A lot have been said here about DVD-R discs, especially Verbatim and TY brand, for being better to use for back up than DVD+R format. I tried both of those brands using DVD-R disc but kept getting problem with copying the games or my PS2 can't read the discs. Then I tried the Maxell DVD+R and Sony DVD+R, and surprisingly, both of them worked! I am still trying to figure out why I can burn and play DVD+R but not DVD-R games. Does it have anything to do with my DVD burner (Sony DRu-800A)? I just want to be able to use my DVD-R discs instead of having 100+ of them laying around. Thanks for your feedback!!!
I have a silver Slim PS2 (V15)and using DVD Decrypter and have Magic Keys 2 with Magic Swap 3.6 Plus. The games I have backed up so far play beautifully.
Firstly your burner is quite good, and it definitely should be able to burn to + or - media. What I think you should do, is upgrade the firmware of the drive, to the newest release, download from here:
http://sony.storagesupport.com/dvdrw/firmware.htm After you have installed the firmware, try burning to the disk again, when you burn to DVD-R, does the actual iso burn to the disk, or does it stop with a error?
Whether it's DVD-R or DVD+R, it really depends on your PS2, which many have said, the laser in particular can be quite picky in general. Some people have had successes with different brands of media that people disliked badly or have had troubles with. To slightly answer your question, from what I've heard, (someone who wants to correct me, please do so because it could be inaccurate and very misleading) is that for older games, people tend to have success using DVD-R for older versions of the PS2 since it may provide better readability and compatibility with their systems, and compared to yours; their systems may also have trouble reading DVD+Rs but works perfectly with DVD-Rs. For later versions of the PS2 released, namely the slimline, it could be DVD+R works better since most games have been using a DVD+R format (anyone who wants to correct me, please do...)
Though if you do still trust me, I will give you one more piece of advice. I believe your burner can't/won't/isn't able to book-type your DVD-R to a DVD-ROM properly since I've had a similiar problem with my Sony DVD-Rs but could them to work when I switched to my LITE-ON burner.
What Z3120 is saying is actually right, the DVD-R worked alot better then +r in the older ps2's, but that isnt really the case with most slimlines, since they are new, and support both +r and -r media. Sometimes, yes the slimline will also be picky, if thats the case, you will have to find a brand that works without any problems on your ps2, and you will have to stick with them. I have loads of games backed up to different brand and media type disks, and I havnt had problems with any of them.
Thank you very much for all your replies. Regarding the firmware, I already updated it after reading the forum here a few days ago. Decrypter will burn the game using DVD-R, it's my PS2 that refused to recognize the backup. I also tried using booktyping but couldn't. I agree with you two that perhaps newer slim consoles might only work with DVD+R. I'll just stick to what works for me by using DVD+R then.
