LIGHTNING UK!

ok and so what message do you see in the status bar at the bottom of the main window when you can't click the 'Write' button? There's a firmware update available for your drive. http://www.firmwarehq.com/Optiarc/AD-7173S/files.html

Post what's written in the log windows please - as per the pink box up the top

Buy them from somewhere online that lists the info - or do a lot of research and try to work it out based on info provided by other users such as yourself. Failing that, buy branded discs where you know that brand only ever uses certain MIDs/dyes - like Verbatim / Taiyo Yuden (Victor JVC).

It would appear that way, yes.

Try again after updating the drive's firmware. http://www.firmwarehq.com/LG/GGW-H20L/files.html If it still doesn't work, you know not to use any discs using the 'CMCMAG-BA5-000' MID/dye again.

I'm sorry, I can't give you the answer you're looking for. The drive burns the disc and it's failing to do so - there's nothing I can do about it. ImgBurn tells you the error the drive returned when it failed. Maybe the quality of the discs has deteriorated over time or your most recent spindle uses a different dye/MID to your previous ones. The next logical step in troubleshooting your issue is to try with decent discs.

Well, you've now got 2 drives that won't burn the cheapo 'RITEKF1' MID/dye (the 'Maxell' brand name means nothing). So like I said, try better discs... or don't, the choice is yours.

The write speed can make a difference between a good and a bad burn. That is, utter failure or passable - the actual write quality might still be awful. Slower doesn't always equal better these days. Can you please post a log of you attempting to burn that image? Just copy + paste as much as you can from the Log window, even if the Verify bit never really gets going. As for 'is there anything I can do to prevent it'... that depends. Are you using Taiyo Yuden CDs? If not, that's something you can do - they're the best.

Have you tried burning at all of the supported write speeds? If none of them work, buy better discs. Something from Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden (Victor JVC).

The 8x discs will work fine. It's a technical limitation that it can't handle DVD+R DL any faster than 6x (slimline drives are rubbish), that doesn't mean the firmware won't support 8x discs at speeds below that (i.e. 4x and 6x). Give them a try

I assume the 'no seek complete' error is during the verify stage? That's probably due to the media you're using and/or the write speed chosen. If you're getting that in the old version, you'll be getting it in the new version too - only now it's probably having more of an impact on the track analysis phase.

What, you've got Verbatim discs now? Post a new log then please.

Yes, read the thread I posted in my last reply and do what it says!

When you buy DVD discs they're either single layer (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW) or they're double layer (DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL). The single layer ones are marked up as 4.37 or 4.7GB usually and the double layer ones will be something like 8.5GB. Any amount of searching via Google etc will show you what they are and pretty much anywhere that sells single layer dvds will also sell double layer ones.

That image is meant to go on a double layer disc.

The problem isn't OS related, it's down to the drive being use and the disc in it. What format is the original image? How comes you're mounting it and making a new image rather than just burning the original - I guess the original one isn't supported or something?

Look in the 'Mode' menu at the top.

It's your antivirus program, which I asuume is 'Avast'. It's sandboxing the app.

Sorry, I haven't a clue. I know nothing about Macs, Parallels etc. Is Parallels up-to-date / the latest version? On the disc that failed with 'Peripheral Device Write Fault', try scanning it (PIPO / Disc Quality scan) in DVDInfoPro / CDSpeed / Opti Drive Control / kProbe etc and see what it's like. I can't tell if the write did actually error out for a good reason (the drive didn't like the disc) or it was just the virtual machine messing up. Are there any alternatives to Parallels? A quick Google suggests VMWare Fusion. Maybe give the trial a shot? Is there a way of running native Windows 7 on that physical machine? Again, I know nothing about Macs How about adding the drive internally - not via USB - is that an option?

The full erase is what would have done it, even if it got stuck. Quick erase does nothing except write zeros to the first few hundred sectors... which of course you'd be writing to anyway if you're trying to write an image.

Do you have the logs from the others? Brand names don't mean much (except with Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden), they could all be using rubbish MID codes/dyes like the 'RITEK-F16-01' shown there. That said, if the drive is failing with everything you throw at it, it's probably dirty (clean it with a cleaning disc) or faulty.

It's because the disc is (was) formatted with spare areas enabled - thus the drive activates 'hardware defect management' and verifies every 'write' operation on the fly as it goes. Doing so slows the burn down a lot. I can't see that a quick erase in ImgBurn would have made any difference to it... is that really all you did? A Full erase would have (if using default settings) formatted the disc again but turned off spare areas and therefore deactivated defect management. The other way to make it burn at normal speed (even when defect management is enabled) is to enable the 'FastWrite' option in the settings ('Write' tab).

The initial error - ASC: 0x09, ASCQ: 0x90 isn't documented anywhere, but here are some other errors from the ASC 0x09 series... 09 00 TRACK FOLLOWING ERROR 09 01 TRACKING SERVO FAILURE 09 02 FOCUS SERVO FAILURE 09 03 SPINDLE SERVO FAILURE 09 04 HEAD SELECT FAULT It all adds up to your drive not liking the discs you're using. Give it another go at 4x or something. Notice the speed you requested (12x) isn't supported so the drive used 8x instead. If it doesn't work at 4x, get yourself some better discs - Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden (Victor JVC).

Ah well, it was worth a shot. I guess the drive you have now just produces discs your player can't read. It's probably a firmware bug. I see it doesn't support the usual booktype/bitsetting commands and it doesn't automatically change the booktype to DVD-ROM (which is a bit weird)... but I'm sure the Sony players can't be relying on that - or can they?! Are you able to try some of the 8x Verbatim discs? MKM-003-00 rather than MKM-001-00

I only ask because for Vista+ they're disabled automatically It's probably a graphics card driver issue (perhaps something they've changed on purpose?) if it's not working in XP.