Member Avatar for 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!

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Dani AI

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Brief, practical checklist to isolate the fault (ties to 's note about speed)

When burns fail in the same pattern the cause is usually one of three things: bad media, a flaky drive/firmware, or the data path between PC and burner. Try these steps in order — each one rules out a class of problems.

  • Media and verification: use a known-good brand (Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden) rather than low-cost blanks or lots of different RW discs. Always enable "Verify data after burn" so you know the disc was written reliably. Use a different burning tool that produces detailed logs (ImgBurn is a good, free option) to capture errors and timestamps: ImgBurn.

  • Host and cabling: make sure the IDE/SATA transfer is running in DMA/UDMA mode, not PIO. Swap to an 80-wire IDE cable or a different SATA port, move the burner to its own channel if possible, and disconnect other optical drives while testing. DMA problems and repeated resets can cause CRCs and partial files — background on DMA: Direct memory access (DMA).

  • Diagnostics and final checks: build an ISO on the hard drive and burn that image (this isolates file-system/UI issues). Run a disc-quality scan (CD-DVD Speed / KProbe) if available to check PI/PO errors. If the drive fails consistently on multiple, known-good discs and different PCs, it’s likely a hardware/firmware fault — update firmware only from the vendor or consider replacement. If many discs from one batch fail but another brand works fine, bin the bad batch.

General notes: prefer reputable write-once media for archives, burn at conservative speeds for problem cases, and always keep a log of the burner errors (software logs + exact drive model and firmware) for warranty or deeper diagnosis.

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Member Avatar for chrisbliss18

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

Member Avatar for 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?

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