dbminter

You shouldn't be using Ritek media for dual layer discs, but since you've used them fine for months, that won't alter the situation. Generally, when drives start failing to write correctly at the layer change, it's time to replace the drive. It's reached the end of its viable life. When you get consistent failures of Verify at the layer change, the drive isn't burning the 2nd layer correctly. Generally.

On that page, people probably want to click the link underlined in blue that says here. It says that downloads the file without the download manager. The download manager is probably the wrap around software that is offering bloatware. It says Download Manager Enabled under the green and white arrow link you mentioned.

Do you have existing ISO's or discs you need to make ISO's of? If you have existing ISO's, ImgBurn won't help you in this case. Just copy them to the HDD. If you have discs you need to make ISO's of, use Read mode to create the ISO's of the discs and tell ImgBurn to store the ISO's on the portable hard drive, whatever drive letter it uses and whatever folder you want to store it in. You must have some Blu-Ray discs if the ISO's exceed 10 GB. Or you downloaded installation ISO's exceeding 10 GB for various Microsoft ISO's.

BTW, does Pioneer make an internal slim SATA BD burner? Or are they all either USB or half height internal SATA's?

I do have UAC disabled and I still can't write to that folder/get a prompt when copying and pasting files to Program Folders (x86)\ImgBurn. No, nothing gets written to the log window when attempting to save ImgBurn.ibb to C:\Program Files (x86)\ImgBurn. There's just the prompt asking me if I want to replace the existing file. Then, nothing happens after selecting to replace the file. No other prompts and nothing written to the log window.

I'm the Administrator and even I get a prompt when copying and pasting the ImgBurn.ibb file into the ImgBurn folder. Why doesn't ImgBurn return an error that it couldn't save the file if writing files isn't allowed in the Program Files (x86) directory? Shouldn't it being denied being able to write the file have returned an error prompt from ImgBurn? Or at least from Windows?

Can ImgBurn not save a new ImgBurn.ibb file in the program's installed directory because the file is loaded by ImgBurn on start up of the application? Therefore, the file is "in use?" I tried saving a new default options ImgBurn.ibb to be loaded on start of application, but ImgBurn never actually saved the file in the program's installation directory. It never displayed the dialog saying the file was successfully saved. And I checked the date/time stamp on the file and it wasn't reflecting the current date. ImgBurn would save the file to a different location, but never saved it in the installed directory. But, I'm guessing this is by design?

As long as I can find the 2209, I'll keep getting that. Only when I have to move to the Ultra HD one will I get that. I've no use for Ultra HD, either. I do, though, still plenty of DVD writing. In fact, since they no longer make and I can't find 8x DVD+RW media on the Internet, I got the last 3 cake stacks of 25 Amazon.com was offering last year. It will take some time before I deplete those. Once they're gone, I'll use the LG UHD if 6x DVD-RW can still be found. Which it can still be found laying around Amazon.com, even though they no longer make it. Otherwise, I'll have to just go to the 4x media they still make. Which they may not even make those anymore by the time I get around to exhausting my 8x and 6x options.

I figured the Ultra HD Pioneer drive would eventually become all you could get. Why should Pioneer make a drive that costs less and does less when it can charge more for something you may not use? The LG line seems poised to do likewise. The WH series now has an Ultra HD one. That's the one I got because the last WH generation had lots of problems writing BD DL media and formatted BD-RE DL that would write corrupt data to Layer 1. I needed something that still supports 6x DVD-RW for reading. The 2209 claims it does, but inserting one returns a positioning error where the drive won't even recognize it's been inserted. I told Pioneer this so maybe they'll investigate. They did fix the 8x DVD+RW Verify failure that crept in from firmware 1.33 to 1.34 in 1.50.

The BDR-209M does support DVD-RAM according to DVD Info. Never actually tried using that media in it as I only ever used DVD-RAM on my old Panasonic DVD Video recorders starting from 2002.

Now, that I did not know. Being in North America, I only ever knew of the strings 209 and 2209, and their various internal ID strings that ImgBurn displays. So, I always used 209 and 2209 to differentiate between the Pioneer BD drive that supported M-Disc and the one that didn't. I've only ever had 1 209 and I didn't like it. It didn't work with my external enclosure like the 2209 did. And it would fail to Verify DVD+RW that I'd put the exact same disc that had just failed on the 209 in the 2209, burned the same image file to the same disc in the 2209, and it would pass Verify. So, I don't recommend the 209 over the 2209. I've had like 6 2209's and only one of them was a dud that had to go back to Amazon.com. So, I've had better luck with the 2209 over the 209, so I recommend it over the other. Now, I could have gotten a bad 209, but it doesn't make me want to try another one to see when I know the 2209 has worked well for me.

Yeah, what I call the 2209 is actually internally the BDR-209M. And there are various other strings like BDR-209UBK that I think identify this same drive. Really more confusing than it needs to be, IMO. And some bundles with my 2209 come with an M-Disc media included in addition to the Cyberlink media software suite.

On the 2209, I get about 5x max Verify of BD-RE media. However it does start really low at like 2x and only slowly increases to 5x by the end of disc. Is the 09 the same as the 2209? Because there's also a 209 as well as the 2209. I thought the 09, just by itself, was an older drive, but I'm not sure.

On my Pioneer 2209, I get higher than 2x Verify speeds on BD-RE. Although the Verify rate does seem to be significantly lower. Definitely lower than BD-R. I asked LUK if Verify was dependent on any values set for specific media in the firmware. He seemed to indicate it was just down to how the drive behaves. So, maybe.

I asked this very question once. What happens is the Verify rate gradually increases on Layer 0, gradually decreases on Layer 1, gradually increases on Layer 2, and if there's a Layer 3, gradually decreases again.

I can understand this: "First Physical Sector of Data Area: 0" but the next ones don't make much sense to me: Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 0 Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 0 It seems like the drive isn't returning information for these values. In fact, would the first sector be listed as 0? Is there a Sector 0, given that computers start numbering at 0?

I see a rather odd Warning I've never seen before: "Found end of disc." I don't know this error but since the resulting image file you tried to mount appears to be corrupted, the problem would seem to be either your drive thinks it found the end of the disc when it wasn't the end of the disc or the disc you're trying to read has gone bad. Barring trying to read this disc in another drive, that's about all I can say to try. Try to read the disc in another drive. If you still get the same error, then it would seem there's something wrong with the Windows 7 disc you're trying to read.

It's a tad odd that the 2209 is double the price. On Amazon.com, it's only got a 25% premium over the 209. If you never plan on using T/XL BD-R/E media or M-Disc or if you never plan on putting the 209 in an external enclosure or if you never plan on using Ritek 8x DVD+RW media (Which, granted, you probably never would as they don't make them anymore and I couldn't find anymore anywhere on the web.) then there's no reason for me to recommend the 2209 over the 209. However, I never tested the 209 with other types of rewritable DVD's, so the Verifies failing on it that may pass on the 2209 may or may not affect you. IF you ever even plan on using rewritable DVD media.

BTW, what are slim drives called? Quarter height drives? Are they half the size of the half height drives?

The 209 and 2209 are just different ways of identifying 2 of Pioneer's BD burners. They're actually called something else, some kind of string beginning with BD/BDR. And they have multiple names for them. I just find it easier to use 209 and 2209 to differentiate them. The difference between the 209 and 2209 is the 2209 supports BD-R/E T/XL and M-Disc and the 209 doesn't. You can tell the difference because the 2209 has BDXL printed on the lower left side of the front of the drive and the 209 is just plain blank on the front. I recently tried my first 209 and I don't recommend it over the 2209. In addition to the extra supported media types the 2209 has over the 209, I found some odd behavior with the 209. For instance, in my USB enclosure where the 2209 works, the 209 doesn't. The 209 loses communication with the system in mid operation, forcing a power off of the enclosure. And the 209, when installed internally, works, but will fail Verifies sometimes on Ritek 8x DVD+RW that are brand new and just formatted by the 209. And when the same discs fail in the 209, they will pass an immediate write test of the same media and image file to the 2209. Maybe I just got a bad unit, but, as my first experience with the 209, I was underwhelmed by it. And I recommend the 2209 over it. My first 2209 only was just recently replaced. The Eject button/command, like 1 times in 10, wouldn't work the first time. But would on the 2nd try. However all Ejects issued by ImgBurn after a read/write operation were always working. And it was only writing 4x to 8x DVD+R DL anymore. It has been used for about 2 years and still "works," just with these odd performance issues. The Eject button thing also happened to my 2nd 2209. The 3rd 2209 needed replacing after 7 months, a rare case of Pioneer not being long lived. My 3rd Pioneer I only just recently replaced after 2 years because what it was writing to formatted rewritable media would not be present once the disc was ejected. So, it actually wasn't being written to. My 4th Pioneer I sent back to Amazon.com because it was failing on quality Verbatim BD-R that my other Pioneer was still writing. The 5th one replaced the 3rd one. My 6th one replaced the 209 I tried replacing my 3rd 2209 with.

Is this the 209 or 2209? If you've been using this drive fine and it suddenly started acting up, the problem is most likely the drive. How long have you been using it? My general experience with the 2209 is it lasts about 2 years before it needs replacing. Plus, if you're getting this error on all media you try, the problem is either the drive, its connection, or some Windows problem. Do you have a known BD you burned and verified successfully that you can put in and manually perform a Verify on? You probably can't verify against the contents of an image file as you most likely no longer have the image file that the disc was burned from. But, it can Verify that the contents can be read. If Verify fails on a disc that Verified before, then it's not the media. The problem is the drive, its connection, or some Windows error.

Yeah, just because it can read, i.e. play a DVD, doesn't mean it's write function isn't affected. Generally, write operations will fail in a drive before reads do, due to the nature of the beast.

Try copying the file VTS_01_3.VOB from disc in File Explorer to another location. You don't need to worry about decrypting it unless it's protected by a structural protection scheme. You're just interested in if the file can be read from the disc at all. If the file doesn't copy, the disc is probably damaged and it can't be read. Try on different drives and see if it still can't copy. If it can't, the disc is the problem. If this VOB is in the main movie, you can test the disc by playing the movie in a player and scanning forward at 10x. If it ever gets stuck at scanning, then the disc can't be read and the problem is the disc.

Well, it's always possible you got a bad batch of blanks, but highly unlikely. If you've used this drive for 5 years, it's probably just died on you. The best I've ever had a drive last is 2 years. Since you've never used these Verbatims before, it's probably just a case of the drive not liking that media, which only a firmware update would fix. I say the problem is down to the drive, somehow. Either it's died after 5 years of faithful service or its firmware doesn't like Verbatim MCC media.

I googled the drive string of the burner you're using. It's a slim drive. Slim drives are generally junk. That's probably the problem. You're using Verbatim MCC media, which is the best stuff out there, so it's not that. Could be that drive doesn't like MCC media. A firmware update might fix compatibility with that drive and media. In Write mode, right click on the target drive and choose Check for firmware update. Are these your first 6 attempts to burn with this drive and media? Or have you been able to use it for some time and this issue just started up? If that's the case, the drive might have probably reached the end of its life.