Unable to burn DVD+R DL anymore!

[MarkB95312]

I used to be able to burn DVD+R DL on my SONY DVD RW DW-Q28A and HP DVD Writer 640c drives but not anymore. The recordings will stop about 30% into the write or get almost to completion and then give me an "write failed: Input/output error" message. This message is consistant with various applications I use and with both writers. I have been using Memorex 8x DVD+R DL for several months and have successfully written over 100 DVDs as I am backing up my entire collect of movies (over 1500 movies). I now own several expensive coasters and need to stop the bleeding.

Is this a problem with having several DVD rippers installed (DVD Decrypter, DVDFab 5, CloneDVD2, Click-to-DVD, DVD Shrink) and several write programs (Sonic RecordNow, HP DVD, and Imgburn). I have used many different brands of media in the past and all have burned successfully until about two months ago. I am using Windows XP Media Center SP3, am current with all updates, firmware and drivers.

I am able to burn single layer DVD +/-R with no problem but do not like the compressions for some DVD backups and like the DL versions better. Any suggestions on what to look for or any fixes you may be aware of? Several other boards (and I have been to hundreds of them but I neglected to use the primo source for information - Doom9, sorry for the slight) and they have been recommending others to use a different media. They all have the same problem, used to work but just suddenly stopped working, so I find it hard to believe it's the media. I feel some OS updated file or some application has caused this problem.

I leave it in your capable hands and the collective brainpower of your forum. Thanks in advance for any information.

[r0lZ]

Welcome to the forums!
Is this a problem with having several DVD rippers installed (DVD Decrypter, DVDFab 5, CloneDVD2, Click-to-DVD, DVD Shrink) and several write programs (Sonic RecordNow, HP DVD, and Imgburn).Probably not, but who knows? ImgBurn, DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink do not install burn engines, so they should be safe to use. I'm not sure for the other apps.

Your burner may have reached the end of its life, too.

Also, have you verified if DMA is enabled?

[MarkB95312]

The Sony is "If DMA Available" but is operating in PIO and I am unable to change this setting. The HP is DMA.

As for the life expectency of the drives, they both stopped working at the same time when both were fully functional so I may safely rule that out. I agree that they need upgrading but why upgrade when I may face the same issue again?

[Taurus]

DVDFab 5, Sonic RecordNow, HP DVD are using their own drivers.
Did you install other software like Winamp?
The Sonic Burn Engine bundled with Winamp sometimes messes up with existing drivers installed.
And make sure your drives are not running in PIO Mode as r0lZ suggested.
Did you try other brands of discs, for example Verbatim?
Memorex uses different brands under their label, sometimes Ritek, sometimes sh......

To enable DMA Modus again: delete/uninstall the controller to which your drives correspondent in device manager.
This will reset the build in error counter which forces the drives to PIO mode after a few bad burns ore scratchy discs.
Windows will rebuild them from scratch at next boot. Guessing your using XP.
Verify the settings after boot.
Don't blame me or any one, if this does not work as expected. It has helped a many....