mmalves

Try cleaning the drive with a cleaning disc, and if that doesn't help then you should get a new burner.

What's the brand of the blanks you're using? You could try cleaning the drive with a cleaning disc but I'm not sure if it'd solve the problem

Because cheap media's quality is anyone's guess? As for the firmware update, close all programs, remove any disc from the burner, close the tray and remember to reboot the computer after updating is finished.

Try burning at 8x and if that doesn't work then try with high quality media such as Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden blanks. You should also leave Verify enabled as that way you'll know if the burn is good or not.

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=10650

Use SIW to find out which chipset/storage controllers your motherboard has then use Google to find the manufacturer's website and the latest drivers for them.

Update your burners' firmwares. Try all the available write speeds. Buy Verbatim media because your blanks are junk.

Look for the latest drivers for your SATA controller.

Connect the burner as Master and the only device at the end of a good 80-wire IDE cable. If that doesn't help then you're out of luck and should start looking for a new burner

Make sure your burner has the latest firmware available installed on it.

Try burning at 16x or 24x with a brand new blank disc. You could also try with better CD media such as Taiyo Yuden blanks, or anything else than CMC Magnetics that you currently have.

Try burning at 4x. Try a cleaning the drive with a cleaning disc. If all that fails then get yourself a nice normal-size external burner because slim burners are rubbish.

Then you know your HP blanks are junk and you should get Verbatim blanks.

Try cleaning the drive with a cleaning disc and if that doesn't work then you'll need to use another burner, preferably a normal sized one because slim burners are rubbish.

Have you rebooted the computer? Look in Device Manager if there are any exclamation marks next to your drives' names.

Update ImgBurn (this won't solve your problem but we don't support old versions). That error could be due to copy protection, and ImgBurn can't copy protected discs. Try reading that disc with other drives to see if you get the same error at the same spot. The disc isn't scratched or dirty, right?

Sounds like your burner doesn't support the blanks you're using as that message is returned by the burner while it's initialising/recognising the disc. What's your burner's name as its shown by ImgBurn? You can take a screenshot too if you prefer. You should also read this -> http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=8000

Yes, they're basically all the same. I've set my ImgBurn to create all of them so that I can use the disc image with most programs

Your burner thinks the disc isn't empty. Try other blanks until you find one that shows up as empty. If you're going to buy blanks then get Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden blanks because they certainly will work with your burner.

What's the full message? It's always Device Not Ready (reason). Also right-click the burner's name and choose Capabilities: does it have a checkmark in DVD+R DL under Write Capabilities?

If you burned it with ImgBurn then the disc was finalised. ImgBurn doesn't create non-finalised discs even if you wanted it to.

Look into programs specific for HDD backup like Acronis True Image or even DriveImage XML.

Yup.

First of all, upgrade your notebook's burner firmware (remove any disc and close the tray before updating then reboot after it's finished). Also notice that all slim burners can burn only up to 8x speed. Anyway, the burner might be in PIO mode, which slows down both burn and read speeds, so read this thread on how to check and solve that problem. As for your Sony DRU-720A burner, even on the latest JY08 firmware it may not have good support for the blanks you're using, and that could be why it doesn't burn them correctly.

Post the log of the LG burner failing with the Verbatim blanks (you can find previous logs in ImgBurn's Help menu).