HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GUD0N optical drive can't write to CD-R media following Windows 10 updates

[Great Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat]

I'm basically re-opening a thread that was originally discussed at Optical drive can read any cd, can burn dvds, but cannot burn cds since Windows 10 updates ("Optical drive can read any cd, can burn dvds, but cannot burn cds since Windows 10 updates") because that thread was locked before any resolution was found, and this issue remains a problem for many people.

The issue:

• LG manufactured an optical drive (model no. HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GUD0N) that was supplied to various PC/laptop manufacturers as an in-built OEM device, including HP Pavilion desktops and Gigabyte laptops
• Since various Windows 10 updates in 2019, many users are reporting that their drives can no longer write to CD-R media
• The drive can still read from CD-R media, and it can still write to all other media (eg. CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, etc)
• It makes no difference if you are trying to burn an audio or a data CD-R
• It makes no difference which brand of media you use
• It doesn't matter which burning program you use - the problem occurs a few seconds after the burn process starts, and the error message will depend on the particular burning program, eg:
• If using Windows 10's native burning, the error will be "There was a problem while burning this disc. The disc wasn't burned successfully. Make sure that you have the latest firmware for your CD or DVD burner installed, then try again."
• If using Windows 10 Media Player to burn an audio CD, the error will be "Windows Media Player cannot burn the files. If the burner is busy, wait for the current task to finish. If necessary, verify that the burner is connected properly and that you have installed the latest device driver."
• If using Ashampoo Burning Studio, the error will be "A medium error occurred"
• If using Roxio Creator NXT 6 Pro, the error will be "Write error - Medium error." [03/0C/00]
• The disc is not spoiled, since nothing is actually written to it
• No LG/Hitachi driver or firmware updates appear to be available, either from the PC/laptop manufacturers, or from LG

Some (but not all) users have found the following workarounds may help temporarily:

• Uninstalling whichever Windows 10 update immediately preceded the issue. Some users were able to uninstall some updates, reboot, and the drive would work again, but various subsequent updates caused the issue again. I have been unable to identify which update(s) these were, and they may well be different depending on the version of Windows 10 in use
• Updating the optical drive's firmware - note: there is no easy way to do this that I was able to find - if you google for long enough you can find a website from where you can download an old LGG ODD firmware auto-updater program, but it doesn't work for this drive
• Various registry hacks (eg. removing the "Upper Filter" and "Lower Filter" registry keys in the specific CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\ key) but these don't necessarily exist in all versions of Windows 10
• Uninstalling the ODD's device driver from Device Manager and allowing it to re-install after rebooting
• Uninstalling the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller driver from Device Manager and allowing it to re-install after rebooting

Where to from here? I can envisage a couple of solutions:

• Microsoft to examine the cause of the issue - ie. which Windows 10 update(s) have broken the drive? - and make good with a future update
• LG to release a firmware update to allow the drive to work again properly under Windows 10

As this is a Microsoft forum, my hope is that Microsoft is by now aware of this widespread issue, and that an Adviser or Rep will be able to post a solution, or advise when/which future Windows 10 update will resolve the issue?


Thank you.

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