I bought a 16x internal DVD +/- RW/ +/-R Dual Layer I/O Magic drive a few months ago. I am having some troubles getting the drive to read and burn at anything above 4x.
I currently have Windows XP Home Edition installed on my PC. If anyone has any ideas as to why my drive doesnt seem to want to work at top speed please let me know.

Thanks alot

Use the latest nero version of burning rom. And be sure the dvd drive is clean. There are instances that blank dvdrs are incompatible with the dvd drive. I also have a problem with that when I bought a generic blank dvdr with 4x speed. It seems that it would write but when it reaches 10% it fails. Then I would continue to write using the same disc and retry everything but this time it completes and says burned successfully. But the disc after burning can't be read. Try some other variety or brands of dvd discs, or if not it is hardware problem.

A majority of dvd burner’s burn at 4X. If you would read the specifications that came with your burner it will tell you. All cd and dvd burners read at faster speeds than what they burn at.

And like kenjvalip said get the latest version of nero because dual layered DVD-Rs are not recognized by some software.

I am using the latest version Nero Burning Software.
I have tried several different types of blank DVDs. Some were 4x and some were 8x and all of them burned at the same speed with the same program. I haven't tried any double layer discs so incompatibility between DL discs and the software can't be the problem.
I have looked at the specifications from the drive manufacturer and it does indeed burn at faster than 4x. The burn speed for RW DVDs is about the same speed that I am getting when I burn DVD-Rs. Is there some way that the drive could mistake a DVD-R for a DVD-RW?
Also, I am having no problems with the discs burning successfully. I haven't had any instances of a DVD saying that it has failed to burn, also I have tested every DVD that I burnt and they all work fine.

Thanks again

It happens the same to me. I guess the DVD-R discs that you (and me) use are 4x, so that's the max speed they can be burned.

The DVDs I have are all rated for 8x. I might think that it was a problem with the blank DVDs I have, but the drive doesn't even read at what its supposed to.
I just reinstalled windows on my computer and it did not fix the problems with my drive.

I am looking at the box for my drive. It lists the interface type as "E-IDE / ATAPI Interface". I looked in device manager to see if it listed my IDE controller as E-IDE or just IDE. It didn't say E-IDE anywhere. I asked several other people how I could tell if I had E-IDE. I was told if it said Ultra DMA as a transfer mode that it was indeed E-IDE. In the properties it had Ultra DMA, so I guess its E-IDE.

I also tried using the live update feature for the drive, so I have the latest version of the drivers for the drive. If anybody has any ideas let me know please.

For anyone that wants to know:
Driver Specifications are: Write (16x DVD-R), Red (16x DVD)
I have the jumper set to cable select for the drive.

Thanks again

You could try a new driver just go to the manufacturers website and download the one that matches your product, or firmware.

As stated in my reply above "I also tried using the live update feature for the drive, so I have the latest version of the drivers for the drive."
There is a sticker on my drive for a website to download the live update feature, which I did. So I have the latest version of the drivers offered by the manufacturer.