with the bronzed disc, the Samsung particularly so. I can only surmise that the focal length, or certainly the laser's performance affects the ability to read a disc, depending where / what the damage is. Of course this could be totally wrong!!

                            I'm pleased that the Samsung performed much more to falkor's finding, as this gives some repeatability to results, but stress that my tests are far from lab conditions.
                            Last edited by Oggy; April 22, 2017, 11:41 AM.

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                            • drcain

                              • Mar 2017
                              • 6

                              #15
                              Re: Best DVD drive for reading scratched discs - TEST RESULTS / ON-GOING

                              Hi Oggy - thanks a lot for additional testing again This gives me more choices to try from and I will definitely try also some drives from your tests.
                              At this moment I have used the "CD/DVD Drive Accuracy List" from this forum (different years) as a reference and purchased one very old "LITE-ON - CD-RW SOHR-5238S" full of dust from ebay and one "ATAPI - iHAS124 W" - well, not exactly "w", I only managed to get hands only on "ATAPI - iHAS124 F".

                              The iHAS124 F-version was completely new (still available at some retailers) but it was a let-down - it wasn't able to read anything more that I already have read with the falkor's Samsung SH-216BB, so it went back to the retailer.
                              But surprise surprise - the 13 year old LITE-ON CD-RW SOHR-5238S full of dust (I had to take it apart and clean) performs even better than Samsung SH-216BB - reading even more! This still gives me hope, that I still might find a drive, that would be able to read everything. So at this moment the old Lite-On SOHR-5238S works on my media day and night and I'm waiting to see how far it will get me.
                              Last edited by drcain; April 28, 2017, 05:06 PM.

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