Coasters w/Sony Optiarc drive

[rjc7394]

I've had a lot of DVD/CD coasters (~50%) w/Sony Optiarc DVD SATA drive for NEC (1 yr. old). Been using Verbatim DVD+RW/DVD+R and Memorex discs (and low speeds). And I've always used either Cheetah or Ashampoo softwares (and low speeds) which I never had a problem with on my old PC (XP SP2, Plextor IDE DVD drive, Athlon XP 2600, ABIT VA-10). I close all my applications before I burn and my Power Management (standby/monitor) is disabled. Had the same problem using my present system with a Pioneer DVD drive. Now using XP SP3, Athlon AM2 2500, Gigabyte GA-M57SLI mobo, 2 GB RAM. Which blank media is better? I was told Verbatim was very good.

[not important]

Verbatim (Made in Taiwan "NOT" Made in Singapore) is excellent media. I use 16X +R and burn at 12X.
Taiyo Yuden are also excellent DVD media.
I'm not familiar with Cheeatah but AShampoo can have some issues with large DVD files (i.e. movies).
I've backed up well over 1500 DVD movies using Plextor (when they made their own drives) and Lite-On DVDRW's. As of now LG is at the top for burning.

[rjc7394]

I should say that the burning never completes, it freezes somewhere during the burning and the only way I can get out is to reboot the PC. So it might be a system problem but I don't know what it is.

[Force Flow]

What burning software are you using?

[not important]

Are attempting to burn data or movies? Give Imgburn a try for movies. It's free.

[glc]

What burning software are you using?
...
And I've always used either Cheetah or Ashampoo softwares

[Force Flow]

oops...guess I misread that.

For freeware, I'd recommend imgburn or CDburnerXP. They usually work well with pretty much anything. If your drive still burns coasters with either one of those, then we can probably rule out software as the cause of the problem.

[rjc7394]

I burn avi, wmv and mpg and I recently burned 4.4 GB of jpg and it took me 3 Verbatim discs to get a good burn. I use Cheetah and Ashampoo. I also burned RAW image files to CD-R and took me a few discs. My DVD burner firmware is updated. I won't use Roxio or Nero because their software is too large with too many unusable features.

[glc]

You are missing the point. Please TRY different software - and nobody said to use Roxio or Nero.

[rjc7394]

CDburnerXP works like a charm so far. Thanks for suggestions.