DVDRAM drive FUBAR? HELP!

I am trying to back up (yes, literally back up because I am going to Afghanistan and dont want to take original discs) movies...

I used DVD Shrink 3.2 to compress the disc. So now I have an ISO file in proper length (less than 4.7GB).

I am trying to use either MagicISO, DVD Decrpyter, Nero, Alcohol, etc to burn the DVD disc (either DVD-R or DVD-RW I have tried both) and it simply will not recognize there is a disc.

Symptoms include either hanging the program, hanging the system (have to manually eject the disc), or getting errors saying there isnt a disc in the drive or that it isnt blank, etc etc.

The drive is a LG GSA-4082B and I have Windows XP. I noticed by Googling that Windows had a problem with recognizing DVDRW discs, but that was supposedly fixed in SP2 - and I have ALL updates for this computer that are available.

I've defragged, no spyware, etc. Drive is pretty new. It's set to master on the primary IDE channel (I have SATA drives for HD). I have a P4 3gHz with 2GB RAM, nothing running other than the necessary items.

I was able to get Magic ISO to say that the DVD was burned, but it doesnt get read in any dvd player.

PLEASE help, I leave on SUNDAY!

 

Also I would like to mention that the firmware has been upgraded from A201 to A207 (the latest from the LG website) with no solution to the problem.

Also, in Nero when I load the ISO before I can burn it says it is waiting for the drive to become ready and it really never does anything. Also, in DVD Decrypt it says that there is no medium present when clearly there is.

 

Well the biggest problem seems to be that it cant recognize a disc in the drive, which really sucks. I'm not sure why it wouldn't. Especially since just yesterday I burnt a copy of my wedding DVD via the same method (DVD - ISO - back to DVD). I am using Sony DVD-R ...

 

last thing - here is the log from my Alcohol latest attempt...it burned a portion of the DVD (you can see the large ring where it burned, up to 12% IIRC) before saying "something is wrong".

At the very bottom is the burn and other info:

 

Simplest way is to forward a copy of the log to Alcohol support team.

Assuming off course it's a legal copy.