thank you waffleman... but how do i check whether my firmware's up to date or not?/ i went to the sony site and they have two firmware upgrades available for my model (i need the AD-7170 for my SONY DVD RW AW G-170A dvd burner... i confirmed this) both released on 14th april this year itself that is 2008...then i dont think mine's up to date... now the problem is they have TWO upgrades for AD-7170... one saying AD-7170 P-ATA and the other's AD-7170 S-ATA... and they clearly mention at the begining of the page :
"Dear customer,
please don't try to flash a S-ATA device with a P-ATA firmware and vice versa. You could damage your drive in doing so. To be on the save side, please read the Update Procedure under menu item 'Firmware updates' before you flash the drive. Our firmware installer is only available as a WindowsInstaller. "
and in the Update Procedure they have said:
" Read this first - How to flash a drive (Short introduction)

1. Download appropriate Firware and unzip the file into a folder of your choice.

2. Launch the exe-file to flash your drive.

3. In case of difficulties, please flash the drive in PIO mode - Changeable in WinXP & W2K/Vista in the device
manager - "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers", choose the right channel and switch from DMA to PIO mode.

4. Flash your drive and restart the pc.
Important: Do not turn off power during the flashing process.

Note: Warranty will be lost during false flashing procedure, especially when unofficial modified firmwares were used before. In such cases we cannot offer you any further solution. You will then be responsible for repair costs."
so how do i figure out which one to use?? i am clue less!
thank you

one's SATA and one's IDE (PATA is Parallel ATA ie another name for IDE), is yours SATA or IDE ?

creaky, on the box in which the drive came, on the side its written ATAPI/EIDE
internal

...then you want the PATA firmware..

its saying target optiarc device not found correctly!!! i even changed it to PIO mode... no use its still saying the same thing

I will start off with a few basic questions before I post all the technical info... I have burned tons of DVD+Rs, and had a few movies that required DVD+R DL's... yesterday I got a 25 pack spindle of Memorex DVDR+DL 8x discs. I just use DVDFab 5, DVD Shrink and DVD Decryptor. Everything went fin until I threw in the DVD+R DL and attempted to start DVD Decryptor. The typical Power Calibration Error came up!

My question is, is it necessary to use Nero in the process? Do I have firmware? How do I update my firmware?

If these questions can only be answered after seeing my technical data, let me know. I'm gonna be annoyed if I spent $30 on these DVD+R DLs and they are all gonna become coasters! ARGH!

Thanks in advance guys.

I won't/don't use dual layer media but your best bet is to use imgburn (free, www.imgburn.com) it's infinitely better than Nero, not least where dual layer is concerned

@ adschnei

The first thing you need to do is find out if your drive will burn d/l media.