Photos archived to DVD are "lost"

[rffffffff]

<p>I didnt finish reading the whole thread, so forgive me if some of this is restated. imgburn (software) is free and MUCH faster to write files to dvd than windows itself. I would try that, as its free.</p>

<p>The whole problem, though, is very similar to a problem that I had with a DVD drive. I think the hardware is defective and most likely needs to be replaced. I had a drive that did the same thing: pretended to burn but wrote nothing readable. </p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Windows XP and (probably) Vista include disc burning utilities which allow you to drag-and-drop files to a burner in Windows Explorer. While that seems to work OK at least part of the time, you have no control over the format used for the burning. Specifically, you should burn a DVD-ROM in ISO or UDF format, DAO (disc-at-once rather than packet or track-at-once) for best readability.</p>

<p>Roxio and Nero are among the programs which give you complete control over this format. In Roxio, it is necessary to burrow through several layers of menus to record DAO. Roxio also loads DLLs into the Windows directory and overwrites system libraries - a bad think leading to DLL-Hell. There don't seem to be any reasonable shortcuts in Roxio.</p>

<p>Nero is my program of choice (I burn thousands of CDs and DVDs as part of my recording business). It has the typical candy-coated "Easy" procedures, but all you really need is "Burning ROM" for drag-and-drop recording.</p>

<p>A company called "Infinadyne" has a program called "CD/DVD Diagnostic", as well as more powerful forensic tools. While not as comprehensive as Plextor's "Plextools", it can be used with any burner and gives a good indication of the burn quality. File verification alone will only detect the most aggregious errors, and is prone to false alarms. "CD/DVD Diagnistic" will easily detect problems with a burner or brand/lot of CDs and DVDs.</p>

<p>If you can't burn a disc at the rated speed, using a slower rate seldom helps. The error rate is usually higher at 2x than at 8x. However, try to limit the speed to the maximum CLV (constant linear velocity) speed, typically 8-16x for CDs. It helps to make an image file for streaming data (sound or video) or disc copying, but not for making a DVD-ROM. There is ample time for error checking/correction in that case.</p>

[michael_kuhne]

<p>I just had an experience with the Nero system I had installed a couple of years ago. I wanted to make copies of a video I shot last year with my camcorder, a Hi 8 tape from which I made a DVD copy, using a panasonic outboard machine having its own hard drive storage- a wonderful machine. The DVD was finalized, and plays fine on my computer's media player. But the Nero system starts to copy, then mid-way it quits, with a message: "your buring process failed- glunk".</p>

<p>I am using XP. </p>

<p>So I had to run all my copies using the trusty Panasonic machine. It has an SD card slot and can burn images too. Weird that a little outboard machine can do things easily that an expensive, powerful PC cannot. The Nero I have is unreliable. You should be able to burn images, not finalize, and add more later I would think! The Panasonic can burn an entire movie, leave not finalized, then add another to the same disc later!</p>

[bill_tuthill]

 

<p>As Ken said, "You need to tell Roxio you want to make a Data Disk...then add your files...then finalize..."<br>

Expanded: ignore Vista prompting. From the Start Program menu, select Roxio Creator. Choose Data Disk. Click Add Data and select files for writing to DVD. If you see the option, select Verify After Writing. Do not select Make Bootable. Do not select Appendable. Insert a writable DVD and click the orange button. Wait.</p>

 

[BelaMolnar]

<p>Dear Phil Winter.</p>

<p>The solution is very simple! BUY A MAC, and you never going to have such a problem or no problem at all. Used to have a PC, 8-9 years ago, then bought a MAC, a G4 Desktop and a iBook G4 ( I righting this comments to you) and last year a MAC Pro, All thee computer working with out any hick-up, and I have CD's DVD's burned on a PC, and on my first desktop G4, .jpgs, .TIF and never had a problem to see them on the computer, and excess to print or re edit, etc. It is terrible, eh? Ohhhh! I'm total idiot to computers. The iBook G4 extremely abused with internet by me and specially my grand daughter, and it is running continuously since I get from the store. Because of that, I don't have a chance to practice the software, etc., and the reason, I'm so uneducated to massaging a computer. Oh! I'm 70 years young guy.</p>

[anand_dhupkar]

<p>See if you have any option - other than drag and dropp. I have recordnow that came with my dell and works really fine. It does have a drag and drop option, I somehow never used it, I always use 'select folder' option and works fine. I used many CDs so far to store my pictures and sometimes I had bad disk - as soon as I start burning, it spits out disk saying it is full - eventhough it is absolutely blank, so I put in another disk. But other than that, I did not have this kind of problem. I never burnt the DVDs so far, though. However, I think it would work same way.<br>

By the way, I always user RW disks so I don't have to wait till I have diskfull images. I go on packing up as and when I want to ...</p>

 

[andrew_gale]

<p>DVD's are a great backup solution, but...<br>

...use high quality (not carp like memorex) Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden (sp?) are the best.<br>

use the OS to burn a disc. Using software (which is normally junk (which is why it came free)) is a bad idea. Just creat a burnable folder, insert a disc, and click burn.<br>

don't fill the disk! If you use Verbatim DVD's this doesnt matter as much, but still, the outer edge is the most likely place to have errors. Dont write on this part and you will avoid this problem completely.<br>

Check each disc when its done. and Keep a copy on an external HDD.</p>

[prayermedic]

<p>Try making a data DVD rather than a photo dvd. for whatever reason I always have better luck with data rather than photo.</p>

<p>Regards Glenn</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>Vista some times will not recognize a drive as being accessible, I had to go in to administration and give myself permission to access the drive. This normally happens when when using an external drive. Other then that I have never had problems burning to disks using either windows or Roxio. Most computers will have the type of DVDs that can be written to make sure that your computer accepts the DVD-R.</p>

[arie07]

<p>All the talk about finalizing etc is confusing for the non experts and really not needed to save your photos on DVD. What you need to do is choose "Make a data DVD" in Nero Roxio or any other similar software, drag the files and folders you need to backup into the window, choose the drive your blank DVD is in and instruct your PC to "burn" the disk.<br>

Now if you have done so and there is no info in the DVD after you burned it - there is a problem with your hatdware or software and a tech may be needed.<br>

If you need further help (even by phone) I would gladly assist you free of charge. Just look up my info in photo.net, send me an email and I'll call you back and try my best to walk you through the necessary steps to burn your files or to identify the problem.</p>

[newbie1]

<p>I have and use very easily Nero 8 express essentials. I back up all photos to DVD with this regularly with no problems. For photos use and you are backing up use "DATA" as it will save it safer and double check the back up before it is finished.<br>

I back up ALL photos to my terabyte external hard drive and to my DVD disks. The photos I edit and like I do save to my Computer terabyte hard drive for further editing and use. By doing it this way may seem time consuming and a pain, however, I have 2 back ups and can sleep at night.<br>

Now the key to back up to DVD is that you must use a quality DVD disk. The cheapo disks WILL go bad after time and you WILL loose photos on them. I only use a good quality DVD disk, such as memorex Gold etc. There are also 2 DVD disks to use and that may determine on youir computer. Be sure you are obtaining the newer disks.</p>

 

[george_kinney]

<p>Having been responsible for data backups for systems ranging from single PCs to enormous servers, my advice is to just ditch the DVD idea completely.<br>

A safe data backup strategy requires that the data be redundant (multiple copies), and that those copies be spread across different devices (preferably in different physical locations).<br>

There are essentially two ways to accomplish that goal, either using a proven archival medium, like magnetic tape (yes, it is still in use, and yes, it is still the standard other media are measured against.), or by having 'live' copies of the data spread across other devices.<br>

Good, high capacity tape drives are very expensive, and require continual maintenance.<br>

The more (much) economical option is to build a NAS (network attached storage) or USB/firewire box that supports RAID 1 (mirroring). This is by far the safest option, since it means your data is complete on multiple individual hard drives. If one fails, the other half of the pair is still immediately available.<br>

This can be accomplished as simply as buying something like this: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=466 (I own one and like it a lot, but feel free to peruse their competitors. :) ), or you can build/purchase your own setup to whatever capacity you can afford.<br>

Heck, in a pinch, just making sure your data is copied to a separate computer is better than nothing and likely much more reliable than burning DVDs.</p>

 

[david_ralph1]

<p>Well, does your burner burn anything else at all? Have you tried just burning other data files to a disk to see what happens, say a few text documents?</p>

<p>I use a primative Nero OEM pack to burn archive copies. I have used Roxio too. Cut and paste works in both of them. Dragging files? Well I suppose, but it turns it into a mouse exercise.</p>

<p>Do the empirical tests first of the hardware first.</p>

[carlwakefield]

<p>Just a comment to the mirror drive. In its self it is not a backup it just hardware redunentcy. If the data becomes corrupt on a mirrored or raid drive that data is corrupt irrelevant if one physical drive in the mirror or raid breaks or not. A back up is a separate copy regardless of what media it is on. Tape drives are very good as long but the risk for the layman is that the tape gets overwrite and tape solutions are very expensive. A DVD is very good but the media can get easily damaged or scratch. 2 x DVD would be the ideal solution. If the system is two complicated then the backups often get pushed out and when the breakdown happens then the data is lost.<br>

I think a shelf full of DVD is a very good solution for most people as you have a copy separate from the computer copy and regardless of hard where and break downs ect you see what you have. It is probably the most cost effect sollution.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Michael,</p>

<p><em>I just had an experience with the Nero system I had installed a couple of years ago. I wanted to make copies of a video I shot last year with my camcorder</em></p>

<p>You were probably trying to make a disc-to-disc copy, which is dicey at best. The biggest problem is that the reader drive can't keep up with the writer. It could be a simple matter of drive speed, but there could be excessive read errors in the disc or a problem with the way the DVD was compiled (the latter is a key ingredient in "protecting" commercial DVDs). Tape to DVD recorders use a packet writing technique which is not a very robust video DVD format.</p>

<p>When using Nero to copy DVDs (or CDs), first make an image of the source disc (copy to "image recorder"), then make subsequent copies from that file. Any read errors in the source disc get corrected, and everything is located in a single, tight HDD file. The HDD is probably 2x to 3x as fast as the DVD burner, which eliminates the speed issue.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Backup for business systems is primarily concerned with short-term data recovery, not long-term storage. One year would be considered long-term in this context. The long-term issue is handled by using redundant HDD systems with continual maintenance. I suppose if something like the Verizon Team, seen in their commercials, really followed you around, you'd be OK with the HDD solution for personal use. That leaves DVDs and CDs for most of us, because they last a long time and can't be accidently erased (it takes a shredder).</p>

<p>Most problems with long-term readibility stems from poor recordings at the get-go. That's why it's important (essential!) to follow each burn with verification against the original file. It's also important to buy good discs (Verbatim are the best, IMO), and to periodically check the burn quality with an independent program (q.v., Infinadyne or Plextools). No manufacturer is immune from problems. I have 1200 Taiyo Yuden DVDs on hand which cannot be consistently burned on any equipment, including my Microboards duplicator (is a subsidiary of Taiyo-Yuden, or <em>vice versa</em>). Verbatim discs work without an hitch (for now, anyway).</p>

[dan_meyers1]

<p>Edward,</p>

<p>I have some Taiyo Yuden DVDs with issues, too. If I burn them using Toast on my Mac Pro they're fine but won't read in XP on my Dell.<br>

So as a test I purchased some Memorex DVDs, burned them using my normal routine, and they read in XP just fine. Think I'll use the TYs just for the Mac.</p>

 

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Dan,</p>

<p>You can download a free 30 day trial of "CD/DVD Diagnostic" from <a href="http://www.infinadyne.com">www.infinadyne.com</a>. Some of the features are disabled, but the ones you need to check disc quality are good to go. I suggest you run tests on T-Y and Memorex discs you have written. I've had major problems with Memorex in the past (which is why I standardized on Taiyo Yuden until recently). There may be problems even if the T-Y's run in certain drives or on your Mac computer. You can have 600 errors/second on a DVD and still read it half the time. A good disc has less than 15 soft errors/second and no hard errors. A failure to read is just the part of the iceberg you can see ;-)</p>

 

[www.philwinterphotography.]

<p>Thank you all for such great advice! I really appreciate your time in effort and your many suggestions. After reading your responses, I'm thinking the problem might be with the DVD hardware or software. Particularly in light of the fact that neither Roxio or Windows would work. </p>

<p>Edward, thanks for the info on infinadyne. I'll give that a shot.</p>

<p>Bela, I'm with you on the Macs - if I could afford one. I actually do own a Mac - a 1984 Mac Plus I purchased with printer for $2200. I later go a "steal" on a 30 MEGA byte external drive for $500. If anyone knows of a technology museum, I'll be glad to donate it. Still works, AFAIK.</p>

<p>I just looked - my DVDs say, "Is it live or is it Memorex?" in the center. Ooops!</p>

<p>I do nightly backups to a USB hard drive, and I just checked - my latest files are there. I just wanted to backup my files again to DVD, but with storage so cheap, probably another HD is the way to go.</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

[jerry s]

<p>Within Roxio, I use drag-and-drop (sounds like you're doing it the same way). On the lower right corner of the screen is the "burn" button. Just next to it (or above or below, can't remember right now) is a clickable "Options" text. Click on the word "Options" to open another menu - that's where you should be able to select the disc format. Just make sure you select the "Finalize" or "Close the disc" option - you do not want to make a multi-session disc.</p>

[dan_meyers1]

<p>Thanks, Edward. I'll run the software and see what shows.</p>