Yeah, me again. This time it's Nero's fault...

[Admiral Falcon]

Apparently Nero 5.5 was not written by people who ever intended to use it. Because I just tried to burn the DVD-Video image created by DVD InComplete, and four seconds into the burn process, Nero freezes and drags down the rest of my system with it like a drunken Moby Dick. Now I've got a coaster, and I am not going to try this again until I know that I have a chance of this working that is at least somewhat above zero.

No error messages, nothing. Just Nero not updating its display window anymore, and then nothing on my system responding. Now, if this is due to yet another obscure, undocumented, "required, but let's not tell anybody about it" setting...

I'd use my Nero disc for skeet shooting, but there's always the chance I'd miss and some other poor, unfortunate soul would find the disc and take it home.

On a related note, is there a way to "erase" a DVD-R disc - I know that files can be marked 'deleted' (obviously you can't physically erase a write-once medium) - but is there a way to do this for unusable discs as well?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[sacajaweeda]

It's Nero's fault you made a coaster with a re-writeable drive? Nero works just fine for millions of other people, myself included. My money is on a user controlled variable.

[bugster]

As you seem to be having problems with more than just Nero in accessing your drive, I would suggest the problem is not with Nero, but with the configuration of your drive and the relevant driver software. Try doing a forum search on your drive make and model to see if others have had problems and how they have been solved.

[rcb]

Don't think you will have any luck salvaging the coaster - best to use RW media at least until you find a stable recipe.

As to the crash, could be a number of things. You might start by doing a defrag of least the drive containing the VOB files - as burn processes are extremely timing sensitive. Also kill all un-needed tsr's, etc via device mgr.

For Nero 5.5, make sure you have latest upgrades installed from their website.

If I understood your post, you are using DVD Complete ? Can you get a good burn of same files directly from it ?

[Admiral Falcon]

Nero works just fine for millions of other people, myself included.

So does Windows ME, but that doesn't mean it's perfect either - as the Linux guys will love to tell you. At the very least, I expect a professionally-written program to deliver an error message of some sort; at least then I could do a more specific search than "Nero freezes" (which returns a scant near-20 results, none of which have anything to do with my predicament).

As you seem to be having problems with more than just Nero in accessing your drive, I would suggest the problem is not with Nero, but with the configuration of your drive and the relevant driver software.

Well, there are two odd quirks I noticed. One: my BIOS will autodetect the drive on entering the IDE device menu, but if I try to autodetect it again from there, I get "NONERIC DVD+-RW", like it's writing "NONE" to screen but not updating. In addition, the drive eject button seems to only work after I click 'eject' under the right-click menu for the drive in Windows. I do that once, the button works fine until the next reboot.

Yet, it still managed to burn a CD-RW perfectly last week. I highly doubt it's the drive's fault. And I can't find much about it; it's an Optorite DD0203, which apparently very few people own.

If I understood your post, you are using DVD Complete ? Can you get a good burn of same files directly from it ?

Nope. DVD Complete's 'build' menu has the drive select greyed out, as if it cannot detect any burner on the system.

Because there was no error message in Nero, I have no clue as to what is causing the problem. Until I know, I have no way of making sure that the next burn won't be a coaster either, save for randomly adjusting settings and hoping something works.

[fritzi93]

If you haven't already done so, flash the firmware of your Optorite 203 to ver. 2.30. Doing so ended my problems. http://www.optorite.com/firmware.htm

[rcb]

h,mmm... What with pinnacle leaving DVD Complete out there as an orphaned app., not even sure if you can find a burner compatability listing.
Bit the fact that it will not recognize your burner is a strong indicator.

As to your burner, you might try a search on this website for links to firmware sites that may have something more current for your make/model.

another "detective" tool is the nero infotool which you should find within your nero package - use the start> programs route to locate it. That utility will display a great deal of info about your burner and may give you a clue or two.
Good luck.

[GeoPappas]

On a related note, is there a way to "erase" a DVD-R disc

No. That would make it a DVD-RW. As suggested, buy yourself a rewriteable DVD (DVD+RW or DVD-RW) until you can figure out the problem.

If you haven't already done so, flash the firmware of your Optorite 203 to ver. 2.30. Doing so ended my problems. http://www.optorite.com/firmware.htm

I concur.

Also make sure that you are running the latest version of Nero 5.5, which is 5.5.10.42 (and is available at http://www.nero.com/us/631933457317970.html)

You can also check the check the DVD media support list for the Optorite at http://www.optorite.com/DD020xsupportlist.htm. Using one of the supported media is always best...

[RabidDog]

ANd check the cable to your drive.. try your drive on another system .. sometimes its the simple things.. it might also be faulty

[FOO]

You CAN erase a DVD-R
All it takes is a belt sander.

[Admiral Falcon]

Thanks guys. I flashed the firmware to 2.30 and it seemed to fix the problems.

I guess I was being a bit unfair in regards to my assessment of Nero. But when one has had to spend six days wrangling with workarounds for six different apps, one gets frustrated enough to fly off the handle quite easily. Between MovieStar's need of a "Critical Update" due to its being broken right out of the box, VirtualDub's refusal to accept Type-1 DV, TMPGEnc's wonky Sequence Header settings, and DVD InComplete's horrendous menu creator and the not-telling-me-where-it-put-the-DVD-image 'feature'...seeing Nero (which is supposed to be a reliable app) freeze my machine and create a coaster was a bit much.

MovieStar 5.3 for capture -> a DV Type1-Type2 Converter -> VirtualDub for editing -> TMPGEnc to encode -> DVD InComplete for authoring -> Nero 5.5 to burn. At least now I have a process to follow in the future.

Thanks again for the support, and what do you know, I actually got a working DVD disc out of the whole ordeal.

[lordsmurf]

You CAN erase a DVD-R
All it takes is a belt sander.