[xubuntu-users] DVD iso burning 8X?

[James Freer]

On Tue, 2 Sep 2014, Keith W wrote:

> On 01/09/14 23:52, James Freer wrote:
>> Since I bought a new PC a couple of years ago I haven't been able to burn 
>> isos and get the correct md5sum. Using both Brasero and k3b the min speed 
>> this drive can do is 8X. Every time I burn an iso it fails the md5sum. I 
>> tried DVD-RW 4X discs and that worked - but when I blank the disk and try 
>> to burn another it fails. It seems I have a poor DVD drive - are these 
>> modern SATA drives only capable of 8X. It plays DVD videos fine and seems 
>> to be ok otherwise.
>> 
>> I understood that the bigger the iso the more likely a burn is to fail. How 
>> reliable is burning a DVD?
>> 
>> My old PC only had a CD writer/DVD reader drive bought in 2005 - it's been 
>> faultless burning CD isos and I have only ever used 4X (it's minimum 
>> speed). Maybe it's old but never failed to produce a copy.
>> 
>> This newer PC DVD drive it would seem is poor at 'writing'. I'd be grateful 
>> if someone could let me know if they've had problems burning DVDs at 8X - 
>> were CD writers more reliable? I have always burnt an iso for each release 
>> install as I don't like USB sticks... perhaps that's what most folk use 
>> now.
>> 
>> thanks
>> james
>> 
> Have you tried burning at a higher speed?  I had a drive that would burn 
> perfectly at all speeds other that the minimum.  The law of universal 
> perversity (known by other names!  8-)  )   ensured that it was when I _had_ 
> to quickly get a CD out that worked perfectly that I tried the low speed 
> burn, and produced several coasters before successfully going back to my top, 
> or next to top speed.
>
> Keith

I have burnt at higher speeds 16x and higher. For isos the md5sum fails. Hence 
why I have thought that 8X is a bit fast. As far as iso burning goes I have 
just followed the advice of burning at 4X... no problems on my old machine. 
It's just this newer one - well two years old now. I burnt a blank DVD-RW 4X 
successfully and so was able to use xubuntu 14.04. But since to test I have 
tried another burn and it's failed. I always do the md5sum on the download and 
then on the burnt iso - don't take any notice of the burner programme which 
says 'successful burn' every time. I am wondering how reliable DVD-RW is 
compared with DVD-R - I had not thought of using RW disks until lst year when I 
decided to use interim releases rather than LTS. I don't know why Ubuntu 
decided on DVD for isos when most are only about 900mb. Now they are providing 
a minimal CD... might as well have stayed with CD and just removed some apps 
which many folk perhaps replaced with their favourites anyway.

Thing is; the larger the iso (as I understand it) the more important it is to 
burn at the slower speed. I haven't tried wodim yet as someone suggested but 
will do. I'll get another drive shortly but perhaps a disk writer only... but 
they are still 8X from what I can gather. There's only a few weeks before 14.10 
so I will investigate further. Just out of interest what speeds do you use when 
burning data or Video to CD/DVD - I've just stayed with 4X.

james