DVD-R writes & verifies but read errors on DVD-ROM &

[dascott1966]

I have a very weird problem on my PC which I am strugglign to understand or resolve, despite working in IT for almost 20 years!

My PC (P4 1/7Gh with 512Mb RAM) has a Samsung DVD-ROM drive and a Pioneer 106 DVD Writer.

When I write to a DVD-R blank the Write operation (Nero 5.x) completes successfully, and I can verify the data by reading it back to hard drive using the Pioneer drive.

If I put the DVD-R media in the Samsung DVD-ROM drive (or in a Sony PS2 if its a movie), I experience read errors between 90-100% (around 4Gb) into the media.

I have had the drive changed under warranty with no improvement.
I have tried 4 brands of media and 4x 2x 1x write speeds - no change.

I formatted and re-installed Windows XP (sp1) and the problem seemed to go away but came back after I installed MS Windows Critical Updates, etc.

I suspect the media is not unreadable, but that something is happening at around the 4Gb (90%) through the writing stage, causing a "non standard format" to be used to complete the last 10% of the disk.

This one has me completely stumped, and also has cost me a great deal in having to throw away DVD media which although it will read on the DVD-Writer drive, it will generate read errors on other DVD-ROM drives, standalone DVD Players or a SOny PS2.

Any ideas?
Feel free to email me if more details are required.

Regards,
Dez

[dodecahedron]

is it possible that the Samsung DVD-ROM isn't compatible with DVD-R ?
same can be true for XBOXes or PSes if they're old.

[dascott1966]

Hi,

Thanks for the response.
The SAMSUNG and PS2 both read DVD-R's fine which were written before 2 weeks ago, and the DVD Writer has been replaced under warranty, so something else has happened to cause my problems.

Any more ideas, let me know.

[DrFox]

I had exactly the same problem and it turned out to be motherboard+RAM issue. I was using Nero (all versions) and verification was always fine, but byte-by-byte comparison even on that drive was always failing.

One thing that you have to do before byte-by-byte comparison is to put another written (or pressed) disk into the drive for XP to flash all caches and forget about the previous disk.

I don't overclock my PC (after more than 10 years of doing this I prefer stability instead of few % of performance )

I have Gigabyte 7VRXP motherboard with Golden Empire DDR2700 and I had these DVD (and CD) writing problems until I loaded "fail-safe settings" in MB BIOS and changed performance setting from Ultra to Normal there (have no idea what this setting actually does, but...). After that I ran several RAM tests and checked that everything works fine...

So, finaly the problem went away... I am not 100% positive that BIOS changes solved it, because I am constantly changing stuff on the PC, but anyway - you are not along...