dbminter

The problem with finding USB burner firmer is you'll probably NEVER find it. I've NEVER found a single firmware update for ANY external USB burner I've ever had. The problem is in most cases an external drive is just an internal drive inside an enclosure. However, the disc ID string is modified to represent a different drive. Since you're using a USB drive, I have to ask if it's a slim drive or a full size drive? If it's a slim drive, that's most likely your problem. Slim drives are junk. Try a full size drive. Did you try using ImgBurn's check for firmware? In Read or Write mode, right click on the drive in the drop down list and choose the last option, Check for firmware updates. This is probably the best option you'll have for limiting the results. Unless, of course, this is what you already did and that brought up the web page with the results. I don't know if you did the search manually from the ImgBurn log's return of your firmware revision string or not. You're also using RITEK media. While RITEK BD-R and BD-RE has never been a problem for me except for playing back on the PS3, with double layer DVD, Verbatim was the only quality choice that worked. Everything else was crap, except for the TDK ones I tried, which were still readable after a few years. The Ritek's I tried, more than half were unreadable after a year. I can't say if it's the same for double layer BD or not, but you might want to try Verbatim and see if that helps.

When ImgBurn starts up, is the Device listing of Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... always sorted by Device number? Regardless of the Device options to sort drives by, say, Drive Letter? I am guessing this list is sorted by Device number because it would be how the devices are listed by Windows? I ask because I see that even if the Devices option to sort by Drive Letter is selected, the devices aren't sorted by drive letter after Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... completes.

It probably did eventually read the sectors on a retry. If it really couldn't read the sectors fully, ImgBurn should have prompted out and asked you if you wanted to continue. Why you're probably having issues with the other drive is it's an external one. It's probably a slim, and slim drives are nothing but problematic.

I'm saying they're not related. That's all.

The only other possible issue it could be if it's not a dying HDD is something is interfering with the disc read of that file. Like an antivirus program or some other program had locked the file.

Ah, didn't think of that. Different sectors would probably be written to on the HDD each time.

Yeah, your issue with errors while burning DVD's may have gone away, but the actual issue still is probably there. Why the issues went away simply because you switched DVD media manufacturers escapes me because they aren't related.

I fail to see how that can be at all. The log says the file couldn't be read from C:\. Unless the file failed to read because it couldn't be read first from the DVD. Still, why would the log say it can't read from C:\ if the problem is on a DVD?

Well, you shouldn't be using Memorex CMC media. They're junk. However, that can't be your issue now because you had no problems with them before. You should use Taiyo Yuden, if you can find them, or Verbatim DataLife Plus. Notice I said DataLife Plus and NOT just Verbatim. Verbatim you find in a brick and mortar store or online that isn't DataLife Plus will be CMC. How long have you been burning this drive? Given how you've just started having this problem out of the clear blue, I lean more towards the drive having gone tits up. However, when you say you burn more than one title and it doesn't work but burning one title does work, is a little odd. When you say burning more than 1 title, what exactly do you mean? That you're using more than 1 AVI, etc. type of file in DVD Flick to convert to DVD Video? However, I think your issue may be with your hard drive, after going over the log a second time. You're getting a CRC error on your C:\ drive file being read in. It's failing to read the file from the hard drive. This particular CRC error appears to be coming from your PC's hard drive, not from the DVD+R you're burning. Or whatever C:\ happens to be, which is generally, by default, the Windows partition. Run a scan on C:\ for hard disk errors. Try and rule out that possibility first.

Is the maximum effective read speed of a Verify/Read to image operation the maximum rated write speed of the media being written/read for recordable media? I noticed during a Verify of a 16x DVD-R burn that the maximum effective read speed was 6.6x to 16x. So, would the maximum effective read speed of an 8x DVD+R DL Verify be 8x?

At the end of every Verify operation, and I guess at the end of Read operations, too, since a Verify is basically a Read operation, there's an entry saying Resetting Read Speed. Why is this reset performed at the end of every Read operation? If the speed wasn't reset, would the drive be stuck at whatever it was set at by ImgBurn until it was changed again by something else, like ImgBurn?

I managed to find what I thought were some Memorex 24x Ultra Speed CD-RW. Mitsubishi made those CD-RW's for them so they weren't typical Memorex quality junk. The CD jewel case insert and the box say "Ultra Speed CD-RW 16x-24x." BUT when you open the box and put a disc in a drive, they're actually only rated at 10x! Because Mitsubishi didn't make them! Some horse ID called InfoDisc. I wouldn't be surprised if they're typical CMC Magnetics junk. I know Memorex is as low quality as CMC because they use CMC, but I never actually expected they'd out and out LIE on the package! I have one more Memorex order coming in from Amazon.com because they were also advertised as 24x CD-RW. Regardless of the quality or the truthfulness of this order, I am NEVER buying another Memorex product ever again. They're on my shit list along with Sony, LiteOn, and Optodisc. Memorex used to make a quality CD-RW back in the early 2000's. They used 2nd tier Ritek for their BD-R and BD-RE, but even they were problematic with the PS3. And they were making double DVD cases when no else was that weren't too bad quality. Other than those products, everything I've ever tried from Memorex, including DVD players, have been absolute junk!

Yeah, I'm wondering what the actual issue is. Doesn't seem to be a burning issue here, according to the log. Most likely, the disc isn't booting on his Wii. Which unless it's been modded somehow, Wii's don't play copied game discs. Hm, I never paid attention to the image size. Is a DVD-R 4,700,000,000 bytes, I forget? If it is, that image probably just barely fits then.

Yeah, try doing a manual Verify on the discs if you still have the image file you created. That should return the LC errors you got before. Also, what error is Windows/File Explorer returning when you try to copy these files? I have a really weird instance of data files copied to BD-R but I cannot copy them from the disc to HDD. Windows returns some obscure hexadecimal string. The discs burned and verified okay. They verified manually okay. ImgBurn reads the discs to image files okay. Acronis True Image can read and verify manually the image files that are not copying from the disc in the recovery environment; didn't test it on the Windows version. It's just weird.

I never had a chance to try any Taiyo Yuden Blu-Ray media, so I can't say what their quality is like. And now that Taiyo Yuden no longer makes any optical media, it's somewhat of a moot point. Eventually, stock will run out and it won't be an option anymore.

Wow, funny thing. Less than a month after I posted this, I found a screen shot I took of an Afterdawn.com news item from January 22, 2006. It was an article about Imation buying up Memorex!

According to the reviews and the answered questions for both drives, the two main differences are mine includes a stand so that the drive can be used vertically and the one you linked to doesn't. It can only be used horizontally. The other major difference is the one you linked to apparently doesn't include the software necessary to play back Blu-Ray video discs with. So, it apparently doesn't include any Cyberlink PowerDVD software. That's probably why, most likely, the drive you linked to is significantly cheaper, too. So, if you don't need the drive to stand up vertically or you don't need an installer for the software to play back Blu-Ray video discs, you might as well go for the one you linked to because it is cheaper. As far as I can tell, physically, the drives specs are probably the same.

Yeah, that's a slim. If you want an external Blu-Ray burner, I only have experience with 1. http://www.amazon.com/External-Blu-Ray-BW-12D1S-U-BLK-AS/dp/B0051UY168?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00 That's the one I use. After testing it, I only found 1 thing it wouldn't write to: 6x Ritek DVD-RW. But, ONLY LiteOns and Optiarcs ever wrote to those.

My main experience with semaphore time period expiration errors is I don't get power calibration errors along with them. I've seen that you get them right away, at the start of a burn, before anything is even written to disc. It's caused by the USB bridge in external drives and some kind of conflict with your controller on the motherboard. It generally is only fixed by replacing the external drive. However, to get it with another error is new to me. Is this external drive a slim model? If so, slims are generally junk. Since you've tried both good Verbatim and bad CMC discs, the problem is most likely with your drive. I'd look into replacing it.

I think once you close a session, you cannot add sessions to a DVD. I don't know how you'd add more than more session, though, or if ImgBurn can do that. What it sounds like you more likely want to do is treat a DVD as a giant flash drive or floppy. You can format them in Windows/File Explorer as giant discs that you can dynamically write to until they're full. However, that means you won't be using ImgBurn to do it. In fact, if what you want to do is create many small image files and burn their contents to a DVD as long as there is space for them is not possible, I don't think. How would Windows know which "contents" to display from the disc? The first image you burnt? The last?

Only thing I can think of is your drive doesn't have a proper write strategy for burning those VERBATIM at 6x but does for MEI. MEI is made by Panasonic, even if Verbatim puts their name on the package. VERBATIM BD-R are made by Verbatim. So, your drive may be picky on Verbatim media at that speed. I'd think the only solution would be a firmware update, if one was ever released, that addressed the issue. I had a weird issue with my Pioneer where DVD+R DL from Verbatim used the same DID/MID on branded and inkjet printable 8x media. The branded would burn and verify fine but the inkjets always failed at either burning the layer break or on verify at the layer break change. This was only fixed when Pioneer updated the firmware for the drive about a year later.

Unfortunately, what tends to happen with drives that fail is they'll burn everything else fine EXCEPT for one type of media. Normally, it's DVD DL's because of the layer break. When my drives fail burning DVD+R DL's, they burn everything else fine. That LiteOn Blu-Ray that failed burned everything else but stopped writing BD-RE's after only 3 months. However, it also had a problem of randomly inserting pauses into DVD+R DL DVD Video discs that weren't layer breaks. BUT, LiteOn DVD burners also randomly do that, too. One of the reasons I stopped buying anything from LiteOn.

Branded means, in general, some kind of pre-printed label is on the disc. It usually contains the seller's logo, speed, and size. Those BD-R's you linked from Amazon.com I have used before. In fact, I last ordered them February 1st, 2015. They have the exact same MID/DID as the DataLifePlus inkjet Verbatim BD-R I started using after those. I had only 1 problem with one burn using those discs. I had a Verify fail with a miscompare because it said the file wasn't there. My first miscompare I can ever remember encountering with ImgBurn. So, I'd say give those a shot and see if your problem improves. If it doesn't improve, since those Verbatims if they have VERBATIM in the DID/MID should be known good ones, then I'd say your drive might be the problem and could need replacing. My first Blu-Ray burner was a junk LiteOn and needed replacing after 3 months. LiteOn no longer makes Blu-Ray burners so it goes to show you how crap they were to begin with.

Verbatim makes a good BD-R. At least the ones I've used have been all the same kind made by Verbatim. Unfortunately, you won't know who makes them until you open the package. The seller who puts their label on the package doesn't want you to know this information because if you did, you wouldn't buy the cheaper manufacturers which they make the most profit on. DataLifePlus is usually Verbatim's top of the line brand, but you will only find those online. However, the Verbatim branded BD-R's have the same DID/MID as the DataLifePlus BD-R. Verbatim does use CMC for their single layer BD-RE's. However, the branded BD-R I found at Best Buy and Office Depot brick and mortar stores had the same DID/MID as the DataLifePlus BD-R I got off of Amazon.com.

Yeah, CMC is usually a bad sign. They're the worst optical disc manufacturer out there. If you had used the CMC's fine before, then it could be a variety of things. Or it could be something as simply as the brand name stamped on the box changed manufacturers. Not unheard of. Optodisc went from a quality DVD-R to CMC to going on my never buy from them again list.