Member Avatar for shez1975

Hi,

I have got a problem on preloaded Windows vista home edition on my laptop. Actually whenever i try to burn dvd it complets the burn process sucessfully but unable to play that dvd on computer neither on dvd players. When i noitced the space of DVD actually windows vista doesnt read that dvd-r for 4.7 GB but shows 4.3 GB while i tried on other pc running windows xp n everything went fantastic burning etc and it shows full space 4.7 GB of same dvds. Can anybody help me out how to resolve the problem???

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Dani AI

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Note for (and others): the 4.7 vs 4.3 GB difference is almost always an units/formatting issue, not a missing capacity. Manufacturers advertise disc capacity in decimal gigabytes (4.7 billion bytes), while Windows Explorer shows binary gibibytes but labels them "GB", so a nominal 4.7 GB DVD will display roughly 4.3–4.4 GB in Vista. That variability is what observed — different tools report different unit conventions.

Burn/compatibility explanation: Vista can burn discs natively (contrary to ), but the method matters. Burning with the Live File System (the "like a USB flash drive" option) or leaving a session open can produce discs many standalone players and some older PCs won't read. Also copying video files directly to a disc does not create a DVD‑Video structure (VIDEO_TS) that consumer DVD players require. For playable discs, the disc must be authored and finalized in a compatible format (DVD‑Video or ISO9660/UDF compatible version).

Practical checklist (apply in this order):

  • When Windows prompts "How do you want to use this disc?" choose the Mastered / "With a CD/DVD player" option for widest compatibility.
  • If making a movie DVD for a standalone player, use DVD authoring software (Windows DVD Maker on Premium or a third‑party authorer) to create a proper VIDEO_TS structure.
  • Finalize/close the disc (no multisession) so players see it as complete.
  • Burn at a conservative speed (4x–8x) and enable "verify after burn" when available.
  • If discs work on XP but not Vista, update the DVD drive firmware/driver and remove any third‑party packet‑writing software (InCD/Roxio) that can interfere.
  • If problems persist, try a different brand of blank media or another burning tool (Nero/ImgBurn/CDBurnerXP) and inspect the burn log for errors.

These steps address the display confusion and the usual causes of unplayable burnt DVDs on Vista.

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Member Avatar for forumdude123

Vista has a glitch that for some reason shows a little misleading info about hard disks and optical media. My dvd was read once as 4.33gb and 5 minutes later as 4.59gb. It also may depend on the optical drive you are using (if the xp one is the same or not as the vista one). Hope that helps!!!

Member Avatar for az49er

Vista doesn't write to DVD's unless you have third party software to make that happen. It reads them ok, but no write. It makes all kinds of indications that it is formatting and such but it lies...........
I have been working on this problem for months. Hard to get info out of MS. on this. Tried Corel, but they don't have vista approved stuff, triing Nero now, but hard to get information on thier programs.
Check with your computer support group.
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