Need your help Guys, sorry if I go on a bit but I’m pulling my hair out.
Just Got Medion M8383 3.4Ghz PC. Has Medion OEM version of Pioneer 108 drive.
I am Trying dual layered backups for the first time and so far have £30 worth of coasters. Not sure if the drive is faulty or if I’m doing something wrong. I’m using DVD shrink & Nero 6.6.0.1 with Verbatim 2,4 DVD+R DL media. Have also tried Traxdata but they seem even worse.

When I play the written media back it plays up to about half way “about 1hour 10 mins or so” I think this is the layer break, and then stops or jumps several chapters and continues. Have tried playback on 2 standalone DVD players and PS2 and all do the same thing.

Does this sound like the drive is faulty? ?

DO I need particular firmware for Medion OEM version or something like that???

After 2 or 3 failures I flashed the drive with Firmware 1.14 (unofficial by “Gradius”). And is still the same. Now I’m wondering if I can put the original firmware back for warranty purposes.

Any ideas or advice gratefully received.

P.S

Have Burt 3 DVD-R single layered media fine on the new 108 drive, just the DL that I cant get to work.

PPS
I used Pioneer A06 in previous machine and have made approx 200 “Backups” of DVD’s on old machine using compression with DVD Shrink and Verbatim DVD-R’s. Never had a single coaster very happy with what I was doing and media quality etc, Now am at a loss as to why things not working.

It's obviously not detecting the "layer break" properly, hence the jump when you reach it. Best thing to do is ignore dvd shrink and nero and just use Dvd decrypter http://www.dvddecrypter.com/ since its free or VSO's Copy to dvd if you have cash, as both properly identify the layer break.

if you use dvrflash 2 you can flash your drive back to its original state all you have to do is grab an original firmware you will get it here
http://flashman.rpc1.org/Firmware/PI...-108/STANDARD/

cheers bighun1952

Hey I just upgraded to firmware 118, it's like a new drive I would go to pioneer.com and get that and upgrade my firmware I would also defrag all drives in your PC, I know my PC acts up bad if fragmentation gets too hi.
One last suggestion slow the burn down I know it's cool Pioneer does DL disks at 4x slow it down to 2.4 sometimes slower is better.

Make sure all writing progams and screensaver are disabled during the burn.
I use EZCD7 Nero 6.6 and DLA but none run at the same time turn them off in processes running not just running programs. Good luck here is th link for latest firmware. Good luck!!!! http://wwwbsc.pioneer.co.jp/product-...html#firmware2

One last thought you cannot reverse firmware upgrades be carefull getting them from any one but the Manufacturer.

I am watching I Robot as I type this a copied version using my 108 BK. Again good luck

You can load any firmware you want (going to other OEM types, or downgrading) using dvrflash

where can i get dvrflash from

The VERBATIMs should work fine if the source were properly authored and the used burning app is properly working.
Using DVDDecrypter is recommended.

Using Packet-Writing software at any stage is a bad idea IMO.

See bighun's post for DVRFlash.