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How To Fix "Power Calibration Error" While Burning CD/DVD

If your CD/DVD burner is making coasters failing to write CD's and DVD's, throwing a "Power Calibration Error" or "Medium Speed Error", here are a few solutions you should try.

Their could be several possible reasons and solutions for the above error, basically what is happening is for some reason the CD/DVD burning software is unable to determine the Optimum Power Calibration rate (a small pre-burn test to determine optimal laser power for writing), resulting a disk burn failure. There is no easy way to pinpoint the exact reason, so try all the possible fixes from top to bottom (easy to hard) and see what works:

  • Try using different brands of quality blank media, most common reason for such error's is cheap blank media.

  • Try burning at lower speeds (Highly effective).

  • Disable IMAPI Service (Work's in most cases):
    1. Launch Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services .
    2. Browse for "IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service", Right-click on it and select properties.
    3. Chnage Startup Type to Disabled.
    4. Click Apply and Reboot.


  • Try updating or changing your CD\DVD burning software to the latest version.
  • Try upgrading your writer's firmware.

  • If all the above fails the problem is definitely related to hardware and not software, Go ahead and get your burner laser lens cleaned by a professional.

  • If all the above fails the drive's laser might have died and you need to get it replaced.

Best Of Luck, do post your results.

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thanks my prb is solved

it has been solved using
3-Change Startup Type to Disabled.
thanks buddy.

solved by method 3 Disable

solved by method 3
Disable IMAPI Service
thanks!

solved by blowing the laser!!!

i just blew out the laser ..... that's all..may be the laser is dusty..

Reduced burn speed

Changing the burn speed setting from "Automatic" to a specific setting seems to be working at the moment. I burned 5 DVDs succesfully with it set to Auto, though, very strange...

You've gotten me working again, so thank you for posting this!

Solved with disabling IMAPI service Start-up

Followed the steps as described and problem is gone.

Thank you.

disabled IMAPI and rebooted

disabled IMAPI and rebooted and still getting error. Failed at 4x Burn Speed and it's a 16x SATA SONY NEC Optiarc drive. Going to try drive firmware.

there is no IMAPI CD-Burning

there is no IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service in Xp pro sp3.

sorry it was there, but

sorry it was there, but different name
-different language, so my mistake

Issue not resolved as yet.

Tried all the given steps, but the issue still persists. Though the Sony burner is burning the Sony DVDs & other media fails to burn.

change Inferior quality media

most probably you are using an inferior quality media, stick to Sony !

Disabling IMAPI in VISTA

How to Disabling IMAPI in VISTA?

Vista IMAPI

See this : http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1105007&SiteID=1

Problem Solved!

I burned 3 DVDs in a row and when burning the fourth one I got this error. So I cleaned my lens with a lens cleaner CD (it is a kind of CD/DVD with a tiny brush fixed somewhere under it). So if you are subsequently getting this error then try cleaning the lens with a lens cleaner CD/DVD. Works for 90% cases. Its worth spending a dollar.

No more coasters!

I had fallen behind in my music transfer since early summer, so 24 hours ago I started to burn ...but ended up making coasters. I tried 2 different fresh TDK packs, and a philips too. It was frustrating, either disc or power calibration errors everytime. This was the first serious burning problem that had ever happened.

I next spent a serious 5 frustrating hours today searching for the right fix. So many possibilities. I had come to the conclusion that my 2 year old Toshiba laptop & its pioneer DVR K-16A burner were getting too old..... that was until I found your advice.

The Disabling of "IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service" was the correct fix for me. What the H*** does this service do anyway?

I am running XP SP3, and I had had some major problems with SP3 crashing my computer back in July, so maybe this IMAPI problem is related to SP3?

Anyways, many thanks for the fix and making my day better!!!

Problem solved!

I got power calibraton error. So I cleaned my lens with a lens cleaner CD (it is a kind of CD/DVD with a tiny brush fixed somewhere under it). So if you are subsequently getting this error then try cleaning the lens with a lens cleaner CD/DVD. Works for 90% cases. Its worth spending a dollar.

Ps. Sory i just copy/pasted this comment, but that same thing happened to me to. Leans cleaner CD/DVD was my solution to the problem!

So i say try this first.. sorry for my english..

running XP sp3 changed imapi

running XP sp3 changed imapi works ok

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