Hi marybeth !

Glad to see you've solved your problem!

Try to recover the disks that gave you a problem.

I had the same problem with the first two spindles I tried.

One was HP and the other was Memorex.

I recovered all but one of those disks.

One had a bad DATA side and the other had to be cleaned 3 times of 20 turns of my cleaner before it worked.

Both were Memorex and it is about the only media I find beside HP.

I would like to use Verbatim, but I can't seem to find any.

I had very good service from their floppies and other products.

I came here with the same problem, and I have tried everything suggested here, but the Diagnostics Utility kept responding "Media Not Detected". I went to look for other possible solutions on the Internet and came across one solution that works for me!!!

Check if the "autorun" for your DVD-Rom/CD-Rom is turned off. Mine was off. After switching it back on (I did it in Windows XP Registry, followed instructions step by step on Microsoft knowledge center), on 2nd try on printing afterward, my DVD-Rom went to work. After 50 minutes, my first LightScribe DVD was produced!!!

Give it a try!

Hi Troy Whatcott !

It would help if you answered some questions:

1. Did you try different disks?
2. Clean disk?
3. Media brand?
4. What equipment?
5. What operating systems?
6. Internal or external drive?
7. After market cases?
8. Have required support software?
   1. .NET 2.0 or newer?
   2. Latest C++ Runtime Library?
   3. LightScribe Diagnostic Utility?
9. How many tries?
10. What Error Codes?

Have not been able to lightscribe a single CD-R lightscribe media (will burn fine on internal DVD burner), Verbatim plain and Verbatim color, onto an external HP DVD 840 burner through a USB.  I ran Lightscribe diagnoistics and it says the drive is fine but there is "no media" detected.  I have tried burning it through Nero.  I am using an Panasonic CF-73 with XP sofware on my laptop (latest hardware drivers, latest .Net C++ fixes), also latest lighscribe updates. Everything is white glove clean.  Autorun is turned on. Tried different media including HP.  Will burn Verbatim DVD+R's but does not recognize the Verbatim CD-R's.

Lightscribe tech support is non-existant.

This technology is so flaky. Seems I wasted my money. No Joy in Mudville.  mighty Casey has struck out!  Hate technology.......planning to become a Luddite.

Hi Razorpod !

I don't think there will ever be a way to "force" media detection to allow labeling.

There are 2 critical things that make up detection:

1. The LS Marks in the HUB of the disk; &
2. The Detection Circuit (The LS Sensor, Disk Circuitry, & Computer Circuitry).

For 1. the Marks in the HUB have to be seen by the LS Sensor, so cleaning the HUB Area is especially important.

For 2. all the circuitry and all the software has to work correctly.

The former is controllable.

The latter would be an equipment or software problem.

The first is much more likely than the second.

Hi Bartly !

I'm ashamed I didn't mention it before, but that is the same technique I've been using from the start.

I guess I didn't think to mention it because of all the years I've spent in IT.

It kind of was my standard procedure I've adopted over the years!

This is why new people are good for the technology, you bring a different perspective!

Hi flatlander !

I'm using an HP Pavillion dv9825nr Notebook PC, running Windows Vista Home Premium SP1+.
I also have an HP PhotoSmart C8180 All-In-One Printer.  Both have built-in LS Drives.
Everything has been running LSS fine since 4/08.

I use Memorex disks and also HP disks almost all the time, because they are the only ones I seem to find.

If I have any problems with labeling a disk, I clean the center (hub) of the disk before burning the LABEL side first.

I use the LS Template Labeler for the LABEL side and NERO 9 for the DATA side.

I had trouble with the first two spindles I bought.

One disk had a bad DATA side and another (Memorex) had to be re-cleaned in the center (hub) of the disk 3 times of 20 turns of the cleaner, but it burned successfully.

I've also fooled around a little with the LS Simple Labeler.

I've developed 232 Custom Templates (in 39 Collections + 5 Private Ones), 108 Images (in 12 Collections), 174 Icons, and 4 Test Background Images for the LS SL, and have shared them with 199 Forum Users.

Rev. 2010-02-10 1430 EST

It would help if you answered some questions:

1. Did you try different disks?                NO
   
2. Clean disk?                                       YES
   
3. Media brand?                                     HP
   
4. What equipment?               
   
5. What operating systems?                      XP sp3
   
6. Internal or external drive?                     INTERNAL
   
7. After market cases?
8. Have required support software?
   1. .NET 2.0 or newer?
   2. Latest C++ Runtime Library?
   3. LightScribe Diagnostic Utility?    TRIED THAT, EVERYTHING OK
      
9. How many tries?                                  5 PER 5 DISKS
   
10. What Error Codes?                             NO LIGHTSCRIBE DISK 

Hi !

I just use the Notification to any forum.

P. S. I replied to your first post and I'm sorry it includes "CLEANING" as one of my questions.

Hi Everyone !

I didn't look to see if I said this before, but there seems to be some confusion about how LightScribe Technology works and why Media Detection is such a big deal!

LS Disks have LS Marks in the HUB AREA.

These Marks are used for Media Detection, Media Timing, and Media Positioning.

I haven't looked at how other technologies work, but Media Detection is only a small part of how LS works!

Without the Timing and Positioning it is very very difficult to tell where the spinning disk is and how long to keep the Laser on.

Also, multiple burns would be impossible.

The coated surface is important, but not the only thing as a "force" burning would imply.

That's why cleaning the LABEL side must include both the HUB and surface, not just the surface.

Other have worked with LS longer than I have, so they may know more.

I welcome them to add to or correct anything I've said.

Hello again !

I thought of one possible cause!

There could be a difference in the RETRY procedure for USB and INTERNAL drives!

Perhaps, the former recovery uses more tries!?!?!

A LightScribe disc was no detected in the drive.  Please insert a LightScribe disc with the label side down.

(4114)

So I guess it was a fluke that it worked the one time after I updated the via drivers.  I have uninstalled my graphics card and gone back to using the onboard S3 one.  I have removed my PCI to SATA card and connected the hard disk directly to the mother board, which caused all kinds of boot problems which I have now resolved.  I have updated many drivers.  All to no avail.  I guess it is the same as always.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it don't.  No rhym no reason, none that I can find.  I suppose it's just flakey like many others have siad.  Shame. because when it does work it looks so nice.  I'll probably go back to printing my media in my Epson Stylus Photo R200 which never says it can't detect any media and looks a lot brighter than light scribe discs.  The special printable discs are not more expensive than LightScribe one's and it's much less of a head ache.  So good luck and good bye, probably.

Good and bad news. It was the drive, not the media.
My setup, all brand-new:
LG GE24LU20 external USB Lightscribe DVD recorder, new from amazon
HP brand Lightscribe DVD-R media, new from amazon
Memorex brand Lightscribe DVD+R media, new from Best Buy
Lightscribe diagnostic tool from this website, reports LSS ver 1.18.24.1, no configuration problems

After the labeling application software failed to detect the new LS media, I downloaded the LS diagnostic tool and used it to sort through the brand new media. As another poster stated, everything is brand new and white glove cleaned. Using the diagnostic tool, the drive failed to detect any of the HP LS media on all attempts. After reading here about results with different brands, I then purchased the Memorex brand from Best Buy, and drive successfully detected 2 LS blank media (worked on about 10% of the media) and failed the rest. I kept the failures in a separate pile. The only thing left to test was the drive itself so to avoid a return exercise with Amazon I purchased an identical LG GE24LU20 from Best Buy in order to keep everything else the same--computer, USB cable, software, media, you name it. I used the Memorex failures pile in the Best Buy drive and quit after successfully detecting 3 LS media that failed in the amazon drive. I performed the same process with the HP LS media which had never worked at all and surprise, the Best Buy drive successfully detected HP media on every attempt.

Of course, I'm returning the amazon drive for a refund. I'm embarking on a project to copy 35 VHS home videos to DVD (70 total DVDs with a backup copy of each) and will update this site upon encountering any additional LS media detect problems.

Good and bad news. It was the drive, not the media.
My setup, all brand-new:
LG GE24LU20 external USB Lightscribe DVD recorder, new from amazon
HP brand Lightscribe DVD-R media, new from amazon
Memorex brand Lightscribe DVD+R media, new from Best Buy
Lightscribe diagnostic tool from this website, reports LSS ver 1.18.24.1, no configuration problems

After the labeling application software failed to detect the new LS media, I downloaded the LS diagnostic tool and used it to sort through the brand new media. As another poster stated, everything is brand new and white glove cleaned. Using the diagnostic tool, the drive failed to detect any of the HP LS media on all attempts. After reading here about results with different brands, I then purchased the Memorex brand from Best Buy, and drive successfully detected 2 LS blank media (worked on about 10% of the media) and failed the rest. I kept the failures in a separate pile. The only thing left to test was the drive itself so to avoid a return exercise with Amazon I purchased an identical LG GE24LU20 from Best Buy in order to keep everything else the same--computer, USB cable, software, media, you name it. I used the Memorex failures pile in the Best Buy drive and quit after successfully detecting 3 LS media that failed in the amazon drive. I performed the same process with the HP LS media which had never worked at all and surprise, the Best Buy drive successfully detected HP media on every attempt.

Of course, I'm returning the amazon drive for a refund. I'm embarking on a project to copy 35 VHS home videos to DVD (70 total DVDs with a backup copy of each) and will update this site upon encountering any additional LS media detect problems.

Except I forgot what I did.  After troubleshooting it again for the last couple days, I finally slowed down and read each post in this thread, specifically this post.  Along with a FAQ I eventually found on the Gigabyte website, I learned that optical drives are not recommended to be used in the GSATAII ports (2 EA) and should be used on the INTEL SATA ports instead. 

A friend of mine was running Windows Vista 64 bit and his lightscribe drives were having problems identifying the label side of discs and not allowing labels to be written as a result.

It turns out that he had additional software on his system called "Any DVD" and "Clone DVD" which intercept new disc inserts and "identify" the type of disc. This software was causing his system to not see the label side of the discs. Once we shut down his tray icons indicating this was running and waiting for a disc to be inserted, the problem went away.

I presume there's other software that may interfere in a similar way.

I have hp probook 4520s and using window 7. its lightscribe did not work. did not write cd or dvd some time show some cds as blank but other system show their data.

I have hp probook 4520s and using window 7. its lightscribe did not work. did not write cd or dvd some time show some cds as blank but other system show their data.