Yann

I thought I could play music and videos under Vista before I started burning under XP. Now I re-checked Vista and the drive doesn't recognize the content of any valid CD or DVD. It tells me the DVD-R that has a movie on it is empty! I am now in the process of upgrading the drivers for XP and Vista. I will let you know what happens here. Yann

Thanks for all the feedback. It really helps. I totally agree with you, I will update the drivers. Do you think the same drive uses different drivers under Vista and under XP? Somehow, it looks like there si some interaction. The drive was able to play under vista and now, nothing!

Yep I did. Runs beautifully in my DVD players. But I seem to have problems with that drive, even when just playing a disk. Yann

Dontasciime, thanks for the link. But this is for Vista. I am running XP SP2 on this machine (actually dual boot, but all my video software is running on XP). Yann

No, it doesn't work like that. (Well, not in ImgBurn anyway) Your drive is producing bad burns on those discs and I see you're using 4x as the burn speed. Have you actually tried it at 8x, 12x, 16x etc? If not, do so. The write strategies might be better at faster speeds. Lighning UK, many thanks! I just burnt a good DVD-R at 12x speed! I thought a lower speed would be more reliable? Is that it? What is causing the lower speed to fail? I am posting the last log, just for reference. I 11:13:07 ImgBurn Version 2.3.2.0 started! I 11:13:07 Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 2) I 11:13:07 Total Physical Memory: 3,013,004 KB - Available: 2,596,772 KB I 11:13:07 Initialising SPTI... I 11:13:07 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... I 11:13:07 Found 1 DVD±RW/RAM! I 11:16:30 Operation Started! I 11:16:30 Building Image Tree... I 11:16:30 Checking Directory Depth... I 11:16:30 Calculating Totals... I 11:16:30 Preparing Image... I 11:16:31 Checking Path Length... I 11:16:31 Image Size: 3,163,029,504 bytes I 11:16:31 Image Sectors: 1,544,448 I 11:16:34 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:00:03 I 11:16:34 Operation Started! I 11:16:34 Source File: -==/\/[bUILD IMAGE]\/\==- I 11:16:34 Source File Sectors: 1,544,448 (MODE1/2048) I 11:16:34 Source File Size: 3,163,029,504 bytes I 11:16:34 Source File Volume Identifier: Beetlejuice I 11:16:34 Source File Application Identifier: IMGBURN V2.3.2.0 - THE ULTIMATE IMAGE BURNER! I 11:16:34 Source File Implementation Identifier: ImgBurn I 11:16:34 Source File File System(s): ISO9660, UDF (1.02) I 11:16:34 Destination Device: [2:2:0] TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H653L 0514 (E:) (ATA) I 11:16:34 Destination Media Type: DVD-R (Disc ID: MCC 03RG20) (Speeds: 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x) I 11:16:34 Destination Media Sectors: 2,297,888 I 11:16:34 Write Mode: DVD I 11:16:34 Write Type: DAO I 11:16:34 Write Speed: 12x I 11:16:34 Link Size: Auto I 11:16:34 Test Mode: No I 11:16:34 BURN-Proof: Enabled I 11:16:34 Filling Buffer... (40 MB) I 11:16:35 Writing LeadIn... I 11:17:01 Writing Image... (LBA: 0 - 1544447) I 11:21:41 Synchronising Cache... I 11:21:55 Image MD5: e3b6df23d8a982573030b310c962419e I 11:21:55 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:05:21 I 11:21:55 Average Write Rate: 11,071 KB/s (8.0x) - Maximum Write Rate: 16,777 KB/s (12.1x) I 11:21:55 Cycling Tray before Verify... Thanks again! Yann

Another question: as I read this log, I see the line: I 09:18:49 Destination Device: [2:2:0] TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H653L 0514 (E:) (ATA) I don't know much about these hardware questions, but when I look at my Device Manager, I have a NVIDIA Serial ATA controller with a primary channel for my HD and a secondary channel for the disk drive. So I am under the impression that the log should say SATA and not ATA. Is this right? Yann

I think I posted the entire log. (You might have to scroll down, though ) Yann

I just got a new HP Pavilion m8100n which I purchased just to do video work. It has a Samsung drive (TS-H653L), and I have wasted a number of DVD-Rs and had only coasters with DVD-RWs. I burnt close to a hundred DVDs with my older Toshiba laptop without any problems, using the same software and same DVDs. I believe I used a good quality DVD-R (Verbatim/Mitsubishi) -- at least I hope!: I 09:17:04 ImgBurn Version 2.3.2.0 started! I 09:17:04 Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 2) I 09:17:04 Total Physical Memory: 3,013,004 KB - Available: 2,497,476 KB I 09:17:04 Initialising SPTI... I 09:17:04 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... I 09:17:07 Found 1 DVD±RW/RAM! I 09:18:25 Operation Started! I 09:18:25 Building Image Tree... I 09:18:42 Checking Directory Depth... I 09:18:42 Calculating Totals... I 09:18:42 Preparing Image... I 09:18:42 Checking Path Length... I 09:18:42 Image Size: 3,163,029,504 bytes I 09:18:42 Image Sectors: 1,544,448 I 09:18:49 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:00:23 I 09:18:49 Operation Started! I 09:18:49 Source File: -==/\/[bUILD IMAGE]\/\==- I 09:18:49 Source File Sectors: 1,544,448 (MODE1/2048) I 09:18:49 Source File Size: 3,163,029,504 bytes I 09:18:49 Source File Volume Identifier: Beetlejuice I 09:18:49 Source File Application Identifier: IMGBURN V2.3.2.0 - THE ULTIMATE IMAGE BURNER! I 09:18:49 Source File Implementation Identifier: ImgBurn I 09:18:49 Source File File System(s): ISO9660, UDF (1.02) I 09:18:49 Destination Device: [2:2:0] TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H653L 0514 (E:) (ATA) I 09:18:49 Destination Media Type: DVD-R (Disc ID: MCC 03RG20) (Speeds: 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x) I 09:18:49 Destination Media Sectors: 2,297,888 I 09:18:49 Write Mode: DVD I 09:18:49 Write Type: DAO I 09:18:49 Write Speed: 4x I 09:18:49 Link Size: Auto I 09:18:49 Test Mode: No I 09:18:49 BURN-Proof: Enabled I 09:18:49 Filling Buffer... (40 MB) I 09:18:50 Writing LeadIn... I 09:19:10 Writing Image... (LBA: 0 - 1544447) I 09:28:46 Synchronising Cache... I 09:29:10 Image MD5: 50e2d021b912d9d916554571c4f62902 I 09:29:10 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:10:21 I 09:29:10 Average Write Rate: 5,362 KB/s (3.9x) - Maximum Write Rate: 5,592 KB/s (4.0x) I 09:29:10 Cycling Tray before Verify... W 09:29:17 Waiting for device to become ready... I 09:29:57 Device Ready! I 09:29:57 Operation Started! I 09:29:57 Source Device: [2:2:0] TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H653L 0514 (E:) (ATA) I 09:29:57 Source Media Type: DVD-R (Book Type: DVD-R) (Disc ID: MCC 03RG20) (Speeds: 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x) I 09:29:57 Image File: -==/\/[bUILD IMAGE]\/\==- I 09:29:57 Image File Sectors: 1,544,448 (MODE1/2048) I 09:29:57 Image File Size: 3,163,029,504 bytes I 09:29:57 Image File Volume Identifier: Beetlejuice I 09:29:57 Image File Application Identifier: IMGBURN V2.3.2.0 - THE ULTIMATE IMAGE BURNER! I 09:29:57 Image File Implementation Identifier: ImgBurn I 09:29:57 Image File File System(s): ISO9660, UDF (1.02) I 09:29:57 Verifying Sectors... (LBA: 0 - 1544447) W 09:32:44 Failed to Read Sector 0 - Logical Block Address out of Range W 09:32:46 Failed to Read Sector 1 - Logical Block Address out of Range E 09:32:50 Failed to Read Sector 2 - Logical Block Address out of Range E 09:32:50 Failed to Verify Sectors! E 09:32:53 Operation Failed! - Duration: 00:02:53 I 09:32:53 Average Verify Rate: 0 KB/s (0.0x) - Maximum Verify Rate: 0 KB/s (0.0x) I am greatly disappointed with this new hardware, but I hope I have a configuration or software problem. Any help greatly appreciated. Yann