DVD problems solved?

I used some advice from this group and the DEll owners manual and seem
to have avoided problems I did have writing DVDs. Here's a summary.
FIRMWARE- Some suggested getting a firmware upgrade from the burner
manufacturer, Teac. Teac doesn't offer any. I emailed their customer
support about my problems a couple days ago and have received no
response so far.
WRITE SPEED- Some suggested burning at 2X rather than 4X. I didn't try
that. Although I haven't confirmed it yet, I do seem to get better
results with blank DVDs rated at 4X rather than multi-speed ones rated
up to 8X or 10X.
SONIC BUGS- I believe Sonic has bugs and suggestions to get better
software are good ones. I haven't got new stuff yet but I'll look into
it. Sonic insists you save the project to a new name prior to the burn,
although the project was just saved. If you leave Sonic running
overnight it locks up your computer and you can't shut it down using
Windows.
SCANDISK- One suggested testing the DVDs using scandisk. Scandisk isn't
available on Win XP and I don't think it would ever san removable storage.
KEEP DATA FLOWING TO THE BURNER- This is the essential part to getting a
good burn. It means you don't have an internet connection, shut down
anti virus or any other active programs and leave the computer alone
until finished- no fiddling with the mouse. Also you don't want screen
savers getting at the processor. DELL says turning off power managment
options may be necessary and I believe that helped.
COMMON SENSE- You need to have a good DVD, and your drives should be
clean. They say drives need cleaning after 10 hours of use.
I have recently wrote a couple good 1 hour movies on DVD+R and also did
a successful rewrite to a DVD+RW. I don't think my burner is defective.

Regarding your comment about scandisk. this is obtained from the local
drive properties under the tools tab, click on error check.
you should be checking your hard drive for errors!
make sure your hard drive is free from defects and you should do a full
scan. you may have to reboot to do it.

if you have broken fat links or bad sectors, the burner software is
trying to write into a temp file and will fault if the disk is not perfect.


Awelch wrote:
I used some advice from this group and the DEll owners manual and seem
to have avoided problems I did have writing DVDs. Here's a summary.
FIRMWARE- Some suggested getting a firmware upgrade from the burner
manufacturer, Teac. Teac doesn't offer any. I emailed their customer
support about my problems a couple days ago and have received no
response so far.
WRITE SPEED- Some suggested burning at 2X rather than 4X. I didn't try
that. Although I haven't confirmed it yet, I do seem to get better
results with blank DVDs rated at 4X rather than multi-speed ones rated
up to 8X or 10X.
SONIC BUGS- I believe Sonic has bugs and suggestions to get better
software are good ones. I haven't got new stuff yet but I'll look into
it. Sonic insists you save the project to a new name prior to the burn,
although the project was just saved. If you leave Sonic running
overnight it locks up your computer and you can't shut it down using
Windows.
SCANDISK- One suggested testing the DVDs using scandisk. Scandisk isn't
available on Win XP and I don't think it would ever san removable storage.
KEEP DATA FLOWING TO THE BURNER- This is the essential part to getting a
good burn. It means you don't have an internet connection, shut down
anti virus or any other active programs and leave the computer alone
until finished- no fiddling with the mouse. Also you don't want screen
savers getting at the processor. DELL says turning off power managment
options may be necessary and I believe that helped.
COMMON SENSE- You need to have a good DVD, and your drives should be
clean. They say drives need cleaning after 10 hours of use.
I have recently wrote a couple good 1 hour movies on DVD+R and also did
a successful rewrite to a DVD+RW. I don't think my burner is defective.

Where is the tools tab? I have only Microsoft system tools which has
defragment and disk cleanup but no error check. I searched the system
for scandisk and found none. Evidently, Microsoft has gone back to
using chkdsk under the command prompt.



Jay B wrote:
Regarding your comment about scandisk. this is obtained from the local
drive properties under the tools tab, click on error check.
you should be checking your hard drive for errors!
make sure your hard drive is free from defects and you should do a full
scan. you may have to reboot to do it.

if you have broken fat links or bad sectors, the burner software is
trying to write into a temp file and will fault if the disk is not perfect.


Awelch wrote:

I used some advice from this group and the DEll owners manual and seem
to have avoided problems I did have writing DVDs. Here's a summary.
FIRMWARE- Some suggested getting a firmware upgrade from the burner
manufacturer, Teac. Teac doesn't offer any. I emailed their customer
support about my problems a couple days ago and have received no
response so far.
WRITE SPEED- Some suggested burning at 2X rather than 4X. I didn't
try that. Although I haven't confirmed it yet, I do seem to get
better results with blank DVDs rated at 4X rather than multi-speed
ones rated up to 8X or 10X.
SONIC BUGS- I believe Sonic has bugs and suggestions to get better
software are good ones. I haven't got new stuff yet but I'll look
into it. Sonic insists you save the project to a new name prior to
the burn, although the project was just saved. If you leave Sonic
running overnight it locks up your computer and you can't shut it down
using Windows.
SCANDISK- One suggested testing the DVDs using scandisk. Scandisk
isn't available on Win XP and I don't think it would ever san
removable storage.
KEEP DATA FLOWING TO THE BURNER- This is the essential part to getting
a good burn. It means you don't have an internet connection, shut
down anti virus or any other active programs and leave the computer
alone until finished- no fiddling with the mouse. Also you don't want
screen savers getting at the processor. DELL says turning off power
managment options may be necessary and I believe that helped.
COMMON SENSE- You need to have a good DVD, and your drives should be
clean. They say drives need cleaning after 10 hours of use.
I have recently wrote a couple good 1 hour movies on DVD+R and also
did a successful rewrite to a DVD+RW. I don't think my burner is
defective.

Awelch wrote:
Where is the tools tab? I have only Microsoft system tools which has
defragment and disk cleanup but no error check. I searched the system
for scandisk and found none. Evidently, Microsoft has gone back to
using chkdsk under the command prompt.



Click on "My Computer" on the Start menu, right click on your hard disk,
and select Properties from the menu. THe tools tab is on the top of the
Properties Window. This will run chkdsk on your drive.

Alternatively, you could run chkdsk from the command prompt.

ditto

OK, I found that. I think the error check tab just runs chkdsk from
Windows. I ran chkdsk /F the other day and had some error corrected.
There were areas of the dic marked as in use that weren't in use.
Probably because Sonic crashes sometimes, or maybe left by MM2 when it
locked up.


Stubby wrote:
Awelch wrote:

Where is the tools tab? I have only Microsoft system tools which has
defragment and disk cleanup but no error check. I searched the system
for scandisk and found none. Evidently, Microsoft has gone back to
using chkdsk under the command prompt.



Click on "My Computer" on the Start menu, right click on your hard disk,
and select Properties from the menu. THe tools tab is on the top of the
Properties Window. This will run chkdsk on your drive.

Alternatively, you could run chkdsk from the command prompt.