LIGHTNING UK!

Maybe try the newer Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver? https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/55005/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST- If that doesn't work, see if you can revert to the Microsoft one. You need to find a driver that does away with the OS reported I/O Error and returns what the drive is actually reporting (if anything). This is an OS error: - "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

That looks like a driver issue to me. Right click the drive selection drop down box and pick 'Family Tree' please. Close the prompt that comes up and then copy + paste everything from the Log window.

There's a log window that's meant to be left open all the time. If you've closed it, open it again via the View menu. The auto-saved log can be found via the Help menu Without seeing the log, I can't answer your other questions.

Unless I add a generic image conversion feature, I can't see this happening. That in itself is unlikely to happen either as if ImgBurn supports the files, it doesn't need to convert them. As for how it's done... well if it's going from 2064 bytes per sector to 2048 bytes per sector, you're just throwing 16 away somewhere.

Yes, on the 'Media' tab... Which you'll find on the 'Advanced' one.

Use a DVD-R.

Do you mean the 'Drop Zone' ? It's enabled via the View menu when in certain program modes. You can drop things on it even when ImgBurn isn't the foreground window. Doing so would usually add them to the 'Source' box.

Then you must have some sort of caching issue. The file on Mirror 7 has the hashes posted on the website. I've just downloaded it again and re-verified. If you've got an exe with an MD5 of 4BF2B8F4B46385BFDA4D65E423CFB868, that's fine too.

The MD5 listed (which I've just this second updated... thanks for the reminder!) should match the file from Mirror 7 - the 'direct' ImgBurn one.

There's a much better / simpler way. fsutil file createnew dummy.txt i.e. The following would make a 1 GiB dummy file. fsutil file createnew dummy.bin 1073741824 Now... looking at that thread (specifically, the remark at the top of the actual post you quoted), I can't see it really wouldn't look 'full' if you had a zeroed file. Then again, I've never tried it. If I wrote 10 files (5 with random data, 5 with zeros) and alternated their names/physical positioning, would my disc come out having 'bands' on the burnt side? I guess that's essentially how LightScribe etc. do their thing. Having just Googled a few things, it seems as if the laser actually burns (creates bumps / pits) in order to store a 0 and the unburnt area (lack of bump / pit) represents a 1.

The drive's firmware controls that sort of thing. There's nothing ImgBurn can do to get around it I'm afraid. If it burns and verifies ok, your discs should be fine. Post the log so we can see what's happening please.

No, sorry.

I see, so you wanted a 2nd (external) drive in order to do disc to disc. Assuming your case only has room for one internal drive, that makes perfect sense. Seeing as ImgBurn doesn't support such a thing though and that's what we're talking about in this forum, it would make sense to have your best drive inside the PC on a permanent SATA connection and use that for non disc-to-disc burns. Whilst I haven't done any tests with USB 3.1, I've yet to see any device that can do 500+ MB/s via USB (my USB 3.0 -> SATA adapters don't even do 200 MB/s), yet most SSD devices easily do that on a direct SATA connection. Even SATA 1 with a quoted speed of 150MB/s is more than enough for anything an optical drive is capable of. Most SATA ports are SATA 3 now - quoted at 600MB/s. Your external drive is no different to the internal versions from the same companies. You just bought the drive in a USB enclosure - which unfortunately doesn't appear to like your machine. If anything, it's the internal models that get the firmware updates - which in turn are what add support for new media and tweak compatibility with older ones. The BH16NS55 is LGs latest offering. It'll do everything your external one does and is probably cheaper.

You could always try putting the LG inside the Plextor's case? Why didn't you just replace your internal drive with another one? A direct SATA connection is much better than a USB one - unless your motherboard also uses a horrible SATA chipset?! To answer your questions... What is a “Semaphore”? Google answer - In computer science, a semaphore is a variable or abstract data type that is used for controlling access, by multiple processes, to a common resource in a concurrent system such as a multiprogramming operating system. Is the “Timeout” an option value? Yes, and it's set a quite a large value within the program itself. If things do as they're told, it wouldn't expire. Why is the device taken offline after the errors and what software does this? Windows or the drivers ImgBurn shows two buffers used; a “buffer” and a “device buffer”. Where are these buffers located (drive or PC)? Buffer is in computer/system memory. Device Buffer is in the drive. Where is the “failed cache” located? That's essentially talking about the same thing as the 'Device Buffer'. Drives have 'cache', and data gets transferred from the PC to the drive, filling up its internal cache. What “caches” are being synchronized? See above. It just asks the drive to finish writing whatever's in its internal buffer/cache (if possible).

People do sleep, be patient. Your drive probably isn't capable of overburning DL media. You need the correct hardware for the job. A slimline drive is basically never going to be the correct hardware, they're rubbish at most 'normal' things, let alone anything else. Why would you attempt to erase / format a 'write once' disc? That's not going to work. Once they're burnt, they're burnt. If they don't work, bin them.

What you're after is a CD-Extra disc. This may help... http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?/topic/21027-really/

The options related to 'default' something are what gets selected by default for items you add. So if you pick a default of 'tag', each file you add has that option selected by default. Yes, each option for where the cdtext info comes from (none, file name, tag, custom) applies to the track title and the track artist. Tag means the program will try and read title / artist from the file's metadata. If none is present, there's nothing to read and the fields will be blank.

Tag reads the 'tag' (metadata) from the audio file. Google 'ID3 tags' for an idea on what they are. Custom lets you type in your own values. Which buttons are you talking about? There are only 3 (Quick OK, OK, Cancel) and 2 (OK, Cancel) should be very obvious. Do you mean something else? The defaults work best.

Cool, glad it worked.

Yeah, I meant from within updater.exe, not the sfx rar file. My 7zip shows a '.rsrc' folder. Within that, a 'BINARY' one. Within that, there's an item named '132' (this is in the 1.34 firmware for the 209M). That '132' item extracts to what looks like a binary firmware.

There are ways to get the bin file from the exe I believe. 7zip lets you explore them and extract a binary file that looks a lot like how the bin file should. I'd check with someone at CDFreaks / MyCE to confirm it's ok though.

I'm sure DVRTool will let you downgrade the firmware. http://club.myce.com/f87/dvrtool-pioneer-dvr-bdr-firmware-flashing-utility-v1-02-a-340357/

What's the message in the status bar at that point?

That looks ok to me. Maybe the CD player is at fault? Put the disc back in the drive, go into Read mode and click the 'Media Information' button in the Source box. See what it lists for the CD-TEXT.

It's the same process no matter where you're reading from or writing to. Sata channels are independent of each other and should all be able to run at max speed at the same time. So basically, it shouldn't matter if you're doing sata -> sata.