dbminter

Unfortunately, you generally won't until after you buy them. Reading product reviews can help, but generally most people don't post that kind of information in reviews; I do, though. So, it's basically by trial and error. What you do is you put a recordable disc in a PC drive and open ImgBurn in Write mode. In the right hand pane of information, look for MID (Manufacturer ID.) That string will generally tell you who made it, although those can be faked, of course. If they say CMC, they're junk. (MCC is not junk.) Forums like this one can also help. Searching for an MID string found by ImgBurn can help you determine from other posts if the manufacturer is problematic or not. There are some general rules of thumb. Avoid the Verbatim Life Series. (NOT the DataLife Plus series. Those are MCC.) They're CMC. Avoid Philips as they're generally CMC. Memorex uses a mixture of CMC, Ritek, and Mitsubishi (MCC.) But, most Memorex stuff is CMC. IF they're still around, avoid Optodisc. They used to make a quality product and then they were my first exposure to CMC.

Did you try loading the last file first? Sometimes, a split archive contains some kind of indexing material in the final file, requiring it be loaded first. That's how Reflect does it. If you try to load the first file, it will ask for the last file in the chain first and then ask for the first file again after processing the index file in the final file. I have a feeling 7zip isn't "smart" enough to do this. It hasn't been programmed in a way other than to expect all files in a chain to be in the same location. In the days of floppy disks, PKZIP/WinZip would let you span multiple diskettes and was "smart" enough to ask for the last floppy first.

CMC is short for CMC Magnetics. CMC makes the worst optical discs out there. They're trash. Over 50% of the problems seen on this board are usually caused by CMC media. When people switch away from them, their problems generally disappear. CMC, though, unfortunately, also owns Verbtaim and Taiyo Yuden, which offer some of the best discs out there. Although Verbatim farms out to Mitsubishi, the good stuff, they also use CMC trash in their lines, too.

In that 7zip example, you may be able to load the necessary first file (Which may be the last one, sometimes.) from the disc and then just swap in discs, directing 7zip when it reaches end of input. I've never actually tested this, but 7zip may detect end of input and ask for the location of the next file in the chain. Of course, it may not, as well, simply abending at end of input when all files are not present in the same location at the same time. Macrium Reflect does ask for the next file in order if it isn't found, so you can swap out discs in order without the need to copy all files to one location first. (Well, a recent bug that was fixed meant you actually COULDN'T do that until I discovered it. )

If memory serves me correctly, MediaRange is CMC.

What I do is buy a half height burner and put it in a USB 3 enclosure. Half heights are generally better and you can control what you're going to get.

In TSST, the TS is short for Toshiba Samsung. So, you could probably find a Samsung firmware update, but you'd have to get one where the ID string matches the numbers of your drive as listed in the log. And if you do download the wrong firmware, it won't update your drive because firmware packages check for a drive that they can properly update. If none is found, no update proceeds. I've also tested those external P/SATA to USB bridges for HDD's on optical drives and they do work. I was curious to see if they worked and they do. You may run into a problem buying external burners, though. Depending on the USB bridge in the enclosure and the USB controller on your motherboard, you may get a Semaphore Time Out error. If that's the case, there's little you can do beyond replacing the USB bridge in the enclosure or the USB controller on your mobo. And, it's simply easier to get a different model external burner. Cheaper, too.

It's highly unlikely you got a bad batch of discs. That generally doesn't happen, though it can, of course. You're using TY media, which is a higher grade, so it's probably not a cheap media issue. It's probably a firmware incompatibility. Check for a firmware update, apply it if there is one, and try again. If there isn't one, the problem is either a bad burner or it doesn't like those kinds of discs. The latter of which seems unlikely as you've gotten failures on both good and bad media from different manufacturers. TSST drives have been known to be problematic on this forum before. Another thing to consider is that model is a slim drive and slim drives have been known to be particularly bad, especially when compared to half height models. You've already tried CMC and TY. If you wanted to completely say it's the drive's fault, you could try the Verbatim DataLife Plus I mentioned. If those MCC discs fail as well, you can almost definitely say it's the drive that's the problem. However, I wouldn't recommend doing that as you're probably just going to spend money to verify what is most likely the problem.

Yes, you would have less of a failure chance if you stuck with BD-R SL. While you will have to store more discs, when you start going beyond one layer, you increase the likelihood of errors at the layer changes. If you're going to store a lot of BD-R, you may want to not use jewel cases and go with those CD/DVD disc carriers that can hold many discs. I use ones that store 332 discs each. I then put Post It's on the pages describing what discs are there. And I have a spreadsheet of what discs are in what carriers so I can find them easier.

I've never actually burned any BD-R beyond SL. I've burned BD-RE DL before; they seem to have a high failure rate. I'd write to them for a yearly backup, go back to them a year later to write the replacement new year's backup, and the disc would fail after its first write.

The difference between the 212 and 2212 does appear to be that the 2212 plays Ultra HD BD. This side by side comparison of the 2 units: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/compare/Pioneer_BDR-2212_vs_Pioneer_BDR-212UBK/BHitems/1520035-REG_1520034-REG shows that they're basically the same. No mention is made of Ultra HD BD, so that, is most likely, the difference between the two models. This link also seems to verify that information: https://club.myce.com/t/pioneer-bdr-212ubk-2212-212dbk/405781

I'm in the US, and it's not always universal that one kind of disc made here is the same as elsewhere. For instance, Ritek here is a decent brand, but in Europe, it seems Ritek is lousy. So, I can't say without seeing the MID as displayed in ImgBurn. On the surface and especially since it says AZO, they're probably the MCC and not the CMC stuff. BTW, those are DVD+R and the link as posted says they're DVD-R. So, I don't know which you wanted.

Here is your most likely culprit: I 17:30:32 Destination Media Type: DVD-R (Disc ID: CMC MAG. AM3) CMC Magentics makes the worst optical discs out there. (They also ironically own the 2 companies that make the best.) Over half of the problems we see on this board are caused by CMC media. And they usually (But not always.) disappear when people switch to good quality media. Try getting some Verbatim DataLife Plus/AZO discs. NOT the Life Series you find in stores, as those are CMC. Verbatim farms out to the best, MCC (Mitsubishi), and also the worst (CMC). CMC also, of course, OWNS Verbatim! You can generally only find DataLife Plus/AZO discs online. I'd first try dumping the CMC discs and getting some higher quality media.

ImgBurn does not support burns that span across more than 1 disc. You could create two ISO's in Build mode, one with about 50 GB of the contents to a BD-R DL and the rest of the contents to a 25 GB BD-R. Or just use 3 BD-R's and create 3 ISO's. However, if this is some kind of software disc, you'd have to copy the contents from all "spanned" discs to a folder on some kind of media like an HDD, SSD, or flash drive in order to execute. And even then, that might not work for running it as the software could check that it's not on its original disc somehow. Another solution, though it's even more expensive, is if your BD burner supports TL discs, you could get a BD-R TL and burn the entire 55 GB disc image to one of those. However, that's not very cost effective, but it is an option. As for LG's and DL BD, if you got the NS60, you're probably fine. If you have the NS40, yes that did not write properly to BD DL discs in all the time I used the NS40 before trying and switching to the NS60.

One thing you might consider if you're looking for long term storage of media. I haven't crunched the numbers, but buying BD-R may be cheaper for longer term storage versus buying M-Disc DVD+R. They will definitely be cheaper than M-Disc BD-R, but won't last as long. However, BD-R will definitely last longer than any recordable CD or DVD as they use organic dyes and BD-R uses metal oxide. But, BD-R won't last as long as M-Disc DVD. However, if you do use BD-R, you won't be able to natively play DVD Video or Audio CD's burned to them. They're better used as archive storage and then copied back to the proper recordable media when needed for playback. For a few years now, I've been archiving everything to BD-R, even if they will fit on a CD or a DVD. BD-R is now on par with about a $1 a disc here in the States when bought in bulk and they will last longer than CD or DVD. I don't mind paying the extra for a longer lived storage medium, but you may not want to.

8x DVD+RW is, pretty much, a dead flavor of DVD+RW. They still make 4x DVD+RW, but Imation was the last manufacturer of 8x, and even then Ritek made those for them. The only ones I can find are from a seller offering a few lots on eBay as Amazon.com's single seller no longer offers them. I believe the "Audio CD" CD-R's were merely a tax scheme. They were created as a way to levy a tax on recordable media to "make up" for people copying audio CD's with them. Entirely a scam as they weren't any better than some other kinds of CD-R out there. Taiyo Yuden, as long as they're the "genuine" high quality ones, are good. I had to briefly switch to TY DVD-R when Verbatim changed the manufacturing process of DataLife Plus DVD-R so that the NS60 no longer properly wrote to those until the 1.03 firmware update was released. If you don't get the high quality genuine "Pro" ones, they will be the CMC junk since CMC Magnetics now owns TY, too. Even at that, the so called "CMC Pro" discs are actually TY's and are good.

Ah, I got mixed up. There's like 4 212 model numbers out there over the years. At one point, what differentiated the 212 line from the 2212 line was the latter's support for BD XL and TL. Then, Ultra HD BD was thrown in the mix. For instance, the 212 I tested in that other thread did not support BD XL and TL media.

I believe the difference between the 212 and the 2212 is that the 2212 supports BD XL and TL, whereas the 212 does not.

Interesting. The NS60 is more expensive than the NS40 because it supports Ultra HD BD. But, more than twice the price? That seems excessive. Of course, Pioneer releases a firmware update that does NOTHING to address their 8x DVD+RW issues that have plagued ALL models of BD burners for MORE than 5 years. It only address PLAYBACK issues, NOT writing issues. If you never intend on writing DVD+RW media, the Pioneer 212 is fine as far as I tested it. Don't know about 4x DVD+RW, though.

Unfortunately, as far as BD goes, there is no jack of all trades unit. The best you can get is the best of the worst. They all have problems. For instance, ASUS's drive doesn't properly write DVD+R DL. A firmware update will fix it, but in 3 years, they've yet to address the issue I keep telling them. Pioneer does not write properly to 8x DVD+RW and hasn't for more than 5 years, despite my repeatedly telling them, too. Plus, the BD-RE it writes only Verify at maximum 2x, the maximum rated write speed. The LG WH16NS60 is the best of the worst, but it writes a bit slower and doesn't always properly read in all discs that other units will. The NS60 is the unit I use because it is the best of the worst. However, the write/read speeds set in ImgBurn tend to get ignored by the NS60. I've tried setting CD read speed to 1x and it gets ignored, reading instead at maximum write speed. The NS40 can be used, unless you want to to BD-R DL or BD-RE DL. It has never properly written those, despite, once again, my years of telling them a firmware update is needed for the NS40. Once I discovered the NS60 properly writes to DL BD media, I started getting it. LG also has a very liberal replacement policy. 2 months ago, I got a replacement for a drive still under warranty. But, after 2 months, it stopped reading DVD discs when inserted. LG is replacing it, too, and, as a courtesy, they sent me a prepaid shipping label, which they haven't done in the past.

It's been like a decade, probably, but I didn't find any alternative to WMPCDText when I tried it out before. I don't use WMP anymore. I've moved to MPC-HC.

I found the WMPCDText plugin to be highly unreliable. Enough so that I eventually uninstalled it.

Yeah, the 212 is definitely junk. After repeated variances between 6x and 8x write maxes on DVD+RW, I put in a new, unformatted 8x DVD+RW in the 212. It failed Verify, so Pioneer still doesn't know what the Hell it's doing when it comes to firmware. For more than 5 years, the Pioneer firmware fails to properly write to any 8x DVD+RW. And, given that Pioneer doesn't know its ass from a hole in the ground, I fail to see any hope that the 213 will do any better.

Yeah, that's what I was expecting. Drives don't always obey what ImgBurn sends to them. Thanks!

I set the read speeds for both values to 1x. Audio CD read at 40x. Are these user set values just ignored if the drive cannot set those values? Thanks!