Ongoing DVD Burning & File Playback problems.

[tobtella]

Hi, this is gonna be long so please bear with me. I’m running XP +SP2, 1 gig ram, 500gb hard drive & am a PC Geek.

I’m having big problems playing back DVD files that I have burnt myself.

I will collect a series of tv shows, films etc that are generally in the Xvid or DivX format but sometimes mpeg & mp4 & burn then to DVD+ using Nero at the lowest burn speed possible.
The disc is fine initially & will playback whatever is on it. However after a random amount of time (weeks or months) when I try to copy or playback the file I will get either an error box “Invalid DOS command, data cylindrical cycle” or the file will begin to copy & then will freeze at some point & windows will say unable to copy disc. Or the whole process of copying will freeze Win Explorer & I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del to end it all.

This problem has been going on for around 2 years & I have tried burning using 3 different DVD drives, Empress, HP & currently Sony. I always buy DVD+R, generally of the infinti range but have also bought PC Line & various other types of unbrande3d discs. The DVDs once burnt are stored in a CD Folder under the TV.

Sometimes it is possible to recover files from the middle of the DVD but not 1 or 2 files that are closest to the beginning or end. Sometimes a complete reboot of the computer will allow the files to be copied, sometimes I can recover some of the files from a different PC (I have 5) & sometimes the disc is just dead.

I must find out what is causing this to happen. I also back up a lot of PC Software & I never seem to get problems with Data DVDs, I can always retrieve files, zips, image files exe’s etc okay. Only on the discs that I use for tv & film.

Most of my burning, whilst having used different burners is done on a Nvidia Motherboard, is there some setting for ides or dma or something that should be changed. But then as I say the data can be on the DVD for a month or longer before corrupting.

I keep a warm house, but not overly so, could this cause the corruption. I keep the DVDs in a folder under my tv. I have an average 5.1 speak set up, the DVDs are away from the magent of the bass speaker & the small speakers are about a meter away on the top of the tv?

Is there any better method for storing long term data. At 40 odd pence for a DVD I haven’t found anything even close in cost.

Is there a problem with nero. I select make DVD data disc using the express settings, add my files & burn at the lowest speed. As said the data does burn onto the disc initially.

Any ideas, that’s the jist of my problem. Would love any suggestions. Thanks.

This is an example of this crazy situation.
Tonight I wanted to watch an episode from a 12 part tv series I have stored on DVD in Xvid format. Inserted disc into my media PC (not media center) & tried to copy part 6 of the file across. XP started the copy, got halway across & gave up, data error.
Rebooted, same thing.
Took the disc to my main PC. This PC showed the files on the disc in win explorer but just froze when I tried to right click on the file to copy.
Tried my laptop, this PC allowed me to copy 10 of the files across but wouldn’t let me copy the first or last file. And yet the DVD Burner drives in my media & main pc are newer that the DVD drive in my laptop.

[Bjs]

It appear's to be something more wrong with the media which is causing your pc's to turn tail and bolt .

Rather than go blow to blow as to everything you have described , which is quite extensive , might I make one simple suggestion .

Locate and download "puppy" , search for bootable linux distro's , it's only 50mb's .

Burn it with nero , you dont need to close the burning session , as this make's and excellent file recovery tool .

Boot your pc using puppy , then once up and running , eject puppy , and insert problematic dvd disc .

You need to mount the drive before it is accessible , which is a simple process .

Own a second instance of the folder browser in puppy , browse you hard drive , and create a new folder .

You should beable to drag file's from dvd , to this new folder , do one at a time , till completed .

Then , simply get puppy to reboot the pc , and your back in window's .

Doing it this way prevent's the windows os and it's memmory manager's from getting in the way of thing's , which is another part of the problem .

Should this fail to retrieve the file's , consider the dvd disc's themselve's to be defective .

It is very common for dvd's to work well for short period , and then suddenly develope every fault you can name .

Use a good utitity to test media before accepting it as a suitable media ...

Just recently tdk released a new revamped looking media with metalic finish ... 3 dvd burner's and nero refused to even touch them , the media that is ... back they went for refund .