Recommended software and tests for DVD Burner

Hello,

I burn alot of DVDs for friends and I use ConvertXtoDVD to convert my movies to DVD format. As of late my DVD drives have been flaky, sometimes producing DVDs the program claims to be successful, but different computers have had trouble even seeing (that is when I click the appropriate drive in My Computer, with the disc inside). I was going to purchase a new IDE drive but I was wondering what the recommended tests are for these drives to make sure that the drives have somehow gone bad.

I have two Lite-On Drives

Thank you

 

Have you tried a different batch of discs? Sometimes you get a spindle full of crap.

 

Try to burn sutff with different software:

use, True Burner and Infrarecorder.

Burn things like software or files, maybe is the software that u're using, did you tried to found other?

 

I haven't tried different discs. I heard verbatim is a good company, and I'll purchase some of those to test. Is there any difference between different verbatim discs or are they all good?

For instance, are these good?

http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-9510...r_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285901185&sr=8-1

 

After trying a lot of burning programs over the years, I found ConvertXtoDVD to be definitely the best one.
You say, you burn a lot of disks.
Optical drives have a limited life span and I suspect, you simply need a new drive.

 

Verbatim and Imation and pretty good, but i really prefeer verbatim over all.

 

Verbatim is good. Just try a different brand than your usual, especially if you use budget discs. I just find it odd that both of your drives would fail at the same time.

 

Ok, thank you guys, I will try new discs. Just curious, is there a general lifespan for DVD burners? Not really finding any information online in terms of numbers.

 

There is no definitive answer to lifespan question.
Some hints: http://www.pcworld.com/article/126096/ask_our_experts_dvd_burner_life_span.html

I still have Win 98 computer in working condition (rarely used now), where CD burner still works.
CD/DVD burner on my current Vista desktop went out after about 1 year of usage.