Burning DVD sometimes fails - sometimes works

[Torsten Römer <troemer@swipnet.se>]

Hello,

Usually, burning DVDs worked pretty fine for me. But in the last time, 
it fails more and more frequently.

I can already hear when it is going to fail: On the beginning of the 
burning process the drive speeds up, then slows down again and sounds a 
click. Then burning either fails with an I/O error or continues. If it 
continued, it is even possible to see the error on the disc: Some very 
few "rings" are written, then nothing, then the rest. These discs are 
then usually not playable. If I try to burn the same image again it 
usually works after one or two more attempts.

I use SuSE Linux 9.2 (Kernel 2.6.8) with dvd+rw-tools-5.21.4.10.8 and an 
NEC1300 IDE drive with newest firmware 1.0B. The media used (Sony) is in 
the list of recommended media for that drive. My harddisk is quite fast 
and the system load is low.

Is my DVD burner breaking down? Is one of my 
Kernel/dvd+rw-tools/firmware version bad?

Any hint is greatly appreciated.

Torsten