cd/rw question

[leftyman]

hi, im new to burning and have a question. i have a hp 9100i 8x4x32 burner, hooked up as the master on the 2nd ide channel with a generic (nec?)24x cd rom slaved to it. i have my maxtor 7200 rpm 13.6 gig hard alone on the 1st ide channel. ive read that i shouldnt have both the cd and the cdrw on the same ide channel. ive locked up twice when i started running the burn program (easy cd creator) but after i disabled antivirus software i havent locked up, only just burned my first cd with no problems but im wondering if i should change my ide setup? thanks for any help!

set up:
tbird 800
128 meg ram
32 meg tnt2 agp card
and the above stuff

 

[AndyHui]

Seems fine to me. Anti-virus programs can usually cause problems because of their irregular CPU and/or hard drive usage patterns that can easily disrupt the stream of data going to your CDRW, causing buffer-underruns.

Best you disable the anti-virus while you burn if you find that you have no problems doing so.

 

[leftyman]

thanks Andy, how about my swap file? had it set to 320 (2.5x) but after i had my lockups i changed it to "let windows mismanage it" any real advantages or disadvantages to this?

 

[TonyT]

The only problem you might encounter with having the cdrw and cd on the same ide channel is a buffer-underrun when copying directly from a cd without first copying a cd image to the hard drive.

 

[leftyman]

ok, the cdrw has a four meg buffer, if i cut my burn speed to 4x instead of 8x would that prevent a buffer underrun in that situation?

 

[TonyT]

It depends. Setting the speed to 4x will definitely decrease your chance of having a buffer-underrun, but it still might happen. It all depends on the overall speed of your system. If you're not sure, you can always perform a test at that speed (which should be an option within your cd burning software). That should let you know if your system can handle a given record speed.

 

[leftyman]

thanks for the advice!

 

[TonyT]

You're welcome.

Let me know if you need any other help.

 

[HeinekinMan2]

I've got this same drive on one of my systems; there is no problem with having both CD devices on the same IDE channel as long as you are using IDE bus-mastering and depending upon your mobo's chipset. I've always stuck to Intel chipsets and have never had a problem. I have no problems with on-the-fly burns (get rid of the AdapCRAP stuff and you'll be all right!).

CDRW as Master and CDROM as Slave on the secondary IDE channel is how both of my systems are configured. I tried every combo possible and this was the only config that offered me stability so your config jives with what I have. I have DMA mode enabled (Win98SE) for every one of my devices (HD is an IBM 22GXP, CDRW is an HP9100i, and CDROM is a Kenwood UCR-421 72x).

I use the following CD mastering s/w: CDRWin v3.8d, WinOnCD Power Edition v3.7 (this is what I would suggest you obtain - a fantastic overall CD mastering program), and Diskjuggler v3.0-750.

I use 8x rated CD-R media (various brands, no issues with ANY particular brand), I burn on-the-fly between my CDROM and CDRW most of the time unless I'm creating a compilation audio CD, and I NEVER disable anything in the system tray (Norton AV is on all the time). I've even surfed the net and watched TV while burning; in my opinion based on trial and error, the keys to successful burning: proper h/w (you have a very good CDRW drive, I would spring for a better, faster CDROM reader - Kenwood, Teac, Asus, or Plextor), correctly configured (DMA mode is a must for high speed burns and the same for IDE bus mastering), and most important, the correct s/w (WinOnCD, CDRWin, Diskjuggler are some the best available).

 

[HeinekinMan2]

One last thing; I've heard a lot of emphasis put on using good quality media for successful burns. Well, I've yet to encounter a problem using any brand of media (Taiyo Yuden, Kodak, Pacific Digital, TDK, Maxell, Verbatim, no name brand, GQ or Great Quality); I've always stuck to using 8x rated media and the only issue that I ran into was with the GQ stuff which was ID'ed as CMC Magnetics. No problem with burns just after a period of time, on some of these disks, the top silver reflective material has started to peel off rendering the disks useless...other than that all of my burns have been fine (audio CD's - even on the cheap stuff sound very good, no skips, will play in every reader or player that I have tried, etc). But the consensus of every CD-R usergroup that I frequent is that Taiyo Yuden and Kodak are the best brands of CD-R media.

 

[leftyman]

thanks heinekinman, got a website or a link for the software? will a better cdrom really improve the quality of the recording or just the speed?

 

[TonyT]

A better cd-rom drive will merely improve the speed, not the quality of the recording.

 

[HeinekinMan2]

TonyT is right; however, that seems to be a problem for a lot of people trying to burn directly, on-the-fly, from their CDROM readers to their CDRW drives at high speeds: 8x or 12x: their CDROM readers inability to keep the buffer full resulting in buffer underruns. A solution for some is to temporarily transfer their data to the HD in the form of an image and then burning the image to their CDRW drive. This is unacceptable to me. If you have the right setup, this is not necessary!

A good starting place to base your opinions on CDROM/CDRW drives and their ability to rip quality DAE or transfer data at their advertised rates is:

http://come.to/cdspeed

I have used CDROM readers from the following vendors: Acer, Afreey, Asus, Kenwood, Plextor (the Plextor 40x SCSI reader is probably the best CDROM reader on the market), Teac, Sony, and Toshiba.

Most of these units perform well. In opinion, Toshiba's SUCK at DAE but the drives are top quality and perform perfectly fine transferring data (the DAE is good, just not very fast; my older Toshiba 32x did DAE at 1.5x, HORRIBLE!). Don't know if this pertains to their DVD drives, their latest 48x readers or not (check the CDSpeed link).

Teac makes a very good reader as does Afreey and Asus. But the gripes that I had with the Afreey 50x and Asus 50x readers were with excessive noise and occasional premature spin downs on certain CDROMs that I was trying to copy (on-the-fly) resulting in coasters at the tail ends of a burn (like 95% through!!! A royal pisser).

I decided to buy and try the Kenwood 72x IDE CDROM drive and haven't regretted it one bit; I have two of these and they perform as advertised: DAE at 46x and data transfers ranging from 40x - 68x. I have yet to experience a buffer underrun, or a bad burn using these readers. The Kenwoods are quiet, fast, and do not spin down. I haven't had any problem getting them to read anything that I burned as well.

I purchased WinOnCD from AdapCRAP; the program was originally developed and marketed by a German company CeQuadrat. Their URL is still reachable: http://www.cequadrat.com. But Adaptec bought them out in 1999/2000 so in order to purchase WinOnCD v3.7 Power Edition in the USA, you have to go through Adaptec sales; a friend of mine is trying to obtain this program from Adaptec but is having a somewhat difficult time; not sure if Adaptec is discontinuing the selling of this program or not (I bought it from Adaptec sales in November 2000 for $69.00, worth every penny!!).

CDRWin is downloadable and can be evaluated for free from

http://www.goldenhawk.com

The cost for the unlock code is $49.00. This program is only good for copying CD's but it's worth having.

Diskjuggler is downloadable and also can be evaluated for free from

http://www.padus.com

The cost for the unlock code is $79.00. This program is also only good for copying CD's but has a very nice user interface, is rock solid, and reliable, and worth having.

Another multi-function CD mastering program that has gotten rave reviews in the CD-R user community is Nero Burning ROM; I haven't tried it but it can be downloaded and evaluated for free from:

http://www.nero.com

The unlock fee is $49.00 I believe which makes it a bargain.

A lot of people use and continue to bitch about AdapCRAP Easy CD Creator. It works for most people (including myself) but is filled with bugs and is not as reliable than what is available elsewhere. I must admit, the user interface of CD Spin Doctor and CD Copier are very nice...but reliability and stability are far more important to me than user friendliness...