Cd-RW connected to CD-ROM - problem

[viewton]

Hey guys,

I have a problem with my father-in-law's pc, and I was hoping someone might be able to help.

We've tried to get a CD to copy straight from the CD-ROM to the CD-RW 3 times, and each time the process errors out. He's using Nero 5.5 with a Lite On 16x10x40x CD-RW, and the CD-ROM is a 12x, so we're limited to burning @ 12x. We've also tried burning @ 8x just in case it was a problem w/ the CD-ROM only reading @ 11x. (hope that makes sense?). The CD-R's we're using are PNY 12x's.

First of all, I don't even know if this is the cause of the problem, but since he has 2 HD's, 1 CD-Rw, and 1 CD-ROM, we had to connect the 2 HD's together on one IDE cable, and the two CD devices together on one channel. This is because the master and slave connections on the 18" IDE cable are so close together, that they won't allow us to connect one HD to one CD device. (he has a large tower, and the inside configuration is less than optimal). When we started NERO, it said that since we had 2 CD devices on one cable, that there could be a problem copying straight from the CD-ROM. Does anyone have their system set up like we had to configure his? Does it work ok for you?

Is it possible to switch the cable around, so that the connection that usually goes into the mobo, instead connects to the CD device? That would allow us to connect one CD device to one HD for each IDE cable.

Or do they make cables longer than 18"? I just went to the local computer store, and the guy there said they didn't, but I'd just like to verify that

Thanks in advance for any help!
Viewton

 

[bacillus]

<< Or do they make cables longer than 18&quot;? >>


yes, you can get 24 &amp; 36 inch ide cables though the longer cables are theoretically prone to signal degredation.



<< each time the process errors out. >>


I assume you're getting buffer underruns. is DMA enabled for both drives?
best if the cd drive is on a different ide controller to the burner.

 

[WonderLlama]

also, if you are wanting to improve things maybe consider getting a cd-rom drive that is a little faster than 12x, as the newer ones can perform better. that lite-on should have burn proof so hopefully it wouldnt be that.

 

[viewton]

thx for the quick responses~!

I do have DMA enabled on both drives. So I'm going to do some searching on the web for a 36&quot; cable, and see how that works.

I will also be upgrading his CD-ROM soon...it's sad that his CD-RW is faster than the ROM

Oh, almost forgot...I take it that you're not supposed to switch the IDE cable around? Meaning that you can't connect the &quot;master&quot; connection to the mobo, and vice versa?

 

[hakadate]

I have an acer 10x cd writer and acer 50x reader and can only copy
at 6x.Try using the simulation mode.
Select the cd copy option and then under burn options
select determine max speed
select simulation
select write speed at the speed you like.
Nero will then test for the best speed to run at.
I have a AMD K6-2 @550 and both cd drives are on the same buss.I put
each on a separate buss and the write speed went to 8x.
Hope this helps. I am using nero 5.0

 

[bacillus]

<< I take it that you're not supposed to switch the IDE cable around? >>


if it's an ata33 cable then yes as I've done so in the past!

 

[corkyg]

You are always in a perilous environment trying to transfer data between two IDE devices on the same channel.

The easy fix is to create a CD Cache of about 1 GB on one of your hard drives.

Then copy the source CD to that cache totally.

Then burn from that cache to the CD/RW drive. You should never have a problem that way regardless of whose software you use.

If and when you ever decide to upgrade . . . always try to get an EXTERNAL CD burner. You now have choices of USB, Firewire and SCSI. ALL are much better and more reliable than anything IDE Internal.

Yeah . . . internal is cheaper . . . but in this business, you get what you pay for.