DVD burning under Vista - an expensive trial-and-error game.....

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello :)

After i've found my ways around Vista and gooten quite used to it, i thought it's about to time to stop playing with the shiny new OS and get back to productivity, which is - converting videos and burning DVD's. I quickly found that you can't get DivX to work in Vista, old versions will create errors with the video-file-icon view in folders (com surrogate crash), newer versions don't generate that one but therefor don't open WMP when clicking an .avi file...... Xvid to the rescue, DivX in the bin and everything is fine :)

My Musicmatch Jukebox which is also my favourite mp3 re-coder (lower bitrate mp3's for mobile phone usage) and music CD burner (got a full 10.0 version) claims it's not compatible with Vista, but runs fine nevertheless - if only it would use less than 250 MB of RAM and 90% of the CPU, it would be fine - Yahoo, which has taken over Musicmatch, won't accept a Musicmatch subscription as a reason to allow an upgrade to their new Vista-compatible "Yahoo Music" jukebox, which is essentially the same thing but re-branded..... but i don't pay twice, i rather get an even faster CPU and more RAM :)

BUT the biggest problem in Vista appears to be my second-most important task - the creating of regular data-DVD's.

Of course, my trusty old Nero 5.5 would not work at all in Vista, would fail an install and refuse to uninstall, ero's tool removed it finally. Nero's newer version (latest in the shops here) 7.5.9.1 claims to be compatible with Vista, so i bought it (untested.... should've downloaded a trial first) - and it did install indeed, but didn't burn a DVD! Instead it came up "illegal disc". NOT before destroying that disc by burning some rubbish onto it!

After i had gone thru 9 discs (!!) trying with various ioptions and Nero-reinstalls, i came to the conclusion that my burner must have a defect, as i found it can still burn CD's just fine. So i went and got a new one. And see, it did NOT bring the "illegal disc" error - instead it brought a "power calibration error". 4 discs later i downloaded Nero's latest upgrade (after trying to get it to download for two days without success), now i'm on version 7.7.1.5" or something like that, and THAT burns - around 50% of the discs, and half of those can even be read in a drive which is not the burner. It still wastes about every second attempt with various BS error messages and some kilobyes of data scratched into the disc, just so enough to render it unusable.

Burning a data DVD from Vista's own menu fails completely - it just sits there, pretending to burn, stating "1 hour 16 minutes remaining" - for hours, without doing anything, and even freezing up in that process.

Now people have suggested that the type of disc i am using is the problem - Princo. Could be, i admitt, but WTF i have been using that very same disc type for a year and never lost a single one? So it's either Vista or Nero, or the combination of those two, as Vista itself fails as well, i tend to blame Vista.

I tried Ashampoo - it fails as well, and even the suggested ImgBurn shoots error after error, at least THAT one keeps trying and anywhere from 2nd to 7th attempt actually gets the data onto the disc without destroying it - good program!

Now on the weekend i will try some other brand of discs, i will go for either Sony or TDK as those are recommended by the manufacturer of my burner (LiteOn) for that specific model of burner. People tried to recommend me Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden, but Verbatim is unheard of here in Thailand and Taiyo Yuden are recommended by LiteOn for anything - except what i need, DVD-R.

Now what i am looking for is some advise from other Vista users here, if there are some - have you successfully burned data DVD's and if yes, what software did you use? What type of blank DVD's?

On a different note, if i can't get this to work, i need to get back to XP and Nero 5.5. i don't want to do a full install and try to set up dual boot - too much hassle because i have Vista running already and don't want to have to fiddle with bootsector-reconstructions. Instead i have installed Microsoft Virtual PC, as i have read that it would allow for installation of a second OS and start that from inside Vista. Sure i'll need some more RAM to get that run smooth, but i'm planning to go from 1.5 to 3 GB anyway. Anyone here done that before? Does it work? I would only need a plain XP and Nero 5.5.

Hope anyone can assist me here.......

With kind regards.....

your Thanh

[AlanHo]

I have Vista Ultimate and Nero v 7.9.6.0 which burns single and double layer DVD's without problems using TDK discs in an internal LG Super Multi burner.

I did have an initial problem when I installed a new burner - it turned out that I was using the wrong connecting cable. The new burner was Ultra DMA Mode 4 which requires an 80 wire cable - my previous burner was Ultra DMA Mode 2 which was OK on a 40 wire cable. I replaced the cable and everything was fine.