dbminter

MPC-HC was just updated to 1.9.6.24 today. https://www.softexia.com/windows/multimedia/codecs-media-plugins/k-lite-mega-codec-pack#changelog

It's not unusual for ImgBurn to get stuck analysing tracks when reading a game disc. WRITING a game disc image, though, is another thing. You waited long enough for the program to do something, so ImgBurn is just getting stuck. I don't know how it is on Saturn games, but on PS1 games, some discs simply can't be copied with ImgBurn, "freezing" at Analysing tracks. What I do in cases like this is use Alcohol's free version to copy those discs. You may want to try installing Alcohol's free version to burn this disc image.

You're right about PowerDVD. It's probably the best DVD/Blu-Ray player software out there, but, as a container file player, it leaves a lot to be desired. I just prefer MPC-HC because it does what I need it to do for DVD and it's free. Can't beat the price!

VLC doesn't deserve the praise heaped upon it. It doesn't even properly play back DVD's which Media Player Classic - Home Cinema handles fine. MPC-HC is still updated, but not "officially." "Officially," it was abandoned in 2017, but the makers of the K-Lite Codec Pack keep updating it. In fact, an update just came out the other day. I've been using it for years. It replaced WinAmp as my primary audio container play back software and Windows Media Player as my video container play back software. And now I use it as my DVD player because not only does it play discs, but it plays .IFO, VOB, and VRO natively. Those scratched discs could merely be a result of shipping jostling. Or, manufacturer defect from the factory. I'm not sure what you mean by page cells. As for the end of the world problem, I believe the other applications get around this by simply designating a layer break wherever they want to. But, they usually don't bother to make it seamless, so it's not much of an option. I don't know why ImgBurn doesn't allow the user to do the same thing. As for how I get around the end of the world issue, I use DVDShrink to shrink down the contents 1% at a time until the resulting input VIDEO_TS is acceptable. Follow up on my replacement WH16NS60 from LG. Thus far, it has handled everything I've thrown at it, and I've given it a few CD reads and writes, a few DVD read and writes, a few DL DVD reads and writes, a few 8x DVD+RW writes, and a few BD writes.

There is a free version, but it does not support its File And Folder backup option. There is a 30 day free trial of the Home version, but I don't know if it supports FAF backups, too. I think it does for the 30 days, then the installation regresses to the Free version, which won't handle FAF backups. Apparently, even existing ones won't be read in.

No, not with ImgBurn. You have to create multiple image files. For what you want, you'd need some kind of dedicated file backup application. The one I use is bundled in my disk imaging program, Macrium Reflect.

Switching discs is the cheapest and easiest method, but there MAY be others. Not guaranteed to work, but they may. 1.) replace your DVD burner with a different make, manufacturer, and model. No guarantee any new burner will like those CMC's any better than yours, but there's always the possibility. The easiest way to do this is to try USB external burners. 2.) check for a firmware update for your DVD burner. In Write mode, right click on the drive letter of your burner on the left hand side and choose the Check for firmware update option near the bottom of the context menu. No guarantee a firmware update will fix the problem. And, in some cases like Pioneer, firmware updates can make a drive WORSE!

You say you use BENQ DVD which is a good one, but this line of log betrays that: I 20:48:35 Destination Media Type: DVD+R DL (Disc ID: CMC MAG-D03-64) There is only one quality manufacturer of DVD+R DL and that's Verbatim DataLife Plus. NOT the Life Series you find in stores; those are CMC. You can only find the DataLife Plus stuff online. CMC is the worst manufacturer of optical media out there. About half the problems we see on this board are caused by cheap media, and CMC is the cheapest. Ironically, they now OWN Verbatim but, at least, haven't changed the manufacturing process... YET! Most problems people have on this board disappear when they switch from CMC to DataLife Plus Verbatim, and I expect your problem would go away, too. Notice the write error is shortly after the layer change from 0 to 1? DL media failure will more often than not occur at the layer change.

The miscompares are either your hardware is going bad, you're using cheap discs, your drive's firmware needs updating, or there's an incompatibility between the write strategy for that media. We'd have to see a log with miscompares to know more. The 99% "freezing" may not be what you think it is. How long did you wait at 99%? It can take up to 10 minutes to format disc and you were using 2x, it seems, so it will probably take longer. And some hardware and ImgBurn combinations only list the 99% value and don't offer a countdown of format time. Extracting the ISO of a bootable disc probably wouldn't work because, as I said, there are two "sides" to a bootable disc. One side you see is the contents listed in File Explorer. The other side is the boot sector, which contains all the necessary files to do the actual booting. The only way I know to see that boot sector side is to extract it to an IMG file and open it with an IMG edtior. I had wondered if the Legacy/EFI booting thing might be a problem here since the introduction of EFI.

There's bootable and then there's "bootable." Booting usually means two phases. The part that actually starts booting and then the part that runs after booting. I still say you need an extracted boot image to get all the necessary bootable files onto the boot sector in order to start a Windows boot. However, I've never gotten a single bootable disc to ever boot, so I'm not going to be of much help. As I said, I just use the Windows Media Creator tool to make all my Windows bootable discs and flash drives. Saves me the trouble of mucking around getting nothing to ever work. Although for Windows 8, I don't think it's supported anymore, just 8.1. But, you could try the ISO Download tool. https://www.softexia.com/windows/internet/download-managers/windows-and-office-iso-download-tool I'd just snag a Windows 8 ISO with this tool, but, didn't you also say you were streamlining all the latest updates and service packs into your Windows 8 installation? That may be why it isn't working. You're trying to boot from a Windows 8 installation that has been "modified." Otherwise, you'd just take your Windows 8 installation media and Read an image of it and burn that. So, you need this specifically to work, which I can't help you with.

Oh, have you not been burning these failed discs with ImgBurn? You've been using Windows itself to write ISO's? Try creating an image file with the guide and then use ImgBurn in Write mode to write that image file to a disc. See if that works. Windows burning engine has been known to be less robust than ImgBurn.

What is the name of this source folder? Is that the only folder on your burned disc? Those sub folders in this 1 source folder should all be in the root directory of your burned disc. Otherwise, there's nothing to load to start installation. Okay, I went over the instructions in the guide and there seems to maybe be a missing important step. As far as I know, you need to extract the boot sector from a Windows 8 installation disc that already boots before it will work. But, then again, I never got a bootable disc to work, so what do I know? Under the Bootable disc tab, use the Extract button, the blue floppy disk icon, to extract the boot sector using the target of the root directory of an inserted bootable Windows 8 installation. Then, under Boot image, point it to the Boot Image you just extracted from the bootable Windows 8 installation disc. See if that helps. If that doesn't help, I still say you need more than 1 folder in the root directory of your burned disc, if there is only 1.

Shouldn't be. Windows installation media is definitely more than 1 folder. And the USB drive is just 1 folder?

You turned ONE folder into an ISO file? That's probably why it didn't boot.

You could try the Windows Media Creator Tool, if it supports Windows 8.1. It will download the necessary files and save them as an ISO, burn to them to a disc, or create a bootable flash drive. It's what I do whenever I want to create bootable Windows discs. Or, if I have one already, I just make an image file with ImgBurn of that existing disc. If I need to add any files or folders to it, I use UltraISO and inject files/folders into the image file.