Hello all. Even though I just recently registered here as a user I've been lurking around for awhile learning the do's and don'ts of proper DVD burning (and printed out a fairly large stack of papers). Should I treat all of my data backups on DVD's with just as much love and care as I would with doing movie DVD backups?
For instance- when I purchased my laptop last February the first thing I was instructed to do was burn an image of the operating system/ files to a DVD+R/-R right away. It never occured to me to search out the "best" DVD media, maybe slow down the burn speed a little, and verify the burn when finished. In the meantime, I also archived a huge amount of digital photos to a few DVD+R's the same way- slap in a disc and press burn (using Nero).
Now, after piling through a few hundred pages of this forum and a few others, DVD burning isn't that simple- especially when doing a backup of you favorite store bought movie DVD. So now I'm a little worried about what's going to happen when I'm going to verify all of those burned data discs. I hope the majority of them are OK.
LT. Columbo
8 Oct 2005, 12:32 AM
data discs should be treated/handled with the same care, but aren't as finicky when it comes to burning. have you tried to open any yet? i really don't think you have anything to worry about as long as the data side isn't physically damaged.
road_rascal
8 Oct 2005, 06:50 AM
Last night I burned three Sony DVD-R coasters (?) using DVDdecrypter and DVDshrink archiving Constantine. I have no idea why that happened. Decrypter showed a sucessful burn, but it looked like there wasn't anything on the disc (burned blank?). Tried it on a Maxell (Ritek G05) disc, it worked, but the verify scan showed about 0.1% damage using the Nero CD/DVD utility. I then also started to verify the data backups I have. ALL of the Verbatim DVD+R, Memorex and Maxell DVD's show at least some damaged areas (yellow and red) So now I'm wondering if my DVD burner is bad (TSST Corp L532A), and from I read over at the cdfreaks forum, this burner isn't exactly a good one.
I called Gateway and they're sending me out a new one (not sure if it's the same brand/ model). I'm having a hard time believing all of the discs I've burnt have problems. I'm now debating on getting an external hard drive for archiving data.
LT. Columbo
8 Oct 2005, 08:59 AM
i have a few relatively cheap discs that i have watched several times on the dvd player and are 100%, no skips, nothing and--scratch free. as a test i used that nero tool and it found errors on them. so just because you found errors, doesn't mean they won't play/read ok.
blutach
8 Oct 2005, 09:55 AM
Re your burner's health - http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49733
How fast are you burning? If you haven't already, read the golden rules of burning in my signature.
Regards
road_rascal
8 Oct 2005, 11:19 AM
I have been burning at 4X, and I did study the Golden Rules of Burning plenty of times (I hope I did my homework!). I unfortunately did find a few corrupted picture files after I verified a data DVD that showed bad/ damaged areas. Like I stated before, I'm having a hard time believing that after using four different brands of media I have yet to burn a perfect disc.
road_rascal
13 Oct 2005, 09:24 AM
It must have been the burner unit itself. The replacement one, a HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA 4080N (the heck's that?) burned two flawless movie DVD's with no errors according to Nero. I'm going to burn a few data DVD's and see what happens, but I have a feeling everything will be 100%.
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