48x CD-RW only burns CD-R at 24x

[Kuroyama]

I got a new Cendyne 48x24x48x CD-RW and some Khybermedia 48x CD-R's. OS is XP-Pro. No matter what I do I can't get Nero to write above 24x. Going to "My Computer", properties of the drive, and "Recording" also gives a max of 24x (although once it showed 48x). Only the Real Player CD burner lists 48x as an option.

This replaces my Lite-On 16x10x40x. Computer spontaneously rebooted while reading/writing a CD (forget which) and now when I turn on PC the Lite-On's CD tray slides open and refuses to stay closed. If I put in a CD then it spins foreover, cannot recognize it, and will not return the CD until I reboot.

Any ideas how to record 48x on the Cendyne? And is the Lite-On shot, or can it be saved?

 

[BoomAM]

Whats probably happened, is the Nero has detected the smart burn feature on your CDRW, and enabled it.
What this does, is does a quick test on the blank CD to see what the Maximium speed that it`ll do is, dependant on the quality of the media.
The same has probably happened with WinXP as well. RealPlayer probably doesnt support SmartBurn.

 

[Kuroyama]

I don't think that's the problem. I tried 16x, 32x, and 48x media and with every one WinXP and Nero both give 24x as the max.

 

[stevewm]

Wht you are seeing is a featue many modern CD-RW drives these days have. They suggest the maximum speed you should burn the media you have inserted at. Not all software takes advantage of this feature....

In Nero, goto the Recorder menu, then pick Choose Recorder, highlight your CD-RW in the list and click the Advanced button. You should see 2 or more options with names such as "SmartSpeed", "SmartBurn", or "JustSpeed". Untick these options if present. Now restart Nero with your blank media inserted into the drive. It should see 48x as the maximum speed now.

 

[Kuroyama]

Thanks for the info. That makes sense. I can't seem to find any advanced options anywhere in the stripped down version of Nero included with the drive. But I'll keep my eyes open, at least now I know what caused trouble.

Interestingly, when I put a pre-recorded (locked) CD, such as the XP-OEM disk, then I can enable 48x writing. Perhaps this is because the "SmartSpeed" type features ignore disks which can't be written to.