When creating a DVD using Sonic everything works alright until the “Make Compatible” step, when about half way through this stage the blue screen of death appears and the computer immediately restarts. This all happens so fast I cannot write down the error message that appears. I have ensured that “Use with DLA” is enabled on the drive and I am using compatible DVD+R discs with the burner. The computer is running Windows XP.

DLA stands for drive letter access and allows you to drag and drop files onto DVD discs, much like a floppy disk or USB thumb drive, rather than having to pre-stage the copying of the files. Since you have enabled “Use with DLA” on the drive I assume that you are using the Sonic DLA program to write the files to the DVD. This would make sense, since the “Make Compatible” step would allow the DLA authored disc to be used in other computers, as generally DLA discs cannot be inserted into other computers without making them compatible beforehand. Without seeing the exact error message it will be difficult for me to determine what could be causing this problem, as I have done some research on the issue but nothing has appeared as a potential cause or solution for the problem. The reason your computer is restarting on the blue screen is there is a configuration option within Windows XP to automatically restart the computer on a system failure (which is particularly useful for servers and such, to ensure the machine does not simply hang in an unmanageable state at the blue screen). By disabling this setting your computer will stop at the blue screen, allowing you to write down the error message, and then you will need to manually restart the computer. Go to the “Start” menu > “Control Panel” and open the “System” control panel (you may need to first open the “Performance and Maintenance” category). In the window that appears, click the “Advanced” tab and then underneath the “Startup and Recovery” heading click the “Settings” button. Within the Startup and Recovery window, under the “System failure” heading untick “Automatically restart”. Click OK and then OK again to save and close. Go and attempt to write to a DVD again to trigger the blue screen, and when this appears it should stay allowing you to write down the error message. Once you have written down the relevant information, either press CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart the computer or manually turn the computer off (by holding down the power button on the computer tower for 5 – 10 seconds) and then back on.

Once you have the error message information, try searching Google with the information to see whether anyone else has experienced the problem. If you can also send this information through to me then I can see whether I can find any other information which may help with the problem.

As an interim measure, try burning your DVDs using a different method than DLA. You should also have other Sonic software with your DVD drive which allows you to drag all the files you wish to copy to the DVD into a pre-staging area, and then burning all the files to the DVD at once. This should also close the DVD, making it compatible with other computers. While this is not as convenient as the DLA functionality, it should be a more reliable method of creating your DVDs until a solution can be found to the blue screen that appears when using the DLA method.