Hi folks,

I've been visiting here for a long time, but this is my first post.

I have spent many, many hours over the last few days reading here & trying everything I can think of to try & solve my problem - it's similar to what others have experienced, but I haven't seen anyone else having exactly the same thing happen.

I'm using an ACER 1.4 Pentium M laptop with 768 MB memory, ripping to a firewire 120 GB ext. HD with 40 GB of free space (output & temp directories set for this drive), with a firewire NEC 3500 burner in a Prolific 3507 enclosure with latest firmware for drive & enclosure (I know others have had problems with this chipset, but it worked fine for me in all modes at first).

FAB ver 3.1.8.0 was working perfectly - experimented with all modes - burned disc to disc OK, ripped to HD folder first & then burned to DVD OK. The only thing I couldn't get to work was burning from an ISO - sometimes would write to image file OK, but would never burn to disc from an image - I used a disc that was only 2 GB, so I don't think it was because my HD is FAT 32? Anyway, I can live with this for now as I don't really use image files that much.

But then FAB refused to burn DVD's from folders on my hard drive - it rips OK, but will not then burn to disc (which it was doing just fine at first) - Analyzes DVD OK, but then hangs (stops responding) during the Copy process - never makes it to the burn process - it freezes & I have to use End Task - ext. burner stops working & I have to reinstall the drive. But it will burn that same DVD directly from the disc (disc to disc), just not from the HD folder. Have tried many different discs - movies & concert videos - all new & clean. (It will not burn from the same video folders on the HD that it burned from perfectly at first.)

I did a clean uninstall of ver 3.1.8.0 & reinstalled ver 3.2, as directed here - the only thing I haven't done yet is run a registry cleaner.

I defragged, ran AV, ran Anti-spyware. I have all the settings configured to the recommendations here (SAO), etc., & have experimented with different settings - all to no avail.

Also cleaned the laser lens on the burner. (The burner is new, BTW - even though it is an older model, I had never installed & used it until now.) But it's burning fine - disc to disc.

The odd thing is that *sometimes* it will burn from the hard drive to DVD if I do a test with say, a short 5 minute video file (from a video folder) in Customize mode - but it won't burn the whole video folder as did at first just fine.

I did nothing different to the system before this started happening that I can recall, except:

* I installed ImageBurn to try out - uninstalled it - made no difference.

* Did a JAVA update.

* Also, I have ROXIO 8 installed & had opened it - wondering if there could be a conflict as others have reported (but FAB worked OK at first - can a conflict "develop" over time? Or will it show up right away?)

I guess my next step should be to uninstall again, run a registry cleaner, & reinstall - I was just too tired tonight - will do that tomorrow. But if anyone has any other ideas I would really appreciate any suggestions!

Thanks so much for any help!

Janine (yes, I'm female, & am glad to see other ladies on the board!)

Hi Janine R and welcome to dcfreaks,

What OS are you using? win98?, XP?
Have you used roxio in the past without conflict? and the answer to your question is yes...this could be a "new" conflict. Roxio has caused many user problems, but on the other hand, there are many users without these same issues. It may be worth deleting, you can always reistall it if you wish.
Also, I would seriously consider doing a system restore to a known working configuration (assuming XP here) as well as running a registry cleaner prior to the restore. Regseeker (link in my sig) is free and is a solid choice.

I can't help thinking this is related to FAT32...
As you are aware, you are able to convert FAT32 to NTFS in XP

Sorry to be short, but I gotta run, but be back later on.

Good luck, hope this helps

Hi again Janine,

Just an FYI...
Should you resolve this, I would suggest that you do not update to the current v.3.2.0.5 Beta. Seemingly, there is a glitch that causes a crash when attempting to burn from a folder on your hdd. Given your current predicament, not exactly what you'd call a fix...

"Hi Janine R and welcome to dcfreaks"

Hi, & thanks for the help!

"What OS are you using? win98?, XP?"

XP.

"Have you used roxio in the past without conflict?"

Yes.

"and the answer to your question is yes...this could be a "new" conflict. Roxio has caused many user problems, but on the other hand, there are many users without these same issues. It may be worth deleting, you can always reistall it if you wish."

I do use it though, for certain things, & would hate to have to get rid of it to be able to use FAB. And FAB did work OK at first.

"I can't help thinking this is related to FAT32..."

Even though it worked perfectly for several days?

"As you are aware, you are able to convert FAT32 to NTFS in XP"

Yes, I just never converted this external HD as I sometimes need files off of it to use on a WIN 98 machine. I have another ext. HD that is NTFS that I will try. (And isn't there some risk when converting?)

It that doesn't help, I'll go ahead with attempting to clean the registry.

I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks again!

Thanks for the heads up - I hadn't heard about that yet. So now I'm wondering if this isn't also a bug in this version??

The bug was introduced in 3.2.0.5 beta. This version worked fine for me. Fengtao has said the bug will be fixed in a new release soon.

Yes, I see that it is supposed to be fixed in 3.2.0.6 beta, & I'll try it.

But I doubt that is my problem, as mine starting misbehaving in version 3.1.8.0, & did the same thing in 3.2.

I still haven't tried using a NTFS HD - I'm going to do that right now - I can see that being a problem using image files, as they could be larger than 4 GB, but ripping to a folder gives you numerous smaller video files. So can't FAT 32 be used OK as long as you are not trying to write to an image file?

Yes, it should be fine. The VOBs produced by DVDFab as temp files during the copy process are 1GB. Try the new beta and post the results here. We will all try to help if that does not fix the problem.

Well, all your questions are reasonable and taken one at a time, the answers generally, are obvious. For eg., you are correct of course re: FAT32 file allocation. There still are users that are burning movies on win98...just not .ISO larger than the 4 GB max. So what's the problem here and how do you isolate it?

Are you able to clear enough space (I'd say a minimum of ~10 GB to be safe) on your system hdd and burn to it?

Signals is correct in that the bug was introduced in v.3.2.0.5 Beta.
However, this is not to say that you, in particular, don't have this specific problem with another version and somehow it has persisted in spite of updates. So too, with potential conflicts with another app.

I'd still consider another uninstall together with a regcleaner and a system restore.

We'll keep our fingers crossed...

Good luck.

[Edit]

Hey signals, didn't spot you...I was in and out trying to post and say goodbye to my son, headed back to college.
This is a good one...I know how you love a good mystery...