Medium Write Error when burning

Every time I attempt to burn a CD, I get the medium write error. I have done everything from use a laser cleaner disc to buy 6 different kinds of CD-Rs - nothing is working.
Out of nowhere, every time I try to burn a cd, it either kicks the CD back out after burning about half of the songs, or pretends to have burned the whole disc, but when I try to play it, nothing is on the CD. I am getting so frustrated. Please, if anyone has a clue why this is happening and what I can do to fix it (aside from taking my computer into the Apple Store for the millionth time), I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

I had the same problem and was able to fix it with the help of Apple Care. There was some type of corruption in my com.apple.finder.plist file. I deleted that file, shut down, rebooted and it took care of the problem. I'm no computer whiz and I don't know if this will cure your problem but it did help me out. The cd's are burning and playing back fine now.

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Medium write error when burning a DVD. Uh?

So I mounted my DVD and burnt 2 x copies successfully. When it came to number three the message "Medium write error" came up and the disk was rejected unburnt! I got the new iMac cos the old one's DVD burner failed. What can I do to get things working again? iMac is about a month old.

is there a list of media that works in a mac?
or is it safe to say that the more expensive the dvds the highr the chance that it will work

Medium Write Error when burning CDs

Hi all, I have just started getting the message when trying to burn an audio CD on Itunes v7;
"The attempt to burn a disc failed. The burn failed because of a medium write error"
This is on a new iMac 24" that is 3 weeks old and has only happened in the past 2 days. There were no issues prior to that on any of my Macs.
I've noticed once post that suggests anyone with this error message go straight to the shop for a remedy. Any other suggestions?
regards
sdpoh
iMac 24" Duo, iMac 17 G4 1.25 & iBook 15 G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) iTunes 7.01

I've had this problem as well, but it wasnt until I downloaded vs. 7 of iTunes. I heard somewhere that the operating system has some kind of conflict with the iTunes program and thats why the error pops up. Also try using Sony or TDK disks, for some reason they seem to work and the error message doesnt pop up. It worked for my computer anyway, it might be worth a try.

How do I fix a "medium write error" when I try to burn a MP3 CD?

how do I fix a "medium write error" when I try to burn a MP3 CD?
Thanks,
Jackie

First, update your Mac OS 10.6.8 (Apple menu Software update).
If that doesn't do it, try a different brand CD-R.

"Medium Write Error" when trying to burn a CD!!!!

I keep getting a Medium write error when trying to burn an audio cd using ITunes. I already tried switching out cheap CD-R's for high quality ones and the same thing happens. I also can't burn a picture CD using finder because another error message pops up so i don't know what it could be... Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Could be an issue with the drive itself, especially if you have one of the Matshita drives installed in many Macbook Pro which are reported to be 'krappy' drives. See here for more info...
http://tinyurl.com/kgrz4
Patrick

I get "medium write error" when trying to burn cds

I tried to burn a playlist from iTunes and it burned one copy, then when I tried to burn a second copy my computer made alot of noise during the "initializing/finishing" stage, spit the cd out and said "medium write error" - i've tried another cd, and tried burning another playlist with the same results. Any idea what's wrong or if there is anything I can do about it???
Thanks

First, try quitting all other applications except iTunes.
Second, try burning at a slower rate.
Then try a different brand/batch of CDs.
I believe the default burn setting is 'as fast as possible'.
Today I got perfect results at 20x or slower on my mid-2007 Core2Duo MacBook SuperDrive, and about 1 out of 3 at 24x and faster with a major brand name media labeled 'up to 52x'.
Yeah, it takes a little more time to burn each disc, but if you only have a 50% success rate with a faster speed, you're not really saving any time.
The reason I suggest quitting all other applications is that heavy CPU use seems to diminish my burn success rate on all of my computers, including the Windows boxes. Your mileage may vary.

"Medium Write Error" when trying to burn DVD

i have recently been receiving the message "medium write error" every time I try to burn a DVD in my mac book pro 13 inch It doesn't matter which program I use to burn, they all give me the same (or similar) message. I also tried booting into Windows and burning from there using ImgBrn it and it was
succeed
the program went from "preparing disk" to writing to "finishing", ejected the disk and made the usual error and it looks like it don't start writing as when i put the dvd back the dvd is still empty
I used to burn these disks perfectly well with no problems, before i install lion i don't know if this is lion problem or what
i also tried to attempt to reset the PRAM. by holding down CMD+Option+P+R while booting MBP and waiting until it chimes a second time to let go of those keys.i haven't changed anything so don't understand why the error occurs. I've bought a lens cleaner disk and ran that for 2-3 minutes and repaired permissions on the HD but that didn't work either. The drive works flawlessly reading DVDs and CDs with no problem no problems.
any one can help please ????

mortiis Empire wrote:
I also tried booting into Windows and burning from there using ImgBrn it and it was succeed the program went from "preparing disk" to writing to "finishing", ejected the disk and made the usual error and it looks like it don't start writing as when i put the dvd back the dvd is still empty
Sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand this.
It doesn't matter which program I use to burn, they all give me the same (or similar) message.
The problem is that it's not relevant if the programmes use the same burn engine (eg, iTunes and Finder). You need to test apps which do not use Apple's burn engine, eg, cdrdao, cdrecord, Burn, LiquidCD, Disco, Roxio Toast, NTI DragonBurn, etc. But, FWIW, my bet is not on a software issue.

Getting medium write error on burning a disc image using Disk utility

Have a MacBrook Pro 15 inch, circa Summer 2007, using OX 10.4.11. up until recently (as in before February) have been able to burn DVD's using Toast (message Medium Writer Error). Started getting problems where the burn failed. Thought maybe it was Toast, so I tried creating an iDVD project and tried to burn the DVD using that, and it stopped in the middle as well and then spit the disk out with no error message.
, this time I tried creating a disc image, and used disk utility to burn. The process looked like it was going to work but then failed with a message that I have a medium write error.
I have no problems burning a regular data disk on my superdrive so I am thinking it's maybe a software glitch rather than hardware. . Any thoughts, as to what could be causing this problem all of a sudden. By the way, there are other users out there, who seems to be having DVD burning problems all of a sudden, but most people suggest other media. I am using the same stack of DVD-R's from before when I had no problem.

Well, I had assumed my media was ok, since I had a spindle of DVD-R's and had used many of them successfully (until now!, ha ha).
I went out this afternoon and bought another brand (Memorex) and it successfully recorded.
So hopefully this solves my problem, I had no idea it was the media since I had used several of them before.
Thanks for your help.

Medium Write Error, cannot burn CD in iTunes (Toast works fine)

I have always used iTunes to burn my CDs. Today I keep getting a Medium Write Error. I tried buring the same playlist with Roxio Toast and worked fine. Then the error happened again on iTunes.
I have been using iTunes for years on this computer. Why would it suddenly give an error? The error happens while the disc is finalizing. There is nothing wrong with the drive, as evidenced by Toast writing fine. Is there any way to fix this or do I just need to use Toast from now on?

I'm having the same problem!! I've successfully burned 3 different CD's. Now I'm getting a 'burn cancel' unknown code. Very frustrating. All CD's are good, even new!
Can anyone share any thoughts??
Thanks in advance!!
Amy

Medium write error when i try to burn an audio cd with itunes

I have been surfing through a lot of forums and some people found it useful to choose a slower burn speed, some cleaned their disc drives and were helped for a few days but this problem keeps recurring. I have tried the opensource software "BURN" with no problems. I think the main problem is itunes and their low level software that communicates with the hardware. This is really an inconvenience. safari has major problems loading webpage unless opendns is used. I dont know what going on. I agree that apple probably makes the best softwares compared to microsoft in terms of speed and performance but they often get the basics wrong. Im switching back to a slower pc, atleast it will browse the net, play flv's properly and burn my f###ng discs. Ohh another greatest achievement by apple: The iphone 4.
Message was edited by: Volatile420
Message was edited by: Volatile420

What type of disk and manufadturer is it? What speed are you writing at?
OT

HT2718 Howdy, I'm getting a "Medium write error" when trying to burn a playlist of my own songs. I have accomplished this many times without an error message. Please advise

Anyone else getting this?

Two possible causes/cures:
1. The laser lens needs a clean.
2. Poor quality media. Stick to Verbatim, Maxell or Fuji.

Medium write error

Get error message "medium write error" when trying to burn a playlist from itunes to a CD and the CD is ejected. This has occurred at settings of max speed and also at 16x and 4x, however at 4x speed it did burn 11 of the 19 songs I wanted to burn; the CD drive just made a "skipping/grinding" sound on songs 12 to 19. Specs of my iMac are: iMac (27-inch, Late 2009),2.66 Ghz intel core i5, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3. I would appreciate any advise on this matter; when a task that is meant to be very simple and straight forward becomes problematic it is very frustrating...especially on a Mac which is designecd to minimize these frustrating episodes.

Hi drpielak,
The article linked below details a number of troubleshooting steps that can help resolve burning issues with your SuperDrive.
Get help with the slot-loading SuperDrive on your Mac computer
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201788
Regards,
Allen

Medium Write Error - again

I have recently encountered a serious problem with "medium write error" when creating Audio CDs out of iTunes. It had happened sporadically in the past, and I reduced write speed, which seemed to fix it. But now, I can seldom create a CD with iTunes.
I have searched this forum and the web for help, and seen numerous threads. I have tried reducing write speed to 1x, reduce time between songs to 2 seconds, bought brand new Verbatim CDs, reset PRAM, reset Language prefs, etc., etc. Some seemed to help for a while; I got a couple of fast burns after going to new blank CDs, but it always reverts to CD coasters.
It seems to be iTunes only! I can record files on CD and DVD from a Burn Folder, and can read both, though I don't do that very often. The iTunes burn seems to always stop at a time remaining of about 4 minutes. The files total time is right around 74 minutes; my CDs are supposed to hold 80 minutes. I did read one post that said that almost full CDs were a problem.
I tried cleaning the lens by the screen cleaning cloth wrapped around a business card method, but don't know where or how deep the lens is. I haven't tried compressed air, but have the same question. Where is the lens so that I am sure I am getting it? [My computer is an iMac 21.5]
Is it possible that the serious problem arose with iTunes 11.0.3 being run on OS 10.6.8? The timing is about right. I have been going to upgrade to 10.8, but just haven't gotten around to it. Might that help? What about another program to make the burn? RealPlayer/Toast/etc. Can they work with from iTunes playlist?
Any/all help is appreciated.

I posted the following message at
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22048033#22048033
in response to a suggestion to burn "cold".
I did try to burn 1st thing after a period of shutdown - twice. No success. First time, I tried with my "old" blank TDK media: medium write error @ just over 4 minutes remaining. Second, after a shutdown, tried my "new" Verbatim blank media and got the same error, don't know the time as I wasn't watching. I both cases, I left the computer idle during the burn. And I add that I have successfully burned all of the (full) playlists I have been attempting to burn several times before, a year + ago, with no problems.
This problem has been around for YEARS, as is apparent from this and other forums, and seems worse or exclusive to burning CDs out of iTunes. Does Apple just throw up their hands? Would a visit to the Genius @ an Apple Store be worthwhile?

When burning my pictures to CD, a burn failed, medium write error came up.

When burning my pictures from IPhoto to a CD, a burn failed, medium write error showed up,

Like many other suggestions I found, I went ahead and purchased a lens cleaner. The CD instructions said to insert and play track 2, but my drive would just keep ejecting the CD. But it worked! That and a little compressed air.
Before using the lens cleaner and compressed air, my drive would constantly give me a medium write error and always make loud vibrating noises that sounded like my drive was about to explode. But now it writes like a charm and is completely silent!

HT1338 What does a medium write error mean, when trying to burn a cd?

What does a medium write error mean, when trying to burn a cd?

nwalls wrote:
What does a medium write error mean, when trying to burn a cd?
It's an error message returned by the burner. You can see the full list of these error messages here
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Code_Qualifier>
It's not specific enough to pinpoint what caused it—it could be anything from a bad optical medium (CD-R) to a dusty or dying laser diode. You have to isolate the problem—use a different CD-R brand, try a different speed, use a different burn engine (eg, Burn), etc. If it occurs once or twice, randomly, it's more likely to be a bad disc. If it occurs consistently, and at the same stage of the burn process, it's more likely to be a drive or software issue.

Medium Write Error when burning

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