I tried searching the forum but couldn't find an answer. I use Verbatim 8X DVD+Rs and burn at 4X. I have no problems burning movies using Nero 7 with my Plextor 712A, and I even get a confirmation that my burn was successful. However, when I run a PI/PO test on it, I get errors over 500+ per interval, including some POF errors. My chart is all blue since I set the scale to 500. I popped the DVD into my player, and it will not play or it'll just skip. I've used different media including rewritables just to make sure it wasn't a bad batch of Verbs, but I am stumped.
I don't think it's the IDE cable because it reads DVDs fine - it's just the burning. Is my drive yet another number in the Plextor graveyard? I just bought it last year too (Aug '05 man. date). Any help would be appreciated. BTW, I also took it apart after all the failures to clean it with no success.

Did you ever get pleasant results from that drive? Sorry to say, but I think it is defective.

What is your sytem processor and specs? Any other peripherals on the same cable? Ever bother running the self test to see if was the drive?

My system is a Pentium 4, 2.53Ghz with 768MB RAM. The Plextor and an old NEC are connected on secondary channel, with Plextor as primary and NEC as slave. The burns were fine until about a month ago. Then they started getting drastically worse. I think it's just coincidence that I started using Nero 7 just a few weeks prior to the failures. Also, I had trouble reading a DVD in Decrypter recently and it tried reading it for an hour before I cancelled. I know Decrypter occasionally will switch to PIO mode after that, but I checked and it's still in DMA mode. Drives are IDE 7200RPM, but burning at 4X with an 8MB buffer on Plextor should be okay. I really hope I can salvage it, but from reading this forum, Plextors don't seem to last very long. Like I said, Nero says the burns are successful, but the PI/PO check disagrees. I also noticed a strange, light ring about 1/2 inch thick in the middle of the DVD burn going all the way around, but it only happened on 2 of the bad burns, not all of them.

Have you ever trìed burning these 8X discs at 8X? What were the results? Also, as bob11879 said; have you tried running the self-test? This test is important as it will tell you if it's a hardware related problem or a system related problem. Let us know!