Can't read DVD-R

[jethrodesign]

Hi,
I am burning archive data onto Apple 4x media using an external firewire Superdrive (Pioneer 105?). I'm using OSX 10.2.5 and Toast Platinum 5.2.

I'm having trouble reading these DVD-R discs in my internal DVD-RAM drive (first generation on Mac G4 AGP). The media doesn't mount and just gets spit back out. This DVD-RAM drive can read DVD movies, CDs, etc. fine.

The specs given by Apple say that the drive can read this:

The drive reads the following DVD discs:
• Single-sided 2.6 GB DVD-RAM
• DVD-R (3.95 GB), written using the disc-at-once method
• DVD-ROM (One- or two-layer, one- or two-sided)

So it appears that I SHOULD be able to read some sort of DVD-Rs. I believe using Toast I can only burn data DVDs using disc-at-once, so that shouldn't be the problem.

What about the 3.95GB spec stated? Is that an older spec for DVDs? Could my media be too new? Or do I just need to burn less than 3.95GB?

The discs read fine in the external Superdrive, a DVD/CDRW on a G4 laptop, and a newer Superdrive in a G4 laptop. Any ideas??? Thanks!
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[SupaCoopa]

First generation DVD-R was only offering 3.95 GB capacity. Second generation DVD-R boosted this to 4.3 GB (some say 4.7 GB but it's actually how you count your bits and bytes). So I guess you'll unlucky and the drive only supports first generation DVD-R discs...

[jethrodesign]

Thanks for the reply.

So do you think if I kept my total size under 3.95GB it would make any difference? Or is the entire media format and composition completely different?

Would it be worth searching for older media, or should we just write-off these older drives?

We kind of need to keep these DVD-RAM drives because a lot of our initial archives were done to DVD-RAM.

Thanks again.