I have been trying out various old DVDs to see what they contain, using the optical drive on my PC.
Nearly every disc causes problems - either a black screen or not ejecting or not recognised at first. Is this a consequence of all the software changes that have taken place over the years or is it likely to be a hardware (or driver) problem? Should I replace the optical read/write drive with modern read only as it is unlikely I will ever need to write a disc again?
What software are you using for playback?
Either VLC media player if successful or just File Explorer to inspect the contents. The greatest difficulty occurred when I tried to format a DVD-RW. Nothing happened for a long time then the PC froze up.
You would be better off trying to load them on a consumer grade DVD player attached to a TV. They are dirt cheap these days.
More likely that either the thing that wrote the disks and/or your current drive are at opposite ends of the tolerance limits.
There are several programs that can read damaged disks. I have read disks that were scuffed to blazes through rough handling.
If on Linux or UNIX or FreeBSD - try finding dvdisaster (it's installable on FreeBSD as a port).
Also ddrescue.
Has the drive been in a running machine a long time, when was the last time it had it's covers removed and the fluff and dust removed from it?
Do all the discs contain video or are some data discs?
Have you tried the drive with commercial discs?
I would make the drive write some media, media which existed around the time the drive was new. The intent here, is to select a media where the media tag on the disc, is something the drive internal firmware recognizes. It adjusts the laser power, according to what the media tag says. During "read verify" of the burn, you have a chance to verify reading works, without VLC or any other "interpreters" being involved.
Version 2.5.0.0 is probably safe. Wikipedia has some info about OpenCandy (Adware).
That's just to make sure the website version today, hasn't been touched.
If you purchase a burner (they're cheap, except for perhaps a Bluray one), then you have the opportunity to do the identity test and get it to self-verify. A drive should be able to read the media it burns for itself (barring bad media).
When you select "Write Image file to Disc", the Tools menu should have an option to Format the media, if that's what you want to do first. Imgburn automatically formats as the job requires, but I sometimes like to do the format step separately. When you select the "Verify" function, done as part of the burn, after the burn step finishes, the tray opens and closes, simulating media insertion, then the Read Verify starts.
It depends very much on what the media was written on. Many multi session discs seem to have issues due to not being finalised. It can be an issue if the media was written on a different unit, I'm also finding that modern blanks will not be seen by some of my older drives but when it is, it still works. I'd check whether the correct drivers are in fact installed for the drive. You will have a job finding a drive that is not read/write these days. Brian
That does not surprise me in the slightest, Many flavours of discs both cd and dvd were made for writers and often if one was burned to one standard, it completely refused to be erased or burned to another ever again. Often such media is speed limited as well and it seems to me some drives/firmware do not read this correctly and attempt to do it faster than it was designed for and create an unrecognisable mess as a result I just say, bah humbug and throw it in the bin. Brian
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