3540A Wont read some of its own burned DVD+R DL??

Hello everyone, First post, new member here.. Let me cut to the chase.

I've had this 3540A drive for probably a year or so now, it has burned many DVD-R's and DVD+R's just fine for the longest time..

I tried the FIRST few DL's i got the other day from newegg. THey are Verbatim's 8.5 Double layer discs I dont have a media code cuz i dont know how to get it, but it has these tiny number written on the disc inside the ring zd2311-dvrv850 A/r - V 851 B Not that that helps..

HEre's the problem. One of the two DL discs i've burned will NOT be read correctly in the 3540 drive i burned it with! I used a program called AoA copy or something like that. I am backing up a dual layer disc (movie disc i play alot and want to keep from scratching the original). When I put the disc into my computer, into the 3540, and try to play it with Power DVD, it 90% of the time just does nothing i.e. wont play. SOMETIMES windows comes up with a dialog saying "Blank Disc" and prompts me with the normal burning options windows xp gives you. One time i got Power dvd to actually start the dvd and get to the first episode on the disc, before it paused for a while and just stopped playing again..(when i try to explore the disc in explorer, it shows nothing most of the time and says its 0 bytes.. One time it showed the AUDIO ts and VIDEO ts folders, but normally not.)


Now the first DL i burned works fine in the computer! no problems at all. Both the same batch of Verbatims (i bought a 10 pack). Both were burned with the drive when it had 1.01 firmware (i just receently flashed to 1.04 from NEC's website, but i have not burned yet as i dont want to coaster anymore discs).

Here is where it gets REALLY wierd. BOTH Discs play fine in my set top box a panasonic xp30 which is REALLY picky about reading disc if they aren't formated exactly perfect or a certain brand (I was really surprised it read dual layers!).. And both play flawlessly in my xbox360 as well..

So i brough tthe discs to work, which i have Power dvd here too.. both discs work here too! (seemingly just fine)..(windows explorer also shows the file size as 7.9 gigs and shows all the files and folders perfectly at work).

So how come the DRIVE i burned the discs with cant even read the 2nd disc?!?! The drive at work is either a LiteOn or a phillips (it has two drives i can't tell which is which, but that probably dont matter).. I'm just confused why i have these problems. I got verbatims to avoid problems..

I plan to probably try and burn a another disc tonight and am wondering if the upgrade to 1.04 is going to correctly this problem, cuz i flashed the bios last night hoping it would improve the 'read' problems i am having and it did not help one single bit..

woe is me! Any idea's?!?!?!

Sorry I dont know how to edit.. I used a program Kprobe2 on the disc and it said its media code is : MKM001 (mitsubish chemical corporation?).. does that help at all? no replies says probably not

And again i dont know how to 'edit' my posts i just ran this kprobe2 program on it here's what the results were (this is the disc that wont read at home but reads fine at work?)...

Date : 10/3/2006 4:53:12 PM
Model : 1-0-0-0 G:LITE-ON DVDRW SHW-1635S YGS4
Disc : DVD+R DL , MKM001 [Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation]
Speed : Max
ECC blocks sum (PI/PIF) : 8/1
Scanned range : 0 - 3878975
Sampling count : 202246
Errors : 5
PI Max : 286
PI Average : 9.40
PI Total : 272282
PIF Max : 36
PIF Average : 0.68
PIF Total : 19700

I just finished scanning the 'other' dvd+R DL that actually does work in my drive, and here's its results..

Date : 10/3/2006 5:23:59 PM
Model : 1-0-0-0 G:LITE-ON DVDRW SHW-1635S YGS4
Disc : DVD+R DL , MKM001 [Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation]
Speed : Max
ECC blocks sum (PI/PIF) : 8/1
Scanned range : 0 - 3503377
Sampling count : 178847
Errors : 0
PI Max : 129
PI Average : 9.73
PI Total : 251901
PIF Max : 19
PIF Average : 0.24
PIF Total : 6135


I notice there is a major difference in the PI max and this disc has NO errors where the other one has 5.. Does this just mean my drive is picky and wont read it if there's any errors? or that the drive at work can handle errors? Is the media bad? Did my drive do a bad burn? why 5 errors?

Please post .png screenshots instead of only digits and numbers.

Okay here is a screenshot of the BAD disc.. using that program.. Also to note, i tried another burn last night.. this 3rd burn is unreadable by ANYTHING.. (not my xbox, not work computer, not the set top player).. So i think my drive is just slowly getting worse and worse..

I also burned a disc at work today using the same media, but this is on this Lite-On SHW-1635s drive. And i will post its picture as well.
The filenames denote which drive was used to burn. THey were both scanned on the Lite-On.. Honestly the lite-on that i burned with can be had for 29.99 right now at office max after instant rebate. i'm considering just picking one up.

First picture is the 2nd disc i burned on my NEC 3540a which will not read in that NEC drive..

The second image is the disk i burned today with the LITE-ON which seems to work perfectly so far in the lite on drive..