I finally had a reason to try burning a DL DVD (have burned many regular DVDs no problem). Not knowing much, I bought Memorex DL media, which I now realize, thanks to VSO inspector, is Ritek. When I tried to burn a DL disc , CopytoDVD gave me this error:

Write error at 0(16) - Code 05 30 05 [Illegal request, Cannot write medium, Incompatible format]

Also using VSO inspector, I determined that the firmware of my NEC 3500A is 2.07, and from reading this forum I'm guessing that version does not support Ritek DL media. So I thought I would update the firmware to the current 2.1A, but when I run the NEC .exe updater I get this message:

Target NEC-3500A is not found correctly

I don't understand why the .exe can't find the 3500A - certainly Windows and every other program I use knows it is there. The 3500A is installed (I think) as the slave drive on my second IDE connector, after a Plextor CDRW drive. Anyone have any suggestions on how I can do this upgrade? I know there are other installers which I haven't tried because they seem to need .bin files and I haven't found where to get the NEC firmware in that form.

Well, I tried the Binflash Windows flasher and "discovered" it can flash using an .exe file, so I did that and it worked just fine. Then I tried burning again and it went smoothly (at 2.4x it took about 40 minutes) and even better the DVD plays in both my players! Even though I figured it out before anyone replied, thanks to those who have posted in the past because everything I needed to know I found here. Great site!

(in reply to RoyU)

RoyU thanks for letting us know of your solved issue

(in reply to RoyU)