LIGHTNING UK!

Use unlocker / process explorer to find out what's using the drive - read the FAQ for more info.

No, sorry! I need log info / status bar details when it's slow to find them.... so if it happens again, at least you'll know what to do / look out for.

yeah because I'm hoping it'll give us a clue as to what's taking so long. The space on your hdd has nothing to do with anything.

Open it without a disc in the drive and the drive tray closed. If that takes ages then you have a problem.... read the FAQ about it getting stuck on the 'searching...' thing, enabled I/O debug mode (like it tells you to) and then post the log once it's finally finished loading. It's also worth keeping an eye on the status bar (once I/O debug mode has been enabled) to see if it gets stuck on any one thing for a while as it tries to find all the drives in your PC.

Please read my posts (and everyone elses) properly. I hate having to repeat myself. The 'RICOHJPN-D01-02' dye is not made or branded by Verbatim / Taiyo Yuden.

I'm working on it non stop. It'll be released when I'm happy with it again and any remaining issues have been dealt with. The missing write speeds text isn't a show stopper (i.e. it doesn't prevent you from burning) so I don't feel I should rush it.

It's impossible to say if it's the drive or the media until you actually show us a log of it trying to burn *decent* media - i.e. something by Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden. If the best media you can get (Verb/TY) fails then you have to assume it's the drive. Drive wise, take a look at the drive related forums at cdfreaks and make your own mind up. Something like a Pioneer DVR-116/117/216/217 or Optiarc AD-7240S should be pretty solid bets.

Yours is much better spinner!

How about using a linux live cd or something and testing it under that? Or perhaps you've already tried it under a clean build of a non beta OS? (i.e. XP SP3) What controller is the drive attached to? Intel? Nvidia? Official firmware releases don't let you downgrade. I believe there are ways around it though - check the pioneer forum at cdfreaks.

Talk to Pioneer. It's their drive that's erroring out - ImgBurn is just displaying the error it reports - i.e. 'Write Error'.

If you can't test the drive in another PC (and another drive in your PC), throw it in the bin and buy a new one.

Try the drive in another pc if you can.

I'm not doing any updates now until 1.0.07 (and ImgBurn 2.4.4.0) gets released.

do all discs (various brands / dyes) get stuck in the same way? What happens if you try with Taiyo Yuden / Verbatim media?

OverSpeed opens up new write speeds, it doesn't prevent the drive from burning at the ones listed by default (which 20x is).

Ok, all done You have a lot more options now when it comes to deciding on how to format your BD-RE Have a play around with 2.4.4.0 when it comes out and see if can get it working with spare areas turned on and the format size set to maximum. If you disable full certification and properly formatted discs it'll only take about 30 seconds too - but you should only disable certification if you know the disc is 100% fine (or don't care if it's not). The 'prefer properly formatted discs' option will make ImgBurn zero fill all the sectors on the disc once the drive says it's finished doing its part (i.e. preparing the disc for the new formatted size and certifying it).

Not if they use RITEK dyes they're not!

The whole BD25 / BD50 issue was never an issue in the first place - it doesn't exist (this was covered in earlier posts). The OP was reading the 'Sectors' count - which is 23,xxx,xxx and thought the '23' part sounded a little BD25ish. I agree, spare areas are useful - except for when having them on prevents you from being able to burn an image that's designed for a disc without them - as is the case here. Technically, in this specific situation it would in fact be possible to leave spare areas enabled but ImgBurn would need to format allowing for the minimum amount, not the maximum. NB = Number of blocks - i.e. Sectors. I will add an option to allow you to select the preferred amount (i.e. the first one in the list for a given format type - the 'with spare areas' one is 0x30 - giving you 23652352 sectors), the minimum amount (giving you 24307712 sectors) or the maximum amount (giving you 23259136 sectors).

No organisation, it's just me Thank you

Some do nothing, some spit it out, some stutter and some halt. 'spinning image' means nothing to me at all. I can't imagine what you're seeing, and to be honest, I don't need to! I know this issue is nothing to do with my program.

ImgBurn burns what you give it, in the format that you give it. i.e. it doesn't change/convert anything. If there's a problem with playback then your source files are to blame (or the drive can't read the disc because you're using cheapo media and got a bad burn). DVD Flick uses ImgBurn for its burning anyway so just stick to using that for the conversion part.

The last bit of the error line is what the drive reported whilst ImgBurn was polling it (which happens every second) to see if it had finished doing its part of the Erase yet. i.e. ImgBurn asked 'Are you done yet?' and it replied 'Format Command Failed'. This reply came back when when the drive was supposedly '99%' of the way through the erase process. It doesn't tell me WHY it failed, just that it did... so really you know as much as I do! My MEI-T01-01 discs are branded/sold by Panasonic. There's always a chance the Panasonic ones are slightly better quality / made somewhere different to the Sony ones. If one of your drives can complete the exact same erase operation in 2.4.3.0 that the other drive failed on (and you try it on one after the other, a couple of times over), yeah I'd say that drive is faulty (or needs cleaning). You already know that my drive has no problem formatting that dye to its full capacity.

Reverting won't do anything, the command is the same no matter which program (or version of it) sends it. Are the 'MEI-T01-01' dye discs brand new? Are they branded by Panasonic or another make?

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=8000

That's the filter driver info, do you have the log too? (it's more important!)