It seems to me that media quality is your problem (it was mine too). Go to digitalfaq.com, on the left side bar find Other Video Info - DVD Media Guide, click on Blank Media and quality FAQ, written by a guy knowledgeable in media. It contains a lot about media brands, tricks and how to be reasonable sure to have a good burn.
Good luck.
You need 10 to 15 gig of free space to do a dvd backup. As you start to run out of space the ripped files may be spread all over the place because of the lack of disc space. When time to burn back the info is harder to find and transfer which could cause many playback problems. Remove some junk files and defrag your HD. That may help the burn process for you.
different burners,same media? Every burner is different. Different firmwares and lasers.
Are you burning at 8x?
Poor quality media usually has to be burned a lot slower to be usable in dvd burning. Some media is so crappy, You get instant errors right off the bat regardless how fast you burn.
It's a very handy free program to have.It will give you the manufacturer code.If that code is a good manufacturer then you probably have to update your firmware. If it made by a company like c-magnetics,or worse,then that will explain the early failed burn errors.
I have a SONY DVD RW DW-U14A which I have used since new without any problems. I tend to use the Bulkpaq orange discs and have not had a coaster yet.
I have just tried the Budget 8 speed dvd-r and found that my software(Nero & Clone Dvd) both automatically set the writing speed to maximum of the discs (8x) not the writer (4x). It may be worth looking at this setting in your software.
