Windows disc-burning tool BurnAware 6.0 Free has been released. This major update, also available with additional features as BurnAware 6.0 Premium (rebadged from Home Edition) and BurnAware 6.0 Professional, comes with an updated burning engine and a number of new features, including a new tool for checking discs for read errors.

BurnAware 6.0 also ships with a number of improvements, including the grouping of all burning elements at the bottom of the main form, and a number of notable bug fixes.

BurnAware 6.0 adds a new View menu to its roster, allowing users to view the basic options in normal or large size. The new menu is joined by a brand new Verify Disc tool that scans discs for read errors.

Users can now specify the cache size when burning in BurnAware 6.0.

Also added is an option to burn an 800MB CD from the Disc Type drop-down list, plus users can now select the cache size (press [F10] and then set the size via the Recorder tab). BurnAware 6.0 also adds support for importing multi-extent and UDF embedded files, and there’s a new log window accessible from the Copy Disc and Copy to Image tools.

The program’s burning engine has been updated, and the user manual has been rewritten from scratch to reflect all the changes in this new build. BurnAware 6.0 is also now capable of locking the burning drive for exclusive access when burning using the SCSI Pass Through Interface (SPTI). Version 6.0 also promises better optimized data transfer and buffering during the burning process.

The update is rounded off with five notable bug fixes: problems causing potential read errors in produced disc images, write errors at the end of the burning process on DVD-R/-RW discs and with ejecting discs at the end of the burning process have all been resolved, along with fixes for BD-R disc burning errors on certain Pioneer drives and the “A general error occurred” error that occasionally appeared while Blu-Ray disc images were being prepared.

BurnAware 6.0 Free is available as a free-for-personal-use download for PCs running Windows XP or later. Users wanting direct disc-to-disc copying capabilities and the ability to extract audio tracks and recover files from discs should download the 10-day trial of BurnAware 6.0 Premium, while a 10-day trial of BurnAware 6.0 Professional adds an option for burning a single ISO to multiple drives simultaneously to its commercial-use license. The two packages cost $29.95 and $39.95 respectively.