My computer hates me:
Case Number one: I have been having all sorts of burning problems for a while. I’m an absolute rat bahstahd about backup stuff, and first the old burner coughed and choked over any media I put in it, getting picky to the point of unusability. Replaced it with a new Sony DRU-180A. After a while, the Sony and various burner software reported that it Did Not Like the Memorex disks (either DVDs or DVD-DLs) and was either telling me that the media was crap and refused to burn, or the burning abended with a crash, or the disks were coming out with VISIBLE errors. Not Acceptble.
So everyone was saying - oh, those Memorex disks are crap, go get these Verbatims. They’re on sale with a rebate at NewEgg. So I did. Burnt two test disks. One was a video DVD with a bunch of web videos (political) that came up to show the family, because I knew the thing would burn quickly. The other was a TV show. I’m trying them on the DVD players in the house, and they’re not reading the burnt DVDs.
(I try stuff on video because video is a pickier format - better to have a crap disk with a video blow up right away than rely that your work-at-home backup is going to be fine, take it to work or use it later and find out that the horkin’ thing didn’t burn that backup right at a critical stage.)
Checked the burning speed - 4x on 16x media rating. Checked the DVD’s ID (MCC 03RG20) - it’s perfectly good stuff. Ran a compatibility tester from Sony, and it had no problem. Checked the firmware on the burner - up to date. Windows is up to date. The DVD player I used in the living room is our Philips 642, and that sucker plays *anything*, pretty much.
I can’t imagine what’s going on, unless there’s some goofy hardware thing with the motherboard or the burner itself. More research needed.