I had a hell of a time with backups also.
A lot was due to my drive I have a thompson drive.
Some Thompson's are the worst - some are fine - mine was dog shiat.
You can see what type of drive you have by looking here:
http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/x...comparison.htm
I know it is my drive because I can use the disk in another xbox with a samsung drive.
Anyway I am now modding out a samsung PC dvd drive for use in my Xbox.
The other thing to watch is the media - just stick with the Ritek G04 dye disks. I burn -r from a Phillips A05 drive.
Usualy if it is bad media or a bad drive - you will get some disks to partialy work. For example the game will boot, but will give a 'dirty disk' error in the middle of the game.
Now here is another thing I noticed - DO NOT put lables on the disks. 90% of every disk I have ever put a label on is a dud. It was really cool idea - scan the original disk photo and then print a label - but like I said for me it turns the disks into crap.
I presently use RecordNow Max - but also just got in to Alcoholer with CloneyXXL and Alcohol 120%. This is way cool software, and I highly reccommend for your PC Game BAckups. (Also just got CLONEDVD with ANYDVD for movie burns- trust me this is the way to go for movie burns) .
Anyway - for those of you using Alcohol 120 - is there a tutorial on buring Xbox games out there?
(I am sure I can figure it out but have not looked into)