ImgBurn - Dual-layer failure, single-layer fine, always worked

[RockAroundTheClock]

Hi.

I've been using ImgBurn to burn CDs & DVDs since I found it in a list of recommended "best of" applications. It has never given me any problems & the discs always worked.

However as of late (this last week) it has been failing with any dual-layer operations I've tried to undertake. These have been standard operations of burning games bought on online stores as 7-zip archives to avoid re-downloading the data (i.e. Frontlines: Fuel of War from Direct2Drive). It also includes ISO images made by ImgBurn.

However I don't have any burn log errors because the burn stage always indicates a successful burn; it's the "verify" stage that fails on burns. It has failed with an I/O error but there seems to be no log files in ImgBurn's folders; I did not copy the contents of the verify window :-( (which did have an "OK" button in it). Further trying to verify the burnt files with 3rd party utilities also fails. Since the files are 7-zip I tried having 7-zip test for errors & it froze at random points for each of 8 coasters made. A program to calculate hash checks (particularly md5) crashed altogether.

But the files on the HDD verify just fine; the data extracted from the 7-zip files works as intended (game runs) & 7-zip says there's no problems with the archive. Md5 checks also worked.

For ISO images made by ImgBurn it's a little different. One of the images burned by CDBurnerXP works just fine however all other images had be purely bad; I installed & tried opening one with UltraISO today to find UltraISO reported the image as blank, I tried again thinking I made a mistake & same thing. I then went to see what other tools I have to create ISO images with to find only CDBurnerXP (and it has a limitation I decided I didn't like) so opened the image a 3rd time with UltraISO to get 3 "files" of correct size with weird (wingding font?) characters as the file names... the ISO is supposed to only have 2 file in it.

I then tried saving the same ISO image using CDBurnerXP & it seems to have worked; UltraISO sees both files correctly.

All this being said... ImgBurn is handling single-layer images & burning DVDs just fine. I've burnt several single-layer DVDs since the problem started happening & all verified just fine.

Steps I have taken to try & the correct the error have been limited since I do not know what could have changed to cause this issue.

I verified that I was running the latest version of ImgBurn, I set all options under the "Burn" tab of options to default even though the only setting I've changed is to prevent ImgBurn from verifying ever time (since I haven't had a problem before this last week).

Only system modifications made: nVidia drivers updated (video only) & Microsoft Update ran (no critical updates installed... 1 optional... update of Security Essentials definitions; only thing I was missing).

The operating system is Windows 7 x64 & the HDD space free is 25GB.

Please advise as well I can use CDBurnerXP in a pinch ImgBurn is more flexible & graceful with out the couple of limitations in CDBurnerXP.

[Cynthia]

No idea what media + burner you use.

 

Sure that there are no logs in this location?

 

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=14632

[RockAroundTheClock]

No idea what media + burner you use.

 

Sure that there are no logs in this location?

 

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=14632

 

Burner: TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M SB06 (ATA) (LG burner)

Media: Same media as always: DL: Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL LightScribe (note... I tried once to burn at 6x speed; still failed on burn)

SL: Maxell 16x DVD+-R "Normal" Cover DVDs (note: burnt at maximum speed as chosen by ImgBurn... work fine)

Logs: I was checking the "Logs" directory in the program directory & that was empty... the other location had a log for only my last session.. which ended being nothing more then a normal program start & exit because I only checked the version number before posting to re-verify I was using newest version... no attempts to burn or create or read anything were made. Below is posted:

 

; //****************************************\\

; ImgBurn Version 2.5.5.0 - Log

; Thursday, 03 February 2011, 19:49:47

; \\****************************************//

;

;

I 19:48:24 ImgBurn Version 2.5.5.0 started!

I 19:48:24 Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Edition (6.1, Build 7600)

I 19:48:24 Total Physical Memory: 4,193,400 KB - Available: 2,453,408 KB

I 19:48:24 Initialising SPTI...

I 19:48:24 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

I 19:48:24 -> Drive 1 - Info: TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M SB06 (E:) (ATA)

I 19:48:24 -> Drive 2 - Info: 56X CD-ROM 1020 (F:) (ATA)

I 19:48:24 Found 1 CD-ROM and 1 DVD±RW/RAM!

E 19:48:24 Failed to check for ImgBurn update! (<--- This is normal... updates are firewall blocked & handled manually usually)

I 19:49:47 Close Request Acknowledged

I 19:49:47 Closing Down...

I 19:49:47 Shutting down SPTI...

I 19:49:47 ImgBurn closed!

[Rincewind]

Are you sure it is an LG?

 

TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M SB06 (ATA) (LG burner)

 

TSSTcorp usually are burners found in notebooks. If that is the case and really is a slimeline burner, well then you are SOL because slimlines are crap for burning DL media. Get yourself a proper burner and an external USB 2.0 enclsure.

[RockAroundTheClock]

Are you sure it is an LG?

No, but I tend to buy LG burners. I added it myself but it's unbranded on the front & don't have a box any more. Google says it's Samsung.

 

TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M SB06 (ATA) (LG burner)

 

TSSTcorp usually are burners found in notebooks. If that is the case and really is a slimeline burner, well then you are SOL because slimlines are crap for burning DL media. Get yourself a proper burner and an external USB 2.0 enclsure.

 

It's not a laptop. It's a normal DVD-+RW burner on IDE1/Master & the CD-ROM is IDE1/Slave. As indicated before ImgBurn has never ahd any problems burning with this burner; the errors have only been occurring the last 7 days (12 days before that they burned the same media at full speed with no errors).

[RockAroundTheClock]

As a note... my last test with CDBurnerXP of the same files has verified via CDBurnerXP & 7-zip; so whatever the problem is it's effecting only ImgBurn. I'm hoping to get ImgBurn running 100% again though because it has better image creation support & better UDF support as well as allows longer titles for the discs. (Plus a few other things making it much better then CDBurnerXP._

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You won't get any real help until you burn+verify a disc and then post the log.

 

ImgBurn has no control over success/failure of a burn, it's all down to your drive/firmware/media combo.

[RockAroundTheClock]

It has to be a software problem in some way at this point as I know it does work; I've burned many discs in exactly this way & now it doesn't burn but the competing product does work. Also why would the burner's presence cause ISO images written to a directory to fail? That makes no sense. The ISO was confirmed bad by UltraISO; at no point was a DVD even involved & it was bad. I'll make another image & verify that to demonstrate.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Please do.

 

And use a decent program like IsoBuster to look inside the ISO - or mount the image in a virtual drive program (like Virtual CloneDrive) and browse it normally with Explorer.