[hermie54]

Straight after the lead-in Toast 702 reports a sense key error, tells me it failed to write and that I'm using unsupported media. While I'm using the recommended by manufacurer NEC Verbatim 4x DL's for my NEC 3520aw with firmware 306, that is.

No problems with SL so far. Something wrong with Toast's DL support, perhaps?

For good order, my machine is a Dual G4 1.42 MDD FW800 with 2 GB RAM and lotsa free disk space left. Rather frustrating...

[tsantee]

FYI, I have that drive in a LaCie case and firmware 3.04 and it burns fine with Toast to 2.4x Verbatim DVD+R DL. I'm guessing your media is DVD-R DL which I've never tried. When I go to Recorder Settings and click the tab that has the NEC's name, there is nothing there that says it supports DVD-R DL media. Does yours show support for that media with the 3.06 firmware?

[hermie54]

Hi tsantee, thank you very much for the quick reply!

Mine came in a LaCie box as well. Both LaCie and NEC confirmed with me that it actually is a NEC drive without any modifications. Flashing to 3.0.6 with NecFlash went without a hitch and you can actually use the .exe file from the NEC site for doing this. Don't forget to dump the old Firmware first, so you can go back in case of disaster. NecFlash prompts you for that.

Anyway, in the capabilities it doesn't mention DL at all, but in the Features tab it indeed says DVD+R. And I haven't got those, I bought 2 5-packs of expensive DVD-R's. I did so because the only DL disk mentioned in the drive's Medialist is Verbatim DVD DL -R. The Plus variety isn't even mentioned there. Weird...

I think I'm going to ask NEC-support about this one. I really don't feel like getting new +R disks again and besides, the shop I got these from doesn't even have them.

I could of course burn to SL, but I wanted the DL for quality. If I go that way I think that instead of burning straight from the MTR 3 folder I'll save as compressed Disk Image and burn that one. Looks safer to me. I'll report back if I get any wiser from NEC (or LaCie for that matter).

[freshburn]

My guess is that it doesn't like the 4x DL media. Try the 2.4x Verbatium. I've burn lots of DL disc without a hitch. Burned 2 today on the Pioneer 109.

[tsantee]

While looking up the firmware 3.06 I found that 3.04 furnished by LaCie claims support for Verbatim DVD-R DL media. Also, I decided to pass on 3.06 because NEC stated that it wasn't for drives in USB or Firewire cases. It may not actually matter, though.

[hermie54]

OK, i looked in the drive's PDF manual and there it also said it can burn DL -R. So I started Toast again, inserted the disk that I thought was now a coaster with the idea to see if and what Toast would give for speeds and stuff.

Surprise, this time Toast said the disk was still blank and had 2x instead of 4x selected. Just for fun I dragged in the MTR folder, unchecked the compress setting and hit burn.

Guess what? It burned and verified fine at 2x. So IT WORKED! Well, sorta, the new disc plays fine on my Mac, but my Daewoo VCR/DVD Combi won't have it, fails to load.

Still, I really do think that my DiskWarrior sweep and other maintenance activity yesterday must have somehow influenced Toast's operation. The same sometimes happens with DVD player, MacReporter and a few other apps. An extra restart (which I did) usually cures these weird symptoms. But not for Toast perhaps. The difference today being a real "cold" start. Dunno...

So a mixed result (the combi won't play), but at least I didn't waste a lot of money on DL discs!