XGD3 Sub-Standard Media Burning Guide

I'll post 3 guides/tutorials in this edit, first guide I wrote myself, second one was pulled form various sources, the ImgBurn was pulled from http://team-xecuter forum.

1 - My Burner Max Table Edit
2 - Someones else burn method using settings and mumbo jumbo
3 - ImgBurn verifying guide and why sometimes it fails on verify which usually isn't the bad burn you think it is, you say what?  Just read the 3rd part :D
4 - Are the KProbe numbers you should get with MAX and what the standard should be, I would assume they need to be this for a "good/logical" burn...reports say some peoples
numbers are ALL OVER the place but they can still install and play their games fine and have for hours, even on dreaded Forza 4, unconfirmed by me.
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NEW INFO HAS CAME IN... If you really really aren't going to be using verbs, whatever ID you disc is, replace it with the VERBATIM 001 2.4x write stragey and get superb burns.
Note if you change this and plan on using 001 verbs you will have to flash back to original FW, mkay?

Guide 1:

Want to get other media to burn besides Verbatim and work on burner max?

First we need this: Media Code Speed Edit 12010

Download:  http://www.datafilehost.com/download-ffaa39ca.html

Now, firstly I TAKE no responsibility for YOUR failure to follow directions.

Find c4eva's firmware that he supplied for your drive...

For example mine is:  iHAS-124B-AL0S-MKM001MKM003-final.bin (Obvious this will vary depending on your drive)

Make a copy of the Burner Max Firmware, and place in a another folder and name it what you like, mine was TDK TEST FW.

Now open Media Code Speed Edit, next in the upper right you should see LOAD, click it and load your copy
of c4eva's burner max fw.  Now you should see a lot lot of disc ID's, be care full NOT all are for DVD+R DL.

How do I find my Disc ID?

Load ImgBurn, and hit Discovery and scroll down on the right till you see DISC ID: xxxxxxxx


Now once we have our ID, find in the list in Media Code Speed Edit.

Find your ID, now you see the speeds and it will say like 4x , 6x, 8x, we don't want that on cheap media.

So now here's the next part, you want to find a disc ID that has the speed of 2.4x, but YOU do not want to select ANY of the MKM tables,
leave those alone, those are the VERBATIM ones.

So what I used was this Disc ID:  ISSM

Now the easy part, your disc ID, whatever it may be, double click it:  you should be presented with a window that will say media code to replace with:
 and now we USE ISSM which has 2.4x write, just click on it and hit OK, it will give a warning box, click YES...you can use any you wish, but if you
have those other ID's they will no longer work (remember DO NOT USE MKM), this is why I choose to use some off brand I've never heard of, that does only 2.4x,
obviously you can select one that has a 2.4x-4x write if you wish, just don't use MKM.

Now go to the upper right hand corner (near the X aka close button) and "select Save", just click on the copy of the firmware we originally loaded and click YES for over write.

Now you firmware is now saved :D

If you want to be safe, re-load that same firmware in Media Code Speed Edit and make sure the DISC ID: your using only says 2.4x.

Onto flashing it's the same principle except will just use:  Flash_Utility  (it's in the fw pack)

Load Flash_Utility, pick correct drive, click "READ", I backed mine up for just the sake of it, it's up to you
and I saved it in the same folder as edited FW.  After done "reading", click write, click yes, load your edited fw, and yes once again, should say completed
successfully or something close to that, that's it!

Now power down your PC, let it sit for a few seconds, and power back on.


NOTE: On my burn/s I did NOT use OPC in ImgBurn, you can play and test yourself, for me, this works and
is just fine.

Also I did not mess with these:  Smartburn = enabled Force Hyper Tuning = disabled Online Hyper Tuning = disabled

I only left Smartburn enabled, if this way doesn't work for you, you an try enabling them or enabling OPC, just play around with settings and burns.

Now, when you start your first burn in ImgBurn, no matter what you do, ImgBurn now will never go above 2.4x
with the current Media ID disc your using.

I've burned 4 TDK's so far, all verify successfully....

Use at your own risk and enjoy, and thanks go to c4eva, and for Giglife for giving me the idea and successfully testing some other media on it.... :D

SOL
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Guide 2 (not mine pulled from various sources):

Firstly, remember the EEPROM Utility you used? OPEN that sucker up again!

Go to the OPTIONS tab. Enable ALL options EXCEPT FOR OVERSPEED!

After each one, you will get a GREEN text saying Successful blahblah.

Exit. No need for reboot. These settings will stick even after PC off.

Ok. Now the nitty gritty. In my experience, Verbatim MKM-001 are less reliable than
my TDK (RITEK-S04-66).  (SOL's input says he's full of shit :D)

These TDKs ONLY burn at 4x/6x/8x. Attempting to use 2.4x will show in IMGBURN
log: Write speed miscompare, wanted 2.4x, got 4x (not actual quote). So 4x will be forced.

OPC can be left ON or OFF for these TDK. OPC OFF should be used on the lighter purple-backed
discs. Get a verb mkm003 and a TDK s04-66 and look at the back. Now look at a memorex.
In the case of the Memorex, we WANT to use OPC OFF. But keep in mind that heave Caching/HDD
activity WILL destroy this disc and still burn to the end. Memorex are BAD for this. I am
just using as an example of disc quality by color. I would say to first to a TDK at 4x
with OPC OFF and NOTHING ELSE RUNNING! IRC of course is lightweight, but have the BROWSER
open before the burn. so that the openning and caching of it will not interrupt the disc.

After this disc burns and VERIFIES in IMGBURN (should not have to click or READ ANYTHING
after you click burn. NO ERRORS and NO DIALOGUES). If you do get a dialogue its bad. It
should write and verify all with no dialogue. After you get a good burn with OPC OFF
it is ok to turn ON OPC, and you can use your PC a little bit more... Just be sure to
limit your activity. Set your IMGBURN buffer to 100MB (Settings>I/O>Page 2).

MKM001 at 2.4x only worked for me with OPC OFF

MKM003 at 4x OPC ON failed

MKM003 at 4x OPC OFF failed

MKM003 at 2.4x OPC ON SUCCESS

MKM003 at 2.4x OPC OFF SUCCESS

TDK(RITEK-S04-66) at 4x OPC ON SUCCESS

TDK(RITEK-S04-66) at 4x OPC OFF SUCCESS

TDK(RITEK-S04-66)(WITHOUT extra options in EEPROM ON) at 4x OPC ON FAIL

TDK(RITEK-S04-66)(WITHOUT extra options in EEPROM ON) at 4x OPC OFF FAIL

Part 2 of this guide here:

TO FULLY BURN XGD3 ON A 15-CENT-PRICED DISC (mostly RICOHJPN-D01-67 media, any brand is possible; RITEK-S04-66 had (very) low success rate according to
tests (not my tests though) CMC MAG-D03-64 had almost 100% success rate but also a higher price)

Run ImgBurn 2.5.6.0 (future higher version will also do).

0.Turn on or off Tools -> Settings -> Write -> Perform OPC Before Write, different disc will have different success rate with this option on or off.

1.Select "Write image file to disc" as usual.

2.Click "Advanced Settings" button in bottom right corner. (Marked red in screenshot)

3.Open Lite-On panel in Advanced Settings. It is required to click the individual "Change" button if you changed any setting item and a "Success" message
will pop up to confirm the change.

- Turn on Online HyperTuning
- Turn on SmartBurn
- Turn off OverSpeed
- Turn on or off Force HyperTuning (same reason as OPC mentioned in step 0)

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^ that above I have no even attempted testing since my method works
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Not my info but figured I would share :D

Written 10/23/2011

For those who can't get IMGBurn to verify immediately after burning stop trying. HOWEVER, if you still want to try because "it makes you feel better"
try these steps. Instead, let the burn complete then go back into IMGBurn and do "Verify Disc".

http://i53.tinypic.com/2hhglu9.png

This method may verify for you just fine, in which case you can stop reading this and continue to KProbe for additional tests.

For others, you may be receiving some I/O Errors. Well, simply saying "I've got I/O Errors" will not help us to diagnose the problem.

I'll briefly go over 1 of the MANY types of I/O Errors. If your I/O error says "The semaphore timeout period has expired", that is a hardware error.
In other words, you're running IMGBurn from your main hard disk, while verifying an image on another hard disk, while using an external optical disc drive.
 Basically, IMGBurn is saying "WTF, information is not cached and i'm tired of resetting the device for it to catch up so i'll throw this error". If you
 require further explanation, I an give it to you.

Assuming that you're using media that Uber, C4, TX, etc. have approved as working (MKM003 or MKM001) chances are, nothing is wrong with your burn and you
can continue to KProbe for further verification.

To solve this issue, try to make all things equal. In other words, don't use an external optical drive enclosure because you're creating a bottleneck and
just for verification sake, copy your backup image onto your main hard drive. I know what you're saying, "You just built that massive Core i7 machine and
it's capable of curing cancer!" Well it's not.

Just reduce your variables and try again. If you're using a external enclosure for your optical drive you're limited by not only the USB connection but the
controller of the external enclosure, and to be frank, most of them suck so you'll receive errors. Like I said, make it easy on yourself.

Chances are, if your backups look like this in KProbe, (this is a XGD3 backup) you're just fine. Also, look at Uber's scans. Like I said before, even if
IMGBurn verification fails, you may well have a good disc. The true test lies within KProbe.

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From TX Forum:

Make sure KProbe2 is set to 4x CLV Scanning

PI MAX should be 100 or less & PI Average should be 5 or less
PIF MAX should be 4 or less & PIF Average should be 0.20 or less
Nero Score should be no less than 90

The fact that the burn verifies at 100% is irrelevant when you are testing the quality through KProbe2 so you may want to not waste your time doing that
extra step. It doesn't hurt of course - but if you are running a full Kprobe scan its going to give you your correct verify results anyway regardless of
what imgburn tells you.

There are many factors that affect a quality burn and/or test. Too many processes open in the background in Windows, poor quality SATA chipset, SATA set to
 AHCI instead of IDE can affect results, a dirty disc (fingerprints etc), burning from a fragmented drive (make sure images are on a nicely defraged drive
with plenty of free space).

Also there are various settings with the EEPROM / IMGBURN that you can play with such as.....

Smartburn = enabled
Force Hyper Tuning = enabled
Online Hyper Tuning = enabled

Remember Verbatim MKM-001 = 2.4x with OPC in IMGBURN disabled and Verbatim MKM-003 = 4x with OPC in IMGBURN Enabled.

Nothing is set in stone but this is a good guide to put you on the right path. Remember the discs are now being pushed to their limit so the margin of error has been greatly reduced.

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Last notes, this is almost every way possible to solve your burning issues, while using Verbatim (which you should, they usually always burn the best and
have the "BEST" change of success).  But this doesn't mean you can follow guide 1 and 2 and can't achieve great burns on sub-standard media.  Tell how
bad some of these TDK's I have are here, I burned about 5 so far, during this burning testing, I had 2 TDK's when inserted and starting to burn, ImgBurn
gave me the dreaded would you like to "Overburn or Turncate" the disc, yes very LOL, cause there was not enough room on the TDK even with Burner Max
Firmware, this shows how the quality of sub par media goes from disc to disc, and spindle to spindle.

Well that's it, hope  you get some great burns on whatever you choose :)

-SOL





More INFO?

Try #fw  or #c4e  or start an account here:  http://team-xecuter.com