Archiving to DVD-R DL

[reynoldsno1]

I have been using a trial copy of DVD Fab Gold to archive some of my DVDs.
No problems using my Lightscribe (dual layer) burner onto DVD-R - but when I try using DVD-R DL media - a big fat zero. DVD Fab gives me the choice of DVD5 or DVD9 - select DVD9 and insert dual layer media as requested. Burn, burn, burn followed by ejection and success message. DVD will not play on WM, Real Player or my DVD player. There appear to be no files on it.

Single layer burning, absolutely no problem. The DVD-R DL I used were not top of the range - local retailer "brand". 3 attempts - could it be the blanks at fault?

[spannersatcx]

Are they actually dual layer? could be incorrectly packaged/labelled. There is a utility out there to tell you exactly what the disk is, dvdidentifier

[reynoldsno1]

I made a mistake - the DVD DL media I used is DVD+ (not DVD-). My old DVD player (a Toshiba SD1200) says it will not accept DVD +/- R anything, but it does. It accepts DVD -R single layer to date, no problem. Neither Windows Media or Real Player accepts the DVD+R DL disc (or the Toshiba) on my PC (6 months old), and Windows Explorer cannot find any files at all - i.e. the disc is empty.

It looks like a -R/+R battle to me, and I will have to experiment.....? what say anyone else?

[Bushfiva]

I'd suggest trying a different, major brand (some drives are a bit sensitive to DL). Also, if your drive firmware doesn't recognise the specific media code on the disk (other than bugs, the media lookup table is typically what drive firmware updates, er, update) it may be picking the wrong read strategy for the disc. One simple thing you can try (which may also fix your Toshiba player problem) would be to find the tickbox in your burning software that forces the booktype to "DVD-ROM".

This all assumes, of course, that you're burning a valid image, which it doesn't sound like you are.