DVD player won't mount DVD's after writing

[kdy]

I have a G5 Dual 2 Ghz Mac running version 10.3.9
The Internal DVD drive is: Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-106D
Firmware: A606/MMC-3. Here is the problem: I burn CD's or DVD's using Toast 6 or Popcorn 1.0.3, there are no problems doing this. After burning the program will say do you want to mount your disk and it mounts no problem. But if I re-insert a DVD it will not mount and eventually spits it out. This does not happen with CD's nor does it happen with purchased
DVD's. Movies play fine. Only the DVD's written by me. The strange thing is how they do mount upon completion of writing.

The preference setting are correct for "When you insert a blank DVD"
I have tried 5 different DVD brands, none of them will read after writing.
Also if I insert a blank DVD (without Toast or other writing program open,
the DVD will not show up in the finder either, even thought it's set up to do this in the preferences).
I only have about 10 gigs free space on my hard drive, could that be the problem? Then why would store bought DVD's mount?

This seemed to happen (but I'm not sure), after I began installing lots of programs and codec's (ffmpegX, MacTheRipper, D-Vision 3, DVD2oneX)

I've got to get my DVD to recognize disks!! If anyone has any clues I
would sure appreciate a reply. I'm willing to try anything. Oh, one more thing I tried, I created a 2nd user for my mac and tried to log in with that name. Wanted to see if it happened, still no luck in reading these DVD's.
My guess is that some program I installed might be causing it. Any suggestions?

[terryj]

Ok, let's take this a step at a time.
First you say "DVDs created by me."
Is this create in the traditional sense using
an authoring program such as iDVD or DVDSP3,
or
is this create in the sense of "ripping/re-quantum/backing up"?

Now for what I can answer:

you said that "store bought DVDs mount with no problem".
If so, and they can be played through DVD Player, then
we know that :
a. the drive is working correctly
b. the Drive can read DVDs fine
c. There isn't a communication problem between the
OS and the hardware.

Now, that leads us to media.
I am gonna go out on a limb here and ask, are u usuing
-R or -RW media, or are you using +R or +RW media?
Macs have an issue where you can burn +R/RW media
using a program like Toast, but you cannot get +R/RW media
to mount after the burn in the Finder.

Your G5 if bought brand new should have came with
an Apple branded -R blank disc. Try burning a movie
to that and if it successfully mounts, then the problem is solved.

[kdy]

Thanks for the reply.
I did mention in my posting that I use Toast 6 or Popcorn 1.0.3. Those are the only 2 programs I use to burn DVD's
or CD's. and the DVD's are -R

Well, after 3 calls and 6 hours on the phone with Apple tech
support, here was there resolve should anyone experience the same issue. As it turned out the problem was much more
unusual than I originally expected. After removing 2 gigs of what Apple suggested was "bad memory" recently installed, and removing everything related to Toast, with a reinstall to the latest version, 6.1, I was able to burn DVD's and recognize them after burning in all 3 methods, toast, popcorn and in the finder. But here is where it gets odd. If the written files were really small, the DVD would be read, and show up on desktop. 500 mgs and above, the DVD couldn't read them. This happened whether using Toast or the finder to burn them. It probably wasn't the memory, but after removing it, things are running much better. So, Apple sent me a new optical drive. No other way to fix the problem. Everything works perfectly now!

[willrob]

You don't say if the discs that your system couldn't mount worked in a stand alone player? But I suspect they would, since the problem seems to not be in the authoring, but in the mounting.

[kdy]

Yes they worked in a stand alone player. Thanks, forgot to mention that.

There were several other things Apple suggested and we tried while on the phone, didn't list all of them but one I should have mentioned, is I installed OS system software on a second internal hard drive, and tried to mount from that, they thought perhaps something got corrupted on my main hard drive. It didn't work either.