[TriLUG] OT: dual-layer blank failure rate

[Matt Bidwell]

Brian Henning wrote:
> Hi Gang,
>  Just wondering if anyone else has seen a depressingly high failure-rate 
> for blank dual-layer DVDs.  For me, it seems like a good 40-50% of my 
> blank discs crap out during burn at the layer switch; growisofs says 
> ":-( write failed: Input/output error" at 49.6% completion.  (It's so 
> close to 50% is why I suspect something going wrong at the layer switch).
> 
> Or is it something I'm doing wrong?  Most often I'm burning single-layer 
> media, either CD or DVD-RW.  Is there something I need to do to tell the 
> hardware to expect to have to do a layer switch?  I sort of expected the 
> drive to figure that out on its own.
> 
> My growisofs command is thus:
> growisofs -Z /dev/dvdrw=dual-layer.ext2
> 
> where dual-layer.ext2 is a ext2-formatted 8.0GB loopback file I use as a 
> staging area for creating backups and such.  When it doesn't crap out at 
> 49.6%, it works fine, so it makes it difficult to figure out if I'm 
> doing something wrong.
> 
> Cheers,
> ~Brian
It may seem silly, but I was having the same problems with
the prodvd-cdrecord and it was recommended I use K3b.
Since switching over, I haven't had any problems.
Also, which dvd burner are you using? Have you checked
for firmware updates?
Matt