DVD burning - Bad CRCs, Incorrect file sizes, urge to kill rising

[joebeard]

So here's me, 3 days and about 20 dvd burn attempts down the line and I STILL can't burn more than a couple of hundred mb reliably.

I'm using Nero Ultra edition after my Instant CD/DVD refused to believe I wanted to burn a DVD rather than a CD (God forbid) and I've chewed through 2 DVD+Rs and I'm now onto a batch of DVD-RWs.

My problem is simple - I want to burn 4gb of data onto a DVD and it just is not happening. My current best is RARing all the files into 200mb parts and getting about half of those parts burnt successfully, the others do not copy over from the DVD once written.

I've tried just about everything, my NEC ND 1300 A DVD+R/-R/+RW/-RW CD/R/RW combo widget has its firmware at version 1.0B which I'm informed is the most up to date version. I've tried burning an iso of my files, I've tried UDF, I've tried mounting the iso as a virtual image and then using Nero to do a disc copy but nothing burns reliably. Before my firmware upgrade (I was previously running 1.08) anything over 2gb would not even have the correct file size.

Please could someone help me before I chuck these god damn dvds out the window and go back to ye olde CDRs!

[chrisbliss18]

Have you tried turning down the burning speed and seeing if that improves anything?

[joebeard]

Before the upgrade I could only go at 1x, now I'm at 2x, the weird thing is that exactly the same files fail (the last half or so to be burnt), changing the UDF file system version or just not using it at all seems to have no apparent difference.

If all else fails, I would probably get away with renaming the files so that the last lot are burnt first, but that would really be a horrible work around a problem that shouldn't exist!

I shall try 1x again over night (I'm quite tired of not being able to use my PC for an hour at a time) to see if I get a more reliable burn. The discs I'm using are WHSmith own brand (hurhur) which have a max writing speed of 2x and a max capacity of 4.7gb.

Does burning a DVD at its 'max' writing speed actually mean you're likely to screw it up? There's not some unwritten law of DVD burning that says 'thou shalt burn at half max speed or incure God's wrath', is there?