I have been using (a legit copy of) Nero backup for 2 years, to make two backup DVDs a week. About a month ago it was making a backup disk, burnt it OK, but hung up during the data verification stage. I came to the computer two hours later and the DVD burner was still spinning. The computer was so hung up that in order to clear the hang I had to pull the power cord. After that, I re-loaded the Nero suite, re-set-up my two backup jobs (each about 3 gB), set one of them up to run right away, and it hung up again.

I have checked the backup disks and they seem to contain the proper data. So the program still writes the backups OK. It's just that it does not complete the verify, it does not stop, and can't be stopped using task manager.

Background:
XP, SP3 installed about a month ago (coincidence?), Nero version 1.2.0.54.