Photos archived to DVD are "lost"

DVD-R and DVD+R are quite suitable media. Do NOT however use DVD-RW, as the information you burn on these will fade away in quite a short time.

Have you remembered to finalize the burn process? If not, there is a possibility that the information is burnt on the DVD, but cannot be seen by different software.

By the way, isn't there another way of burning than drag and drop? If you have something called an ISO or Joillet (or something like that) format, you can also try that.

Does the DVD burner/software combination burn -anything- to the disk that can be retrieved? Also try reading the disk on a different computer in case the problem is with the read functionality.

Also, the fact that Vista wants to format the DVD when you insert it may mean that some other software is running that treats the DVD like it was a mounted drive. This might be getting in the way of the writing process you're trying to perform.

The operating system can't read a DVD (or CD) unless the disc is properly finallized. This terminates the data area and locks in the directory. Since DVD's hold so much data (it seems like a lot if you don't take digital pictures), burning programs like Roxio and Nero allow an open-ended data structure, often as the default.

There are other fatal problems too - bad discs and writing speed too high, for example. It's good practice to "verify" after every burn, which compares files read from the disc to the originals, or between CRC check sums. Packet writing is used to emulate the operation and convenience of HDDs and floppy discs on CDs and DVDs. Unfortunately, this process is usually proprietary and requires special software to extract the data.

I burn hundreds of DVDs every year, and have no difficulty reading them afterward, even years afterward. I use "disc at once" writing to maximize compatibility between computers and operating systems. Look at your process and identify any errors you might be creating yourself.

Maybe you're using the wrong component of Roxio? You are wanting simply to copy files, not create a movie or music DVD. I haven't used Roxio in quite a while, but I do know I had a hard time finding the simple file copying functions, both in Roxio and Nero.

Also DVD-R's don't need any formatting. If it's asking you to format it and you do that it might be assuming you want to use the DVD for something else, or it's not recognizing it as a DVD-R. Maybe look into the settings more.

Phil,
after reading the other posts on this thread, I think that you are using the burner software so that it tries to operate the DVD as a ordinary disk. It is a while since I used Roxio, but try to find the function in which there is no "drag and drop" of files. What other formats do you have than Mastered?

Need to tell Roxio you want to make a Data Disk....then add your files..then finalize....

Thanks for your responses. I've read in several places about finalizing. The problem is, I never get the opportunity to do it. When I use the Windows utility - just dragging files to the DVD drive - the entire process completes, and the system ejects the disk. With Roxio, pretty much the same thing happens. Oh, in Roxio, I am selecting data disk. But there's never a step called "finalize."

Brad, you ask an interesting question. But in Roxio, when I insert the blank DVD, the screen does show 4.7 gig available. (It decrements down from there as I add files.)

The only two formatting options are "Live File" and Mastered. The former is a proprietary MS format which allows you to use -+RW DVDs as normal hard drives. But all I want to do is to store data, and the Mastered format is the recommended method.