I used to have a 4x Pioneer DVD burner that eventually died; after that, I bought a Samsung Write-master (sorry, but I can't find the specific model).
The Samsung is 16x dual-layer burner and works well most of the time; however, sometimes when I backup either a movie or data files, I get long scratches on the discs. Usually they don't have much of an impact on the movie or data, though every now and then they cause movies to skip, and have to burnt again.
Does anyone know why this might be happening. Sometimes I listen to music or write in Microsoft Word while Nero burns, and I wonder: can these processes cause a problem somehow?
Me,when i burn anything,whether it's CD or DVD,using Nero just like you,i just let my computer idle and won't do anything else till it finishes to burn completely.I only have 512Mb of memory on my pc and it's the minimum required memory to have decent burns but i'd rather free the maximum memory i can while perorming any burn.Now if you have aroung 1Gb or more,then i believe you can perform some other tasks at the same time it's burning.Now i can be wrong about that,may be it doesn't have anything to do about the your pc's memory but since you said that sometimes you used to do other stuffs like listening to music,etc.while burning at the same time,then maybe it's partly due to that.
But to leave scratches on your discs after burning is a bit strange.Try to leave your pc untouched when you burn and see if it's ok.If the problem persists,then it would be preferable to contact the store where you bought the drive and see what they have to say/do about that.
Okay, thanks for the advice. I know it's strange. most of the time it's one single scratch that's really long and stretches off in a wild trail. The scratch itself isn't really deep at all, but the patterns it goes off in really perplex me.
Next time I burn I won't use anythig else in the background like you recommended.
xHaydenx , did you check your drive tray to make sure there not a piece of platic sticking up or something causing it as the disc spins inside the drive
Yeah almost forget that,just like aabbccdd said there may be a small particle in the disc tray,even the smallest or even some accumulated dust can cause disc scratching.
