well, I finaly found my fix but I couldn't respond to a
forum over 60 days old. So I'm posting my answer here.
The problem was this:
Memorex dvd+/-dlrwl1 f16 burners would not recognize
16x dvd media. Though several people found it amusing to post
"Firmware update dumb noobz" a thousand times, it did not help
much because the most up to date firmware for this drive, BSWE,
was still hopeless.
The final straw came for me when I could not even use some
16x memorex dvds on my 16x memorex burner.
The Solution?
You have to crossflash your firmware for the
LiteOn 1653S updated firmware. This will essentially
change your Memorex drive into a LiteOn. The only real
difference being you may see an increase in speed options,
and be able to burn 16x disks.
I used the 1653S.CSOT.Stock firmware (downloadable) and
Omnipatcher to enable crossflashing. You can easily
flash your Memorex to a LiteOn, and be burning 16x dvds
in minutes.
Excellent information, I was wondering why my drive was suddenly spitting out "Illegal Disk" errors when I tried to burn with a new stack of DVD-R's.
I downloaded both "omnipatcher-2.4.7.rar" and "1653S.CS0T.stock.rar" from the web site you linked to. However, I am unsure what options to check if any. The 3rd tab (General Options) has an option for "Fix the "dead drive blink"/Enable cross-flashing". Do I need to check this? Are there any other options I need to note?