Invalid Address for Write Error Continued

[WhoDatRazor]

You're absolutely right 3dman7. Getting back to the topic, I'm really wondering why lately I'm not getting those burn errors anymore when nothing has changed in that regard, other than finding out they only seem to happen on DL discs when the burn program is switching to the 2nd layer, and may be tied to multi-episode discs (or not). My ASUS seems to be working better since removing that ASUS utility, but I tried it only because nothing seemed to be working - that same burn error on almost all the 50 GB burns, even the B of B discs. Looks like the last 3 burns on different BofB discs are good. Still checking them. The Revenant burn looks fine, but haven't checked all of it yet. 3dman7, any idea why? Also, do you know of a really long movie to try a burn on, other than Avatar? The Revenant copy I used only has the movie and is mid 30GB. Next, when I tried using the "Verify" option on both DVD and blu ray copies, I got "Fail" results after "Copy Completed Successfully". Does that mean the Verification failed because the original disc had scratches or other defects? It would be useful to know the original is bad rather than having to watch the entire copy to find out it is no good. Thanks and I'll try to stay on point.

Turak: Could you respond to my last post on your first scanning tip? Sorry, I'm not sure I understood. Looking forward to talking with you more on this when I get the other drives.

Thank you both. I'm sure this will help others.

october262: the Pioneer drive I'm waiting on is BDR-209DBK. Later.

[3dman]

Frozen-Hugo-Titanic are over 25gigs just put a disk in the drive and click on computer windows will tell you its size.As to why it will be a guessing game as your not saying if your still using Img burn set with opc before burn and the slower burning speed or if your using Fab burner. I wanted you to try burning a different disk that was big enough to use 2 layers of the 50 gig disk with all settings and firmware as you use to have them this way we could of tested to see if this was just the one disk that you have trouble with burning this was always my first thought.If you keep changing everything then I can't help you.Troubleshooting requires logical steps one at a time from one person that helps you at a time if after the things I give you to check don't help then feel free to use another's advice.

[Turak]

Scanning Discs

You have to burn them first, using any Blu-Ray or DVD burner you want, then you can scan them with the Lite-On. Also you can burn at any speed you want, but you should scan them at either 4x or 8x. Those are the two speeds typically used for quality scanning. It allows you to compare the scans you are getting to other people who scan their discs at 4x and 8x.

As to the Write errors and using the verify function. The verify function simply means that when it burned that sector and then it tried to compare what got burned to what was supposed to be burned that they did not match. Basically it indicates that your burner is not burning the sectors properly. It has nothing to do with the fact that your original may have errors, unless possibly you are trying to use two burners at once, one to read from and one to write to.

I would recommend instead, create an ISO from the original, saving it to your hard drive. Then burn that ISO from your hard drive to the blank. I know it is a two step process, but is typically much more reliable.

[WhoDatRazor]

Turak: Thanks for explaining the scanning process. Looking forward to trying it when I get the other burners. I get that the results will be different at 4X and 8X. Cool you can compare results at those speeds to other people's scans. Can't wait to try it.
Thanks for explaining the "Verify" function. Just tried burning a BofB Disc 4 that had only 2 or 3 copies ever made and failed the Verify, so I knew it couldn't be errors on the original disc. So my ASUS burner is not copying accurately then, even when I think I have a good copy. I'm still only using one ASUS - the other is disconnected.
Sometimes I DO make ISO copies to my C: drive and burn as a separate step. For now I'm gonna use a BofB D5 iso to compare ImgBurn vs DVDFab Burning Engines. See below.

3dman: Before I copy a blu ray, I always check the disc size after loading it in "My Computer". If it's a multi-episode disc, then can't use Main Movie mode cause it'll only copy one episode. If it's a movie, since I'm not interested in Special Features etc., I see if it will fit on a 25 GB disc using Main Movie. If the original is under 25 GB, I can Clone it.

DVDFab support had me change from the VSO Burning Engine to the DVDFab Burning Engine and the speed from Recommended to 4X. That didn't stop the errors. Since there is no 3X speed for these 6X discs, I then set it at 2X per your advice. I've also changed the Encoding Speed under "Blu Ray" to Slow Speed/High Quality. The other settings are the same. Getting really nice looking results now, with no Write Error(finally). Copies have never looked so good.

When I was trying ImgBurn, I was burning the ISO from the downloaded ImgBurn program with opc on and off. If I turn opc on and set the speed to 2X in the ImgBurn program, will DVDFab use those settings using the ImgBurn Burning Engine? Otherwise I can certainly burn from the ImgBurn program where I can control the settings. I'll use the same ISO and can compare the burn results. It'll be interesting to use ImgBurn and see if the write error returns. I wish I knew which setting change was key. Looking forward to the new drives. Can't wait to see what the copies will look like using a Pioneer.

[3dman]

You asked wish i knew what setting caused me to be able to burn 2 layer disks I told you would have to go back to the old firmware addition and proceed one step at a time to see what step this was.With you resetting so many things and changing burners back and forth your never going to know but really who care's at this point everything is working fine so leave things as is.

Img burn can be set up to burn at 2x and stay this way but with the new disks and drives this will all change. I would set it at variable speed with OPC before burn and see if it will burn the 50 gig 2 layer disks you have now if yes leave it that way for all disks to burn that way.Img burn can be set up with one brand to burn at 2x and another to burn at variable speed also and always burn this way until you change the settings.

Are you able to burn the episode disk that you had trouble with in post#1 in the older thread now? If no:

It also could of been the one 50 gig episode disk you had trouble with had a manufacturing defect and won't burn the second layer with any burner or burner software this is why I keep asking you to burn a regular movie that's over 25 gigs using the old settings and firmware because you didn't do this we will never know if nothing was ever wrong with your drive.

The first thing I would do with the Pioneer drive after checking for a firmware upgrade using the old 50 gig disks is to go ahead and burn the same trouble 50 gig episode disk this will tell if the one disk was defective should the pioneer not burn it also if this turns out to be the case then your going to learn a very expensive lesson it's not always the player settings or blank media but the disk your trying to burn from could be damaged or defective even a bad layer break.

[Turak]

Write errors

As we found out part way through everything......

Definitely altering so many things; OS, discs, burners, software settings, source Blu-rays, etc. will probably make it very hard to ever really figure out what was causing the problem.

It sounds like you were doing what is called 'on the fly' copying/burning.

Which is basically using 2 burners, one to read the original, and one to burn/write the copy.

This can be very problematic. The burner reading the original has to stay ahead of the one writing the copy. For a variety of reasons this has always been somewhat problematic and usually not recommended.

If you try to read a heavily compressed original, or an original that is not in the best of shape, or an original with a lot of protection (i.e. fake vts's, bad sectors, etc.), the software that is doing the copying has to do a lot of work to try and stay ahead of the drive doing the burning.

You may want to consider changing your process and ALWAYS copy the source to an ISO on your hard drive and then burn the ISO to a blank disc.

Basically by reading the disc to an ISO and succeeding, you prove that the source disc can be read. This also will eliminate a few of the possible problems, like the problem with buffer under runs, buffer emptying out because the reading can not keep up with the writing, and very often failure to verify problems.

If you then try to write an ISO to a blank disc and have a problem, you know right off the bat that it has nothing to do with the original source disk because the source was read fine and the ISO created on the hard drive.

I have NEVER encountered a situation where you can not write the copy out because of a problem with the original, unless it was just a size type problem where it is too big to fit on the original, or you are doing 'on the fly' copying/burning.

I have seen the 'write error' problem you described with;

1. Burners that don't like particular brands of discs. (Most common problem with failure to burn the 2nd layers).
2. Discs that are scratched or defective from the surface being rubbed (i.e top few or bottom few in a spindle). (usually causes random burn failures or poor quality burns)
3. 'On the Fly' copying, because the burner doing the writing can not keep up with the burner doing the reading. (Cause all kinds of problems, typically burn failures at random points)
4. OPC selection (Typically causes fail to burn right off the bat or poor quality burns)
5. Firmware problems. (Random problems)
6. Options/Settings in the software used for the burning process.

I also HIGHLY recommend, NOT using the 'write at recommended speed' selection. This can create a problem when the discs you are using are not in the burners table of recognized discs. Figure out what speeds produce the best quality burns with the discs your are using and stick to those speeds. In my case, using the Pioneer with the Verbatim DL Blu-Rays (made in Japan) it is 6x or 8x. When using Verbatim DL DVD's (made in Singapore or United Arab Emirite) its 8x.

Note that almost all quality burners will typically downgrade the speed if it has problems at the selected speed. So if you select 8x and it has problems it will downgrade the speed to 6x, etc. This has nothing to do with using the 'recommended speed' setting.

Also many burners nowadays use what is called 'Zone Level' recording when you select any speed higher than 4x (i.e. 6x or 8x, or 10x). The Pioneer uses this method when you select any speed over 4x. Like when I select 8X, it starts out burning at 6x, then at about the 15% mark, it switches to 8x, then depending on how big the image is it may switch back down to 6x to finish. It does this to keep the quality of the burn as high as possible. It is hard to burn the inner portion of the disc (closest to the center) at the high speeds so it starts out slower, then switches to faster speed as it gets part way into the burn.

When you burn at 4x or less the burners use what is called CAV mode (constant angular velocity). Basically it starts out slow and just keeps going faster and faster until you either finish, get to your selected speed, or reach the outside edge of the disc. Look up Zone Level vs CAV burning and you will see what I mean.

This is the same reason that ImgBurn sets the OPC setting to OFF. Frequently it can set the burner to the WRONG speed and cause burn failures or poor quality burns. Because it is only testing a single spot on the disc and it usually near the inner portion.

As to the fail to verify problem. I have also seen this quite a few times caused by the following;

1. 'On the fly' copying/burning. (caused by buffer under runs, bad sectors, heavily scratched originals, sector links, etc.)
2. Heavily compressed/protected originals. Many times the reading can not keep up with the writing.
3. Low quality discs. (i.e many Ritek discs)
4. Problems with the writer where it is creating sector 'links'. This happens when the burner doing the writing can not keep up and pauses for a split second. It has to create 'link' in the sector so it can finish writing out the sector. Drive Manufacturers call this a variety of things; Burn Proof, Flex Burn, Seamless Link, JustLink, SuperLink, etc.
5. Options/Settings in the software used for the burning/verifying process.

I have also seen a variety of problems when the SATA controller/IDE controller are using a Generic/Microsoft driver and not the one that was made by the manufacturer of the mother board or SATA controller. Many motherboards have 2 or more SATA controllers, for example my motherboard has both, an Intel SATA controller and another one made by ASMedia. The Intel SATA controller will typically use an Intel driver or a Microsoft driver. The ASMedia SATA controller will use an ASMedia driver. Use a Microsoft driver with the ASMedia controller and it will quite often start having problems.

And last but not least, another factor is using Windows 10. MANY, many people have been reporting problems with Microsoft upgrading or reverting to 'default' drivers and or default settings, thereby causing problems with equipment that was working fine. Sound drivers, USB drivers, ACHI drivers, etc.

Hope all this helps.

[3dman]

And to make this all go away don't burn disks at all just copy to a hugh 4-5 T hard drive and be done with all these problems like a lot of us have already done.Those 50 gig disks just cost two much and easy to damage.
With all you spent this week i would return it all get a cloud hard drive and be done with it.

[WhoDatRazor]

2 Good Burns, 1 Bad

When I wrote the very first post, I was getting the "Invalid Address for Write" error on most 50 GB burn attempts, so I don't think a bad original was the problem. At that point, I already had a new Windows 10 installed and had installed the 2 ASUS drives (and trashed my old LG dvd and LG blu ray drives. No way to know if one or both of those changes was causing the problem, see?
DVDFab tech told me to switch to DVDFab burning engine (before VSO engine) and to slow the burn speed. Slowed to 4X, then 2X. Same error. ASUS tech told me to disconnect one of the drives and it has stayed disconnected for the last week.Tried some setting changes, an ASUS firmware update that turned out to be just a power utility download, tried the Verify function, not understanding how it really works (thanks Turak). Removed the ASUS non-firmware update, took the Verify off. After changing the DVDFab Encoding Settings under Common Settings/Blu-ray/Blu-ray Copy from Fast Speed/Normal Quality to Slow Speed/High Quality I got some successful 50 GB burns that look great.

Now: I recopied Band of Brothers Disc 3 to an iso. I could never get a good copy, so I wrote to this forum. Got a great burn using the DVDFab burning engine. Got a successful burn switching to the ImgBurn burning engine on DVDFab w/opc turned on. Speed 12X, thought it was set to 2X(see Log). Looks like it burned @ 4X. Reset the speed to 2X and tried a burn today (latest) on the ImgBurn program w/ opc on and failed with the same burn error @ 74%, which is at the layer break.The burn was also extremely slow. (Log) 3dman7: Could you look at the log? Is there anything wrong that stands out? Wanted to compare burn quality: DVDFab vs ImgBurn burning engines @ 2X. Gonna try a burn @ 12X on the ImgBurn program w/o opc and see what happens.

Turak: Think I'm gonna download a driver update program. Got a 6 year old Gigabyte motherboard. Device Manager only shows IDE SATA controllers (2).

Lotta info again guys. As Jesse on Breaking Bad would say, you da bomb!

[3dman]

Could you look at the log? Is there anything wrong that stands out? Wanted to compare burn quality: DVDFab vs ImgBurn burning engines @ 2X. Gonna try a burn @ 12X

In those logs are many errors read and write.You said you got it all working well why are you messing with it? Your very confusing to me.

[Turak]

[QUOTE=WhoDatRazor;195037]
Think I'm gonna download a driver update program. Got a 6 year old Gigabyte motherboard. Device Manager only shows IDE SATA controllers (2).

QUOTE]

Have you tried just going out to Gigabytes web site. Plug in your motherboard model and see what updates are available.? You could also try looking in Device Manager and see what type SATA controller is listed in there.

[WhoDatRazor]

Turak Reply

Had gone to Gigabyte site and emailed support. They said it sounds like a software issue. Couldn't find a driver update for their motherboard, but emailed them back to ask just in case. Used Driver Booster 4 (Iobit) to download a bunch of updates.

Good news and bad. Got my new drives. The Pioneer made what looks like a perfect copy of the test BofB D3 iso @2X. Watched it and looked fine. Ran a scan on Opti Drive Control and found no errors. Had all the Extra Tests ticked. Results below - not sure what I'm seeing. The bad news is the supposed new Lite-on drive is an OEM manufactured for HP or Dell. Opti Drive says hp, Google says Dell. Talked to Lite-on tech, and he told me this is why no firmware updates listed on their site for it. It reads BD but does not write BD's. That would be OK if I don't need to Create a test disc to use Opti Drive. Let me know if I need write capability. Bummer. Didn't know any drives would read but not write BD's. Got it on Ebay and at bottom of page, it showed that, but I didn't scroll down and see it. Their model name was also slightly off. Don't know if I could get a refund. Paid $46 - could get a used Lite-on there a little cheaper.
Opti Scan only gave me 2X, 4X, or 6X speed choices. No 8X. Also how do you compare scans to others at a certain scan speed? Here's the results of the scan:
Transfer rate: Read speed @2X. Rpm 2X gradually down to 1X. (1.99X avg)
Disc quality: 1st Graph - nothing showing for LDC, Read speed, or Write speed. 2nd - nothing showing for BIS or Jitter. Nothing is good, right?
CD Bler and FE/TE tabs: nothing showing.
Access Times: Random=235 ms, 1/3 stroke=216 ms, Full stroke=296 ms
Burst rate=54.2 MB/s CPU usage = 1%

Other scans of BDs seem to stop when they encounter an error. Since there were no LDC/BIS errors showing on the graph, does this mean that it was a perfect burn?
Thanks.

[Turak]

For performing a disk quality scan do the following;

Each test along the Left hand size is an independent test (i.e. Transfer Rate, Create Test disc, Verify Test disc, Drive info, Disc info, Drive Quality, etc. It DOES NOT fill in data for all of them, only for the one that is selected. A couple of them fill in the information automatically, like the Drive Info or Disc Info if there is a disc in the drive, etc.

From reading above it appears that you had the default, Transfer rate selected. That is why you did not see any info under Disc Quality when you moved down through the selections.

You MUST select what type of test you want to run and it will only fill in the data for that test. You can not then move to the other tests and see any data, other than the few that automatically read the data like Drive Info and Disc Info, unless you run it with that particular test selected.

Launch the Opti Drive Control Program;

1. At the top left, under the menus, where it says 'Drive'...make sure the Blu-Ray Burner you are going to use for scanning is selected. Use the drop down if it is not.
2. On the left side of the screen, about half way down, select Disc Quality. The screen should change, now saying Quality near the top, left and split into 2 graphs, one on top and one on bottom.
3. On the lower right side of the screen, where it says Speed, select the drop down arrow and select either 4x or 8x. I generally scan mine at 4x unless I am in a hurry, then I use 8x.
4. Insert your disc in the drive that you selected at the top. Give it a minute to read the disc and the lines near the top left that say 'Type, MID, Length, and Contents' should fill in with some information about the disc.
5. If its a DVD, You can click the little disc symbol next to the box where it says 'Label' and it will fill in. For Blu-Rays it will not.
6. Near the bottom of the screen, slightly left of center, there is a box that says 'Jitter'. Deselect it (Make sure there IS NOT a check mark in it. IT can cause problems sometimes.
7. Now near the bottom right, select the button that says 'Start Full'.

The quality scan should start. At 4x it WILL take a little while, but you will get a slightly better quality scan than at 8x. You should start seeing many vertical lines appearing in the top graph and maybe a few every now and then in the lower graph.

For a Blu-Ray, the lines in the top graph are the LDC errors, for DVD's they will be PIE errors, which are correctable errors. You will see many, many all the way across the disc. Hopefully they are not too high/tall.

In the lower graph, For Blu-Rays you will see the BIS errors, for DVD's they are the PIF errors, which are the uncorrectable errors. Hopefully not too many and not very tall.

The lines are generally green for the errors that are acceptable, if they get taller, they will turn yellow, and if they are very tall, they will turn RED. Anything in Yellow or Red is unacceptable and may be noticeable when viewing the movie in the form of a stutter, pixilated spot, lower quality, fuzziness, etc. only for a moment, but they indicate poorer quality burn for that particular sector/spot in the disc.

In the lower portion of the screen, under the graphs where it says 'Avg, Max, and Total', you will see incrementing numbers. These are the actual values it calculates. What you are really concerned about are the Max numbers, especially the BIS for Blu-Rays and PIF for DVD's. THE LOWER THE BETTER.

You will see the vertical lines filling in from left to right on the graph. It will continue until it reaches the large RED vertical line on both graphs, which is the end of the data on the disc. The more data on the disc, the further to the right the Red line will be.

You will also see a progress bar at the bottom with a percentage value indicating how much of the disc has been scanned at any point in time, giving you an idea of how much is left to scan.

You may end up having to adjust the graphs a little to really see the vertical lines well. Just let me know how it goes and we can make some other minor adjustments, if needed. The graphs will auto resize depending on the height of the vertical lines, which can make it hard to see them sometimes if there are a few REALLY tall lines in the graphs.

This should get you started. I am sure you will have many more questions and that's OK. Just wanted to give you enough info to get started.

[WhoDatRazor]

Opti Drive Scan

Thanks Turak. The scan worked fine. The first iso that the Pioneer made and played fine (using DVDFab w/DVDFab Burning Engine @6X) was scanned. The LDC had an Avg of 11.95 and Max of 2774. All were green. The BIS had an Avg of 0.22 and a Max of 22. There was only one spike over 18. I thought I had a perfect burn - looked fine. Ran scan @ 4X - choices were 2X, 4X, and 6X. What's next?

Very happy I was able to get a disc quality scan. It's why I got the Lite-on drive. I told you I can't write/burn with it. Do I need that capability with Opti Drive?

Look forward to hearing from you. Got the Digistor blanks in 25GB and 50GB. Will be comparing burns with them. Later.

[Turak]

More Quality scanning info

Glad to hear it worked for you.

Since you are really just using the Lite-On for scanning..... No, it is not necessary to be able to write/burn discs with it.

As to the Blu-ray scans....

You are really just interested in the BIS Max values. You indicated that the one disc you scanned had a Max BIS value of 22. That is just a little high. Generally speaking you would want that value to be at 15 or less. But you are on the right track.

There is not much you can do to improve that value other than use different discs, better quality discs, discs that your burner likes better, different burn engines/programs, or by finding the best speed that your burner works at with whatever brand you are using. It will vary depending on the brands of discs and can even vary a little from batch to batch/spindle to spindle from the same brand.

Here is what I would recommend for testing your discs. The following will help eliminate some inconsistencies that can arise to differences in your scans depending on your typical burning process (i.e. making ISOs and burning from hard drive, on the fly burning, using different burn engines, etc.)

Find one of your Blue-Rays that has as much data on it as possible. For single layers, the closer to 25GB of data the better, For the Double Layers, the closer to 50GB the better. Because almost the entire surface of each layer is being used.

Once you find a couple good choices, one for the SL tests and one for the DL tests, do the following.

1. Use DVDFab for protected original or if they are not protected, you can use ImgBurn and make an ISO image of each one, the SL and the DL originals, saving it to your Hard Drive.
2. Then, lets say for example, your blank discs are 6x discs. Put one in the Burner you are going to burn the disc with and see what the 'allowable' burns speeds are. They will probably be 2x, 4x, 6x, and 8x in most cases, maybe even 10x. I would ignore the 2x and start with 4x.
3. Again, using ImgBurn, select the ISO that you created and stored on your hard drive. MAKE SURE to use the SAME ISO for each of the following test burns at each different burn speed.
4. Set the burn speed in ImgBurn to 4x and burn one disc.
5. Then do it again with the burn speed set to 6x.
6. Then do it again with the burn speed set to 8x.
7. Depending on how many blank discs you want to use/waste in testing (the DLs can get expensive). You can also do 2x and 10x if they are 'allowable' burn speeds for that particular brand of blanks. The 'allowed' burns speeds can be different for different brands (i.e. the Verbatims vs the Digistores or even other brands).
8. Once you have all your test discs burned at the various speeds you want to test. Proceed with scanning each one.

I tend to take a screen shot of the completed quality scan and then compare all the screen shots after I am done with scanning all the discs.

Look at the MAX BIS value for each of the different discs burned. The one with the lowest MAX BIS value is generally speaking the better quality burn.

You can also look at the graphs of each burn. What would be ideal in the graphs, would be the vertical lines being very even (same general height) all the way across the disc and have a max value of 15 or less for Blu-Rays.

What you will tend to see, is that it starts low and moves higher or they start higher, then move lower, or that they just vary up and down in various spots across the disc.

As the vertical lines start moving higher, it is getting a progressively worse burn at that section of the disc. You will notice that at various burn speeds, the graphs can vary quite a bit.

You will also notice that when burning Dual layer discs, many times the graphs will go from lower to higher, as it nears the layer change, then go from higher to lower.

One BIG recommendation if the discs you bought came in a spindle. Do NOT use the top 5 or the bottom 5 discs as test discs. They tend to vibrate and spin just enough to actually affect the surface of the disc enough that it will show up in the quality scans just a bit. Sometimes you can even look at the surface of the discs under a strong light and see marks, spots on them where they were 'rubbed' a bit from the vibrations, spinning just enough during the handling/shipping of the spindle to cause the minor damage to the discs. I tend to grab the discs towards the middle for my initial testing.

Another tip, you may want to download the manual for the Opti Drive Control program. It has good information in it about the various tests and information in it regarding the quality scan values.....like the BIS being 15 or lower, recommended scan speeds, etc. Let me know if you can not find it. I have a copy of it in PDF format.

[WhoDatRazor]

Thanks Turak. Very helpful once again. The Opti Drive manual is under the Help tab and I've got it. Will read it before asking questions about the other tests. I'll have to look into good test 25GB and 50GB discs. The Band of Brothers discs I bought had very little use and are multi-episode, but are 30-35GB DL's. 3dman7 suggests using a big DL movie, so I may buy Avatar as a tester.

I tried a 50GB Digistor with my Pioneer using DVDFab's Burn Engine @ 6X just like the good burn I got with my Verbatim. The copy is playing real nice, but when I scanned it, I got a bizarre result. The disc is 31.1 GB and the scan started at 30GB and of course was over in no time. Thought the disc didn't burn, but so far looks fine. Will run another scan. All the settings were the same as on the Verbatim. Any ideas why the scan went haywire?
Previously, I tried using a The Revenant copy I had burned as a Main Movie and was still 43GB. Running a scan now to see if it's usable.

Be back soon. Won't rescan the Digistor until after I do The Revenant. Bye.