dbminter

And those are actually cheap discs. They may have Verbatim's name on them, but they're CMC Magnetics discs. Verbatim does farm out to cheap CMC for some of their BD-RE. Haven't seen them use it for their BD-R. Verbatim makes the ones I use. However, in your case, it's probably not the CMC media that is causing the problem as the cheap discs you mentioned using before the Verbatims didn't have this problem. Unless they, too, had a Disc ID: CMCMAG. Although by that same token, you used cheap discs before that worked fine but these cheap discs don't. That seems to imply that your drive doesn't like that particular Disc ID.

It's probably either a problem with your DVD player connected to the TV or the TV itself. Of the 2, it's most likely the DVD player. Somehow, it doesn't support the audio codecs used to create the files in your VTS folder. I've seen a case where this can happen. I discovered if I used flexible recording speed on my Panasonic DVD recorder, the first model of Playstation 2 would gradually cause audio to be out of synch with the video. No other players did this and it was fixed by the time Sony made its Playstation 3. The best thing you can do at this point is try the DVD in a different DVD player, preferably not made by the same company as yours, connected to a different TV. See if you still get no sound.

You can do it either way, either dynamic or rewrite the contents on disc each time. There are advantages to each method. The dynamic way is to format the RW disc in Windows. It will create, essentially, a giant floppy out the disc. You can add files, delete them, rename them, basically anything you'd do in a folder in Windows/File Explorer on the RW. The advantages are obvious. You don't have create an entirely new disc each time. The drawbacks are, well, I don't know if it counts anymore. In the old days of UDF packet writing with software included in things like Nero, the discs were highly unstable. If a file failed to write to the disc, and it happened all the time, ALL of the contents were destroyed. I've never encountered that in the 2 or 3 years I've been using Windows formatted RW discs except on an ASUS burner that destroyed ALL rewritable discs it wrote to. So, I don't know how unstable this method could be. I've never encountered a problem, but that doesn't mean there can't be with this method. ImgBurn can only create new discs each time. So, each time you create a new image file, it must erase the table of contents on the RW so the space can be written to by the new image. The advantage to this method is the track is closed each time the disc is written to. It would be "stable" versus the potential for problems IF they exist with the first method. The disadvantages, of course, are you must create a new image file each time and the file must be entirely written to the disc. This method, naturally, takes more time than the first. If I were to choose in your case, I'd go with the first method. I've only ever encountered that issue I mentioned doing it that way and that was the fault of the ASUS burner, not the method. To format the disc, insert the RW into a drive and open Windows/File Explorer. Right click on the drive containing the RW and choose Format. Make sure, of course, you're formatting the RW. You don't want to format a hard disk drive or a thumb drive by accident.

Yeah, it was temporary for some reason. I tried everything I could think of that might help it. Closing down Windows, powering off the system, letting it off for a minute, restarting the PC and Windows, tried ImgBurn again and it still was present. Then, it just went away. Go figure!

Is it also initiated at program shut down?

Hm, it went away! Is the Program Update Thread just a check for new versions? Probably not because isn't that done at the startup of ImgBurn? If it is just a check for new versions, then the update server might have been unresponsive.

I swapped my 2 year old Pioneer Blu-Ray burner for a newer version of the same model. After installing the new drive, ImgBurn does something it didn't before. On closing down of ImgBurn, it says Terminating Program Update Thread... and takes about 30 to 60 seconds before ImgBurn closes. Earlier in the day with the old Pioneer, ImgBurn would close down immediately. Is this something I should be worried about regarding the new Pioneer drive? That maybe it arrived defective? Here's the log, not that it will be helpful. I 18:14:41 Project Successfully Loaded! I 18:14:41 ImgBurn Version 2.5.8.0 started! I 18:14:41 Microsoft Windows 8 Core x64 Edition (6.2, Build 9200) I 18:14:41 Total Physical Memory: 12,532,940 KiB - Available: 8,226,820 KiB I 18:14:41 Initialising SPTI... I 18:14:41 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... I 18:14:41 -> Drive 1 - Info: ELBY CLONEDRIVE 1.4 (N:) (SCSI) I 18:14:41 -> Drive 2 - Info: PIONEER BD-RW BDR-209M 1.33-ID60 (S:) (SATA) I 18:14:41 -> Drive 3 - Info: ELBY CLONEDRIVE 1.4 (L:) (SCSI) I 18:14:41 -> Drive 4 - Info: ELBY CLONEDRIVE 1.4 (Q:) (SCSI) I 18:14:41 -> Drive 5 - Info: PIONEER BD-RW BDR-209M 1.33-ID60 (K:) (SATA) I 18:14:41 Found 3 BD-ROM/HD DVD-ROMs and 2 BD-RE XLs! I 18:14:55 Close Request Acknowledged I 18:14:55 Closing Down... I 18:15:44 Shutting down SPTI... I 18:15:44 ImgBurn closed! Thanks!

I save project files every day just fine. I have ImgBurn open a default .ibb every time it starts. So, it seems to be an issue on your end. I'd first try saving the .ibb file to another location. Make sure that regardless of where you save, it happens. I'd also try to make sure you try saving to an entirely different drive, like a thumb drive.

ImgBurn won't do anything for copy protection. It won't even read in copy protected discs. ImgBurn just burns what you feed it. So, if the source Blu-Ray files have a Cinavia issue, whatever that may be, it will be transferred over to the images ImgBurn creates and burns.

I've never posted a drive review thingy here before, so bear with me. Unfortunately, I don't really have any graph data because of the nature of the drive destroying rewritable media. This post is more of a warning for people to be wary of this drive. I've had 2 of these drives and they both suffered from the same problem of destroying rewritable media. So, it's not that I just received a bad drive the first time. It's an inherent design flaw in the drive. I've thrown about half a dozen Ritek 8x DVD+RW (Disc ID: RICOHJPN-W21-01) at it. After each write completes in ImgBurn, this drive would render the disc empty. Verifies never start because the drive is constantly attempting to recognize it. The drive lights flash infinitely. Windows will not recognize a disc has been inserted but File Explorer will list the disc as empty. I tried the same on a Verbatim BD-RE DL. It did the same thing. So, this drive destroys rewritable media. I could never fully erase the discs and try again because no drive, even my other Pioneer and ASUS USB, ever recognizes a disc has been inserted. I inserted 2 Verbatim BD-RE DL that had been formatted by Windows as giant floppies. I copied over files to them and on random files, Windows would return the "error" Cannot read from source file or disc. Immediately selecting Retry resumes the copy. It did this once on the first disc and twice on the 2nd. However, the real killer is the files actually written to the media are not written correctly! I copied over many parts in a chain of a file backup from Macrium Reflect to these discs. Reflect would load the last file in the chain to get the list of files from the archive. However, on Verify, the first file would fail to read from the first disc! It would cause Reflect to Not Respond and eventually return the "error" Verification failure Read error - permission denied. So, this means the drive wasn't even correctly writing to the BD-RE DL media. Even after I replaced the destroyed disc with a new one. This drive definitely is worse than the ASUS USB one I had. I went with an ASUS internal because of my good experience with the ASUS USB. However, the internal USB drive appears to be junk. It destroys rewritable media. Not just one kind, but at least 2 different disc formats. So, it seems that all rewritable media would probably suffer. This isn't a firmware issue, unfortunately, because there are no firmware updates for this model or the model that preceded it. What few DVD-R and BD-R I burned were apparently fine. So, WORM media seems to be no problem with this model. However, since this rewritable issue happened on 2 different samples of this model I received, it's an inherent design flaw in the drive itself. Because it destroys rewritable media, I cannot recommend this drive. I can say you shouldn't try it because I've already tried it for you.

If you compress this list of files, you do run a higher risk of being unable to access them all. If one KB of that archive is corrupted due to being unable to being read off an optical disc, then you may not be able to access any of the files after that point in the archive stream. So, I'd just burn the many singular files to a disc. That way if part of the disc becomes corrupted, then you only lose X number of files at that point. Files elsewhere on the disc that aren't on corrupted sectors can still be recovered. And if you have thumb drives, those are also viable. If you never plan on updating the files, then you don't have to worry about the moving parts of an external HDD. And if you don't add any more files to the flash drives, you don't run the risk of the flash being unreadable. I know flash drives have a finite number of writes in their life span. But, I don't know if reading files from a flash drive does any kind of "damage" to it. Meaning, can flash drives be read indefinitely as long as no further writes are made to them? If that's the case, then the flash drives might be a better choice. Plus, the flash drives have higher capacities available versus optical discs. You can get 256 GB flash drives, however they are more expensive than, say, a BD-R XL. Plus, BD-R XL maxes out at 125 GB. And with multiple layers, multiple layer discs have a potential for failure before single layer media.

I don't know if this really belongs here, but it was the best place I could think of putting it. If it belongs somewhere else, freely move it. I was wanting some recommendations for a USB 3.0 external enclosure for optical drives. I want one so when I get new internal drives, I can connect them externally and test them before I put them in internally. I can then save some time should a drive be borked or just plain junk. Basically, I want one where someone has tested it and found out it doesn't have the semaphore time out error on their setup. No guarantee it won't time out on MY setup, but it saves me from getting one where someone has found it does have a bridge suffering from semaphore time out errors. Thanks!

My experience has been the only thing I've ever successfully overburned was CD-R. One and only time has overburned ever worked for me and that was CD-R.

I did some digging. It seems pci.sys is part of SDK's for Windows applications. It's a common Windows system file and it does apparently have something to do with how software communicates with hardware.

Well, ZoneAlarm seems to have forgotten a lot of things I told it to remember and has started asking again. So, ImgBurn was asked again. The "driver" is listed as WINDRVDIR\pci.sys

I'm just going by memory, but ZoneAlarm, I think, said some .SYS file was trying to load as a driver. And I think it's file name did start with an l.

ImgBurn loads a driver on startup, according to ZoneAlarm. What is the name of that driver, I forget? And what does it do?

And there are apparently just reasons where drives randomly disappear from the system. I've got one where if there's a sudden power fluctuation, like if the heater or air conditioner comes on, my system goes through an entire rescan of all USB connected devices. But ONLY if my Brother printer is attached. It doesn't do that if the USB cable from my printer is disconnected. I also had one where AnyDVD didn't like the drive being connected. After a little bit or reading, it would "lose" the fact that the drive was there, even though Windows/ImgBurn still detected it. However, I'd first try replacing the USB data cable. Start with the easiest to diagnose probabilities first. Then, I'd try a different USB port, preferably not in the same location, e.g. if it's in the back, try any in the front, etc.

That makes more sense than an image file being 9 KB. Plus, if there was a 9 KB image file, there wouldn't be any i00, i01, etc. files because those are the image files.

Also, I don't understand the 9kb image size part. I don't see how any disc could be just 9 KB in contents.

I typoed Device bugger! Anyway, I was wondering the purpose of the Device buffer (I DID IT AGAIN!). Was it added to address the problem of buffer (ACK!) underrun errors? 15 plus years ago when I first got into optical burning with CD-R, the majority of the problems were burns crapping out due to buffer underrun errors. I don't think I've encountered such an error in over a decade.

Also, you may want to avoid using the CMC MAG media. CMC MAG DVD and CD media causes most of the problems we see on this board.

Pioneer's can be iffy things. Take this story. I've had 3 of the same burners: one to replace my LG, one to serve as my read source, and a 3rd one to replace my first one because Eject didn't always work on the first time. Well, the eject issue started up with my 3rd Pioneer after like 7 months, so there's some kind of design flaw there. Then, after only 9 months, my 3rd burner started crapping out randomly during writes to BD-R. I had to swap it out and replace it with my 1st burner, which is almost 2 years old, but still burns. Just doesn't eject on the first time each time. Then there's the 1.34 firmware. It's borked on Ritek 8x DVD+RW media. Burns complete but all Verifies fail. Regressing the firmware back to 1.33, and it's all smooth sailing. So, what can you do? Pioneer is really the only option I've ever found that works "well." So, you have to take its flaws with its benefits. I may try the ASUS again with the express intent of being able to to return it, in case I just got a bad sample drive.

Besides, wouldn't ImgBurn not work at all for such a thing? ImgBurn should only write to optical media, not USB sticks.

Ah, but did you try 5 different BRANDS of DVD+R DL or just 5 discs from one stack of the same brand of DVD+R DL? If it's the latter, then you've most likely proven my point. If it was the latter, then you just used more than 5 CMC DVD+R DL. That tells me either your drive doesn't like that particular CMC DID of disc or it says your drive needs replacing, depending on its age. If the known good Verbatim DataLife Plus MKM's also fail, your problem is deeper than just the manufacturer of the discs you're using.