GOW, PGR 3 and FIFA 07 backups work fine, as they always have. However my COD3 and Saints Row backups have suddenly just died. COD3 loads up fine but when I go to the Multiplayer so i can play 2 player with my brother it gets to the loading screen and I get unreadable.

Saints Row was fine when I last used it, it loaded up fine and I played it quite a few times. Now it wont even load up the main menu, it gets to the church where it loads and then I get unreadable. So I've got two questions to ask:

1. Can using backups make the drive (Samsung) deteriorate over time?
2. Can backups just stop working? Any there any things I should consider doing.

All backups are on the same media.

Thanks

It depends on the media used, even within a same batch some burn will succeed better than others.
What media are you using?
Also do you have that at both speed of your samsung or only the 4x?

rgds,soso

also, do the originals have this problem too? perhaps you weren't able to get a good read and thats why the backups are having this problem?

I usually use Infiniti 360, they are the cheapest and I know I'm probably not going to get sufficient results out of them. I've also got Datawrite ones, I just re-burned the COD3 backup and it's working (for now). I think you where probably correct about the bad batch, I've had a few coasters!

read this post about media.
rgds,soso

Case in point...

Cheap media degrades very quickly... especially under the heat of the 360...