What type of Video are you trying to burn?

 

I'm trying to burn VOB files. I recorded them off the Internet with my DVD recorder and then edited them on my PC to remove the commercials. Now I want to burn the edited files back to the DVD. I've been doing this same procedure for over a year, but just recently I started having a problem getting it to burn properly.

 

What's your burner make and model ? Is it an internal or an external one ? Do you have another CD/DVD drive in your computer and do you have a CD with the drivers for your DVD-burner ?

You could try to uninstall/reinstall your burner. Open the device manager : right-click on "my computer" => properties => hardware => device manager. Right-click your dvd-burner under cd/dvd drives and choose uninstall. Restart the computer and XP will redetect it.

At this point, you could let XP install its own drivers and see if it solves your problem. If your drive isn't identified correctly (like if it's reported as a CD or DVD reader but not as a writer), go back to the device manager, right-click your drive and choose update driver. Insert the CD that contains the drivers, select to "install from a list or a specific location" and browse to the folder containing the drivers for XP.

If you can't find your drivers on the CD that came with the burner, they may be integrated in the burning sotware suite that's on the CD. Refer to your drive manual as to how to install it.

 

I have two internal drives. One is a CD/DVD burner (TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H552B) and the other is a CD drive (HL-DT-STCD-ROM GCR-8483B). I do not have a CD with the drivers for the burner. I also don't have a CD for Windows. Everything of that nature was preinstalled on my D drive. I really don't know what's on the D drive and I've never used it. I also don't have a drive manual.

I'll try to uninstall/reinstall my burner. I'll report later on how that went.

 

That drive should be recognized by XP right away without the need of specific drivers so go ahead, uninstall the device and let XP redetect it at startup. Report with the result.

Do you have problems burning other things than VOB files ? If you try to record normal files on a data DVD-/+R does it work ? Use a rewritable DVD-RW if you don't want to spoil a blank DVD-R for testing purposes.

What burning software are you using now ?

Here's the link to your TS-H552B manual and firmware :
http://www.samsung.com/support/prod...0400&subtype=DVD+Writer&subtypecode=300405&model=TS-H552B&filetype=UM&language=

What's your computer brand and model ? Might be a good idea to create your recovery disks should your computer crash one day. There should be a preinstalled software that will allow you to burn those disks, provided your burner works. Else you could order those disks from the manufacturer's website for a small fee.

 

I uninstalled the drive's driver and then rebooted. It was detected upon startup. To see what could be burned I first burned some data files to a CD (all the disks that I used here are rewritable) and then erased them. Both went fine. Then I went to the DVDs. I first used a DVD with a small video file on it. However, I wasn't able to get it to erase that file. I also tried to burn some data files to it, but that appeared to fail. Then I got a new DVD and burned data files to it. That went well but it didn't seem to erase completely. I then took these two DVDs to a second computer. On it the previously used DVD wouldn't read. The drive ran continuously but never read anything. I took this disk to a third computer and it was erased. The second DVD was read and erased by the second computer.

I then took these two DVDs back to the original computer (the one with the problems). I was then able to write and erase data from both. I then burned VOB files to the previously used DVD and they were burned successfully. I was able to view the movie on a video player. Then I erased it successfully. Go figure!

The software I am now using on this computer (it's an eMachine T5026) is called Final Burner. It's a free download that I've been using for about two weeks following all the problems with Nero.

I don't have a clue as to what's happening, but things may have improved following the uninstall/install of the driver.

 

Some additional comments. Tonight I recorded a movie from my DVD recorder onto the disk that had caused problems earlier. The recording went well so I took the DVD and put it into my computer drive. I used DVD Shrink to transfer the movie to my hard drive. Then I used DvdReMake to edit the movie and put it back on the hard drive. Next I tried to erase the DVD I'd just used with FinalBurner. The program indicated that it had been erased, but I tried to examine it by opening it, but couldn't. The DVD drive and hard drive both ran continuously and I had to hit Ctl+Alt_Delete to stop the two drives from running.

I took the disk to another computer and found that it had a VIDEO_RM file on it. I could not get it to play so I erased the disk. Then I took the erased disk back to this troubled machine and recorded the movie on it. It seemed to record ok but I was unable to play the movie. The video player wouldn't run the movie, but it did display the initial frame of the movie. Thus it appears that the movie is copied onto the disk but is corrupted somehow. I opened the disk using MyComputer. It looked like all the files had been burned onto it. There was no VIDEO_RM on the disk and there wasn't one on the hard drive.

Something's obviously screwed up, but I don't know what.

Thanks for your help.

 

Well I can't say much... maybe the lens is dirty or your burner is dead.

Test the burner in another computer with another blank DVD. Once you've burn a DVD, wait 5 minutes so that it gets cooler then try to copy all its content back to your drive. Simply seing the files in Windows Explorer or in My computer doesn't mean they've been copied correctly. Try with different DVD brands also, some disks may be incompatible with your burner. Verify also that your burner identifies correctly the speed supported by the DVD and that it doesn't try to copy in 16x to a 4x DVD-RW.

If you have similar problems with this burner on another computer, it's the burner that's probably dead. If it's still under warranty your should RMA it for replacement.

 

I've been away for a couple of weeks but I'd like to revive this topic. I followed the recommendation of justpassingby. I burned a video onto a new DVD+RW, waited 5 minutes, and then copied it back to the hard drive. All went well. However, when I tried to erase the disk, I had problems. The drive ran continuously and the light on the drive blinked at a very high frequency. Finally I manually removed the disk from the drive. I then tried to see what was on the disk, but was unable to open it. I put it on another computer but it wouldn't read it either. It seems that the erase function screws up the disk's format.

Prior to this, I contacted technical support of the computer's manufacturer. They ran a diagnostic program on my machine via the Internet and concluded that the CD/DVD drive was working normally.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how I can solve this problem?

Thank you.