Widge - Let's get back to the buried facts as it's 16 posts ago. Please confirm or otherwise contradict each of the following position statements as I see them. I use the Post number as reference point:

1a A particular game has stopped booting

1b You have tried making a further copy from the CD in 1a


2 You have enigmatically stated that "this happens with all games". Needs clarification


4 You have the NEO2 chip


6a U burned GTA3 Friday; played through Saturday now won't boot.

6b Infrequently played games boot fine


7 Reburn of original downloaded ISO causes freeze


8 CDCheck on a suspect disk showed no errors (noted 703MB). PLEASE CONFIRM THAT THIS WAS A PREVIOUSLY BOOTING DISK.


10 The problem is confined to games with more than 650MB.


15 Gameshark is not suspect because smaller games boot.


17 Rewrite the original download doesn't work.


In this comprehensive light the following diagnosis might be reasonable and appears to support conclusions suggested so far:

There is either a media problem with heavily used games (but that wouldn't happen suddenly to all > 6540MB games), or there is sh*it on the PS2 lens or some other PS2 laser related aberration.

Assuming media problems, you have tried to burn from the original ISO (presumably using the same equipment as before, The result has failed. PLEASE CONFIRM and state burning equipment). The burn is OK as reported by the software. Windows XP has hosted the burning operation.

That leaves two questions to be resolved:

A By reburning under W2000 or W98 with the same equipment as originally burnt the >650MB game, we might narrow down the cause of the problem with the re-burn

B At Post 8 above, you stated that a suspect disk, previously used had NO ERRORS. It should boot. This is most puzzling and leaves the way open to suspecting the PS2 - or if the media can be cleaned with warm soapy water that has been known to work.