Well, since I couldn't find anymore Vebatim lightscribe media I thought I would try the TDK lightscribe CDRs that I found in its place. It looked the same but my Surething 4.x software would not accept it for labeling at all.

The first error would always say that the disk was not a lightscribe disk, and the second error would simply say internal error from the software.

I have a HP 640i DVD Writer with firmware CS30. I was stumped... I read forums, asked Google but ntohing was making the problem go away. I did dig up a couple of Verbatim disks and they would burn just fine but nothing doing for the TDK.

Finally I thought to try reflashing the DVD drive with a different 640C firmware (it is confusing that there are multiple versions of firmware bearing similar names). This firmware said it was JS04 for the 640i revision C drive.

Anyways, I loaded it in, rebooted the computer and suddenly Surething says I have a blank lightscribe disk waiting to be printed on. Very strange but it worked for me. The only side effect so far is that after the normal 30 minutes to burn my label to the CD, the lightscribe label on the CDR comes out much lighter than it ever did when using the CS30 firmware. I guess the solution is not 100% final. Using Verbatim lightscribe disks does not have this problem, under CS30 or the newer JS04 firmware.

Tags: lightscribe, cdrom