All of a sudden every DVD fails

[skeeveman]

Ok, this is technically my first post to the forum, so I'm a newbie to this community, but I'm not a newbie to the hobby.

Ok, some wierd stuff going on here. For litterally years I've had no problems burning DVD movies, be it from an ISO, a Backup, or my own compilation. I've grown accustomed to fujifilm and maxell blanks as they have rarely let me down, and up untill now, the only coasters I've had from them have been user error on a learning curve when trying out a new piece of software or something. My burner is a NEC 3500a, also has always performed well. All of this up untill very recently, has treated me well.

All of a sudden, every DVD movie I burn will not play on my DVD player, so first thing I did was try it on other known good DVD players. My old media that burned successful still works on it fine, just the new burns fail. If I make a DVD to DVD copy in Nero of one of my old backups, it works fine. I've tried different brands with no luck. I have not changed my method of anything in the process of making the DVD. In fact, when the DVD is done burning, I can verify it and it reads correctly in my PC, just not the DVD players. So, confirmed I still had the latest firmware from NEC (which I already did), and updated the IDE controller drivers... nothing. So, I thought, heck, it must be a burner on it's way out the door, so I borrowed a brand new in the box 3520 (or whatever the updated version of mine is) from work. Same problem exists. This tells me my hardware is fine. There's something in my systems config that has gotten altered or something along the way.

Can anybody think of anything?

Thanks in advance!

Oh, and if it helps any of you gurus out, it burns audio cd media just fine, and DVD Data just fine. It's just DVD movies that screw up on me. But it's wierd that they show up on my Computer as being an actual DVD movie, but not on any stand alone DVD player.

[edsmith77]

I had the same problem with my 3500. The short answer was to replace the drive. Once I did that all returned to normal. It was dying.

Good Luck.

[rkr1958]

Weird. Have you tried using a different application to burn you video DVDs? If not, I'd suggest giving Imgburn a try. It's free and it can burn either images or DVD files structures (i.e, VIDEO_TS with *.ifo, *.bup & *.vob files) to DVD. Also, to save on media, I'd suggest using DVDRWs until you solve your problem.

[skeeveman]

See, that's the crazy thing guys... I have replaced the drive, with a brand new 3520 ( I think thats the model number, not at home right now to check it.)

Also, I have always used DVDecryptor/ImgBurn.... no problems till now.

[budz]

what brand of dvd media are you using? also if you're only doing single layer media burning use IMGBURN to burn. DVD DECRYPTER is no longer updated. you'll also need to use a good ripping program like DVDFAB DECRYPTER to rip the files.

[skeeveman]

what brand of dvd media are you using? also if you're only doing single layer media burning use IMGBURN to burn. DVD DECRYPTER is no longer updated. you'll also need to use a good ripping program like DVDFAB DECRYPTER to rip the files.

I've already did that stuff man, the media is fine, read my posts again to see where I'm at what I've already done. I'm out of ideas from there on. Like I said, I'm not new at this, my methods of burning are fine. I think theres a conflict with something I've installed.

[skeeveman]

Oh, and on top of all those other things I did... I even tried backing off the burn speed (8x), still didn't help. I'm just really at a loss what to do here... same procedure, same software, same file sets/ISO as what have worked in the past... So, hypothetically, this should be an ideal burn, since there are pretty much no varibles from when it did burn dvd's fine in the past, and how they do not today. The only differences of this are time, and normal computer change over time, such as maybe some browser plugins, small pieces of software (no heavyweights), oh, and not much free space on any of the accessible drives on the network, due to all of the media piling up.

I mean, it was out of the blue it started messing up, at the most it may of been a couple weeks between when it stopped and when it didn't as I don't remember when the last good burn was. I'm open to any new suggestions here guys. Sorry if I may come off short here at times, but this is aggravating, and I'm running out of logical solutions. (other then throwing all of the media I can fit on the NAS and reloading the box clean and seeing if I can burn it then.)

Thanks again guys, I've appreciated it so far. I know it's an odd one.

[koinhelgo]

If you are sure it is not the burner then it may just be an issue with your burner software- have you updated this in any way. Have you installed any programs that use burner routines for example an update to tv tuner software.
Perhaps a windows update has re-enabled windows own burning routines- make sure this is disabled- download the latest version of nero and try it again.

Can you try your burner in a different machine at work for example. Have you confirmed that the burner you got from work (whether new or not) does actually burn readable (to your player) dvds.

The only real options here are the burner is wearing out and/or the laser in your player is getting picky cos it is on the way out (have you tried a different stand alone player), or more than likely the burning software has been altered.
You can try uninstalling every program that has a burning routine, this includes dvd decrypter, dvd shrink etc. Download nero uninstall prog and use it to clear out the vxd files. Download forecaspi 1.7 (I never find version 1.8 works). Use this to update the aspi layer and see if it helps (I know technically xp and nero do not need an aspi layer to burn dvds- but I find I get better results after installing and using the aspi layer). Install nero and see what your results are like.

If all else fails, reformat and reinstall windows and/or buy a new burner (they are very cheap now)

[skeeveman]

Thanks for the reply, man, I am all but positive it is not the burner going bad, only thing I haven't had time to do is take it to work to test it on a box there, but I will just to get that possibility out of my head. But, the one was brand new out of a box that I just put in, and exhibits the same problems. Both the old and the new burners will play a disc to disc copy of a DVD I burnt before I had these issues.

Could you tell me more about disabling windows own burning routines, I don't think I've ran across that before.

And yep, I have tested on several stand alone players, all which have never had issues reading from my burnt discs.

And nope, all burning or burn related software has not changed since it last worked, no updates. And the software I did install over this course of time when it was working to when it must of quit working, not a bit of it had any front end relation to the burning software. The only update I've did that is related was after I started to find the problem, and that is the IDE controllers.

I'll try the other stuff you mentioned as well, short of reformatting, like I said, I really don't want to have to do that, lol.

[Dragonsf]

What's your DMA setting?

[budz]

Using MAXELL & FUJIFILM dvd media is your problem. Those 2 brands of dvd media id is usually RITEK or CMC which is crappy media to use. Try using VERBATIM or TAIYO YUDEN. Brand names mean nothing it's the MEDIA ID that's important. Read the DVD MEDIA section and you'll find out that RITEK & CMC is not good quality dvd media.

[koinhelgo]

First off, I don't think the media is the problem- although different batches can be widely different- have you tried a different brand. Also different burners prefer different media

I find that Ritek (Go5s) are a good compromise between reliability and performance after much testing of media- I don't want to pay £30 for 50 Taiyo Yuden discs when I can pay £8 for 50 Riteks. Although this is NOT good for archiving data or anything you really want to keep- sometimes the cheaper discs will just not play anymore after a while, but the Riteks usually last OK and play on my stuff so I am happy with them. I have many burners and the Riteks perform well on all of them, especially the NEC drives.

To Disable native CD burning in XP

Right click the CD in My Computer, click Properties/Recording. Uncheck "Enable CD recording on this drive."

Disable CD Burning - Start/Run/Regedit

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\ Policies\Explorer Value Name: NoCDBurning Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value) Value Data: (0 = Allow CDR, 1 = Disable CDR) Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called 'NoCDBurning' and edit the value according to the settings above.

however be aware I have not had to do this with any of my recent uinstalls involving Nero 6.6 or 7. BUT I no longer use 7 cos it is still not completely stable and the info tool doesn't tell you if DMA is on or not, which is a pain cos it's a good quick check.

If DMA is not on it usually just gives you very slow burn times, but it is advisable to check the settings- why/how did you update the IDE controller driver.
Usually you do not have to update the driver, just uninstall the IDE controller channel that the burner is on and reboor for xp to redetect and set up teh controller and your burner. Sometimes this is a little daunting especially if you have sata and ide drives in compatabiulity mode cos it doesn't list which is on each channel- again why nero info tool (6.6) is useful.
Also worthwhile checking in yur BIOS that the drive is set to auto detect, taht way it should automatically alocate resources to the drive and set up for DMA.

If you copy (disc to disc) an old playable dvd disc with the burner does this copy play in the stand alone. I don't quite understand what you have said about this. A disc is more easily read by a burner in your pc than on a stand alone so just because it plays discs doesn't mean that your stand alone will play it- the bpc urner/dvd rom drive is a lot more tolerent to media and poorer burns than a stand alone will be.

I know this might sound silly but- are you sure you are burning to the right discs- for example Riteks +R s and -Rs look identical more or less but some players struggle with -Rs and others with +Rs.

Don't get so bogged down with the opinion that nothing has changed with your configuration because things can and do happen in the background via program updates or just dlls becoming corrupt for apparently no reason.
I really think you have to uninstall the burner software and purge all traces of nero etc and then reinstall and see how you get on. This will at least give you a fresh settings start- Nero will set up its aspi layer etc and should sort out any issues.
I know formatting and starting again is a pain- but sometimes it is the only way to sort out problems and in the long run it saves a lot of hair pulling and frustration.
The only other thing I can advise is start with a basic system, disconnect everything except your graphics card, hdd and the burner and try a test burn and see if this works- if so there is a hardware conflict or a driver problem from one of the other devices conflicting.
The other thing to try is burn some dvds (different media and burner) at work or on a friends system and test them on the stand alone- this way you will effectively eliminate any doubt as to whether your drive and/or pc are at fault.

Just rereading your original post it appears that it is only newly created dvds that you have problems with and your stand alone will read copies of older dvds made with your pc and burner. If this is the case then it is almost certainly a configuration problem or a media problem. I'm afraid you may have no option but to format and start again- it would seem that you haven't done this for a while anyway- it might do your pc good to give it a "spring clean".

I hope all this helps....good luck
KO

[skeeveman]

Thanks you KO, I really appreciate the lengthy reply. Yes, the disc to disc copies work fine in the stand alone, so that right there told me that the burner was physically fine, and it is a configuration problem. Sorry for the confusion there.

Yeah, I was wondering about windows updates causing problems. That method I used to reinstall the controller drivers is the same you explained, and actually, it was UKLightning from way back in the days of DVDdecryptors prime who showed me that trick, and it worked.... but that was many many moons ago on a different PC. Yeah, I understand the spring clean thing, it's only been about 6 months since the last format, so it's not running bad by any means, so I'm going to try to do what I can before resorting to that, as theres a lot of stuff to do. I've tried teh booting with a bare system thing too.

As soon as I get home after work I'm going to try the rest of all that stuff.

Thanks a bunch, dude, I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Abond]

Check your authoring package.