DVD drives playing up. Long post

[KBeee]

I'm not sure if this should be in this forum, or DVD Writers, but here goes.
I was backing up data to DVD, using Imgburn 2, and verifying the burn was ok.
After about 20 DVD's had been burnt, I got a "verification failed" message from Imgburn.
I checked if the disk could be read by the DVD writer and it couldn't, so I burnt the data again, and it failed again. I have 3 DVD writers on my system, an NEC 4551, and 2 NEC 7170's.
None of the 3 drives could read the data disk.
I went back to my earlier burnt DVD's and checked them, and even though Imgburn2 had verified that the burn had been ok, none of them could be read on any of the drives.
The disks used are genuine TY bought from SVP U.K., so I was a bit surprised to get (what I thought) was dud media.
Then I checked older backed up data disks, that I've previously read and copied many times before, and most of them (about 75%) can no longer be read by any of the drives.
My computer updates and scans for virii every day at 4AM, I use Spybot S&D and AdAware regularly, so I'm pretty sure I don't have a software infection.
I've checked that my DVD writers are DMA not PIO, then uninstalled the DVD's and IDE controllers to let XP re-find and reinstall them, anyway - no change.
I haven't recently installed any new software or hardware that could interfere with disk reads, and even after a re-instal (but not a clean instal) of Windows XP SP2 + 51 Critical updates my DVD drives are still reacting to data DVD's as if they were blank.
If I burn using Imgburn2, the verification will fail with the error message -
__________________________________________________ ____________
I/O Error!
Device: [0:0:0]_NEC DVD_RW ND-4551A 1_07 (H)(ATA)

ScsiStatus: 0x02
Interpretation: Check Condition

CDB: 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00
Interpretation: Read (10)- Sector: 0

Sense Area: F0 00 03 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 00 00
Interpretation: Unrecovered Read Error
__________________________________________________ __________

And that "Oh noo!" voice.
This happens on both TY and Ricoh disks.
I also tried Nero to burn (just in case Imgburn was throwing a wobbly), and that failed too.
Any ideas what to look for next?

[redwudz]

It's doubtful if all three drives failed at once. I don't see any alternative at this point except for a clean install. Repartition/Reformat/Reinstall XP. If that doesn't work, may be a motherboard failure, or power supply.

EDIT: But have you tried reading a disc in Safe Mode? That would keep most drivers from loading. Another option is to boot the computer from a Bart PE CD disc. That would run the computer from it's own OS, so you could see if the drives work that way before reformatting.

[KBeee]

Thanks for the reply.
That's a good idea about trying safe mode. I'll give it a try later today after work.

[JerryB]

hi,
if those TY your referring to are taiyo Yuden disk those are pretty good disk,, my self i use tdk,sony, or verbatin ...

could a possible problem be your burning too fast??? I run into this issue myself once in awhile .. and what i do is I set my burning to lower burning rate... and i generally get a good burn

I'm not sure if this should be in this forum, or DVD Writers, but here goes.
I was backing up data to DVD, using Imgburn 2, and verifying the burn was ok.
After about 20 DVD's had been burnt, I got a "verification failed" message from Imgburn.
I checked if the disk could be read by the DVD writer and it couldn't, so I burnt the data again, and it failed again. I have 3 DVD writers on my system, an NEC 4551, and 2 NEC 7170's.
None of the 3 drives could read the data disk.
I went back to my earlier burnt DVD's and checked them, and even though Imgburn2 had verified that the burn had been ok, none of them could be read on any of the drives.
The disks used are genuine TY bought from SVP U.K., so I was a bit surprised to get (what I thought) was dud media.
Then I checked older backed up data disks, that I've previously read and copied many times before, and most of them (about 75%) can no longer be read by any of the drives.
My computer updates and scans for virii every day at 4AM, I use Spybot S&D and AdAware regularly, so I'm pretty sure I don't have a software infection.
I've checked that my DVD writers are DMA not PIO, then uninstalled the DVD's and IDE controllers to let XP re-find and reinstall them, anyway - no change.
I haven't recently installed any new software or hardware that could interfere with disk reads, and even after a re-instal (but not a clean instal) of Windows XP SP2 + 51 Critical updates my DVD drives are still reacting to data DVD's as if they were blank.
If I burn using Imgburn2, the verification will fail with the error message -
__________________________________________________ ____________
I/O Error!
Device: [0:0:0]_NEC DVD_RW ND-4551A 1_07 (H)(ATA)

ScsiStatus: 0x02
Interpretation: Check Condition

CDB: 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00
Interpretation: Read (10)- Sector: 0

Sense Area: F0 00 03 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 00 00
Interpretation: Unrecovered Read Error
__________________________________________________ __________

And that "Oh noo!" voice.
This happens on both TY and Ricoh disks.
I also tried Nero to burn (just in case Imgburn was throwing a wobbly), and that failed too.
Any ideas what to look for next?

[KBeee]

Yes they are Taiyo Yuden disks, and I've tried at 8X 12X and 16X without success, with both the TY and Ricoh disks.
Following redwudz suggestion, I booted into safe mode, and tried again, (of course in Safe Mode the burners drop to PIO mode hence 1.4X burn max), and the burn still failed.
This is costing me a fortune in coasters lol.
The Safe Mode failure seems to rule out a software incompatability issue, so I'm thinking it might be a hardware problem.
The power supply is a Tagus 480W model and monitoring it shows the rails as working well within tolerance i.e. 5V rails is at 5.05V, 12V at 12V etc.
I've tried setting the BIOS to failsafe mode + needed tweaks (like USB2 support etc.), without any better results.
It seems almost as if Windows is seeing the DVDR's as DVDR's for writing purposes, but as CD's for reading purposes...