Flawless115

You may want to try this place also. If I'm not mistaken, I believe they're based out of CA, so you should be able to order discs, and have them delivered relatively fast. I ordered a cake box of TY's from them and received the order within two days without any problems. Keep in mind, I live in Maryland so I coughed up the money for the two-day delivery; since you live in CA, you may not have to. supermediastore.com

From what it sounds like, even if you manage to burn to the disc, the playback is questionable; perhaps not in the short run, but definitely in the long run.

Not that I'm an expert (by far), but I agree with corny's question. I have used the same type of media (MCC-004-00), which I've read is good quality media, writing at no faster than 8X, and it's worked out fine for me every time (after I replaced my old, dysfunctional drive with a new one), granted I, now, have a BenQ 1640. I really cannot speak upon the quality of the drive you are using, mountainbear, since I'm not an expert on burners.

The thread LFC mentions was my original post when I had the Philips 8631 that was giving me problems. Apparently, the Philips 8600 series can be cross-flashed to a BenQ 1620, while the Philips 8700 series can be cross-flashed to a BenQ 1640 (which is what I did when I got my new drive). I should have tried to cross-flash the "defective" Philips 8631 to a BenQ 1620 to see if it improved things any. However, if I would have done that and still had problems, it would have voided the warranty and I wouldn't have been able to get the drive replaced.

I, too, don't have the problem anymore. It could be coincidence, but since upgrading to v1.3 and increasing my buffer size to 64MB, my buffer stays at 100% most of the time. It may drop to 98-99% for a second or two, but that's nothing compared to before where it stayed at 0% while the device buffer jumped up and down for 5-10 seconds at a time.

chewy, But can't you crossflash to B firmware? If so, does it really matter if you get the retail version or not?

Polo, I think it may depend on how mad she is. She may get him the hooker as a "parting gift" right before she throws his ass out (along with all his drives!).

Speaking of strange names, apparently, there's a town in Austria by the name of 'Fucking.'

And just in case anyone else has any questions about the settings and features, I found this guide pretty useful. ImgBurn - A User Guide

@Pain_Man, I read your entire post. While I don't agree with everything you said, I do respect your opinion. Frankly, I'm not saying I don't approve of anything Bush has done. I think that he's done some good things for this country. All I'm saying is that the guy isn't all that bright. You can say what you want to say about Clinton, but honestly speaking, Clinton was extremely intelligent.

DB, Think about that congresswoman who took a swing at security at the Capitol (if I'm not mistaken)! Unfortunately, our security/intelligence (or lack thereof) has made us look like a bunch of fools, especially with that idiot Bush running things! I'll be glad when 2008 comes around and we can vote another "idiot" into Office! By the way, I remember reading the article about the prank...quite sad.

2babitch, I actually encountered a similar problem with my Philips 8631. Here's a link to the thread so you can see what I went through. Error burning image files with ImgBurn and CloneDVD I got my drive replaced by DELL with a Philips 8701. Once I got it, I was burning successfully again. For the hell of it, I cross-flashed it to a BenQ 1640, and it works fine. Just thought I'd provide some input seeing as how I had the same problem.

It is a good question. I don't know if anyone else other than US and its territories employs that style or not. I don't think any other country does. It's similar to how no one but the U.S. uses the Standard system of measuring; every other country uses the Metric system.

Again?!? You mean deleting entire hard drives over the weekend is typical behavior for Groundrush?!?

Groundrush, I hope I don't get a "slap on the wrist" for this...here ya go. Burn automatically with ImgBurn from DVD Shrink

@lfcrule1972, Thanks for your opinion. @LIGHTNING UK! You are correct (almost); 6 are virtual. I'm not an expert in hardware configuration, but here's what I think I know. My hard drive is on the primary channel. My DVD-ROM is the "master" on the second channel, along with my DVD-RW as the "slave." Is this what you're referring to? Thanks for the suggestion. At this point, I'm not sure I want to spend the money on that, but I'll keep it in mind for the future. As long as I keep getting successful burns, I'm satisfied for the time being.

I defrag my (only) drive just about every day. I have virtually no fragmentation.

LUK!, Out of curiosity, is there any amount of RAM that will make this problem go away? I just bought an extra 512 MB of RAM the other day (now I have 1 GB total RAM), doubled the size of the paging file, and I am still experiencing the buffer underruns, just not as often and not as severe as before. My discs still come out fine (I'm assuming that's due to BURN-Proof), but it would be nice to go through an entire burn with full buffers. The writing speed slows down when my buffers are empty and my PC is trying to refill them. When I used to burn discs, the Buffer level would drop down to 0% 2-3 times per disc. Up to this point, I've assumed this was due to the Windows caching problem that preys on ImgBurn 1.2.0.0. To, hopefully, resolve it, I bought another 512MB of RAM. At first, I thought the problem was still there. I just ran a few "test" burns, and now I'm not quite sure I have a problem anymore. I was advised to post a couple of Write speed Graphs to the forum to get feedback regarding my issue. Here's the process I went through: I created two images. I burned one image using 1.1.0.0. Here are the log and write speed graph. I 21:06:13 ImgBurn Version 1.1.0.0 started! I 21:06:13 Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 2) I 21:06:13 Initialising SPTI... I 21:06:13 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... I 21:06:13 Found 7 DVD-ROMs and 1 DVD?RW! I 21:07:41 Operation Started! I 21:07:41 Source File: C:\ImgBurn 1.1.0.0\IMAGE_1.ISO I 21:07:41 Source File Sectors: 2,260,248 (MODE1/2048) I 21:07:41 Source File Size: 4,628,987,904 bytes I 21:07:41 Source File Implementation Identifier: DVD Shrink I 21:07:41 Destination Device: [1:1:0] BENQ DVD DD DW1640 BSOB (E:) (ATA) I 21:07:41 Destination Media Type: DVD+R (Disc ID: YUDEN000-T02-00) (Speeds: 2.4x, 4x, 8x) I 21:07:41 Destination Media Sectors: 2,295,104 I 21:07:41 Write Mode: DVD I 21:07:41 Write Type: DAO I 21:07:41 Write Speed: 8x I 21:07:41 Link Size: Auto I 21:07:41 Test Mode: No I 21:07:41 BURN-Proof: Enabled I 21:07:42 Filling Buffer... I 21:07:43 Writing LeadIn... I 21:07:58 Writing Image... I 21:15:29 Synchronising Cache... I 21:15:30 Closing Track... I 21:15:34 Finalising Disc... I 21:15:54 Exporting Graph Data... I 21:15:54 Graph Data File: C:\ImgBurn 1.1.0.0\ImgBurn 1.1.0.0.ibg I 21:15:54 Export Successfully Completed! I 21:15:54 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:08:06 I 21:15:54 Average Write Rate: 10,023 KB/s (7.2x) - Maximum Write Rate: 11,134 KB/s (8.0x) In looking at this graph I think it looks pretty close to the write speed graph that is in the Drives & Media section using the same burner and media. Moving along, I, then, burned the second image using 1.2.0.0. Here are the log and write speed graph. I 20:52:22 ImgBurn Version 1.2.0.0 started! I 20:52:22 Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 2) I 20:52:22 Initialising SPTI... I 20:52:22 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... I 20:52:22 Found 7 DVD-ROMs and 1 DVD?RW! I 20:55:25 Operation Started! I 20:55:25 Source File: C:\ImgBurn 1.2.0.0\IMAGE_2.ISO I 20:55:25 Source File Sectors: 2,260,256 (MODE1/2048) I 20:55:25 Source File Size: 4,629,004,288 bytes I 20:55:25 Source File Implementation Identifier: DVD Shrink I 20:55:25 Destination Device: [1:1:0] BENQ DVD DD DW1640 BSOB (E:) (ATA) I 20:55:25 Destination Media Type: DVD+R (Disc ID: YUDEN000-T02-00) (Speeds: 2.4x, 4x, 8x) I 20:55:25 Destination Media Sectors: 2,295,104 I 20:55:25 Write Mode: DVD I 20:55:25 Write Type: DAO I 20:55:25 Write Speed: 8x I 20:55:25 Link Size: Auto I 20:55:25 Test Mode: No I 20:55:25 BURN-Proof: Enabled I 20:55:25 Filling Buffer... I 20:55:29 Writing LeadIn... I 20:55:44 Writing Image... I 21:03:15 Synchronising Cache... I 21:03:16 Closing Track... I 21:03:20 Finalising Disc... I 21:03:40 Exporting Graph Data... I 21:03:40 Graph Data File: C:\ImgBurn 1.2.0.0\ImgBurn 1.2.0.0.ibg I 21:03:40 Export Successfully Completed! I 21:03:40 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:08:08 I 21:03:40 Average Write Rate: 10,023 KB/s (7.2x) - Maximum Write Rate: 11,137 KB/s (8.0x) For some reason, during the first 55 seconds of the burn, my Buffer level dropped to 0% (resulting in the low write speed shown on the graph at the beginning). To isolate the problem, I reburned the second image using 1.1.0.0 and the same thing happened. Therefore, I am deducing that it isn't 1.2.0.0 that caused the Buffer to empty the first minute of burning, rather I think it was the image itself. Nonetheless, the image burned successfully (I managed to play it back without any problems). With all that said, my question is this, are these results typical? In other words, are they OK? Or are they evident of the Windows caching problem? My guess is "not," but I'd like some "expert" advice.

No problem. None taken.

OK, Ken! Like I said, I'm no expert, so I defer to the more knowledgable on this subject (especially considering that I've never tried to burn to DL).

Phatboy, Aside from Kenadjian's comments, here is a tidbit from me. I am, by far, not an expert in this, but do you have another application that you might be able to use to create the DL image file? I've backed up "Flightplan" perfectly fine, but only using a single layer. However, I've read in other threads that some applications don't create DL images properly (or as well as others). Perhaps if you used another application to create your image, you may have more success. Just a thought...

LUK!, Out of curiosity, is there any amount of RAM that will make this problem go away? I just bought an extra 512 MB of RAM the other day (now I have 1 GB total RAM), doubled the size of the paging file, and I am still experiencing the buffer underruns, just not as often and not as severe as before. My discs still come out fine (I'm assuming that's due to BURN-Proof), but it would be nice to go through an entire burn with full buffers. The writing speed slows down when my buffers are empty and my PC is trying to refill them.

ImgBurn will only burn your images. Based on your description, it doesn't seem like you created one.

the olde, I hope you didn't take offense to my comment. I wasn't trying to sound like a jerk, which is why I started the post with "I'm sorry." I know all too well what it feels like to have problems with drives. I wish you luck when your new drive and media come in. I'm sure you'll let us know how everything turns out.