Help with HP CR-RW Drive -- How do you make a CD ?

[JJordan]

I just bought a new CD-RW drive - The HP 9350i. I have never had one before so I know NOTHING about burning CD's. What I do know is I have made 2 coasters for every ONE CD. When I try to copy from my hard drive, after about 200 MB, it slows down and takes about 2-3 hours to copy the rest of the stuff. When I try to make Music CD-s I never get a whole CD worth of information copied before it STOPS or appears to stop copying to the CD-RW. I have an ASUS P2B-F MB, P3 700, 256 MB PC 133 RAM, GeForce2, SB LIVE, Kenwood CD-Rom. If I do ANYTING AT ALL on my computer (even open explorer, it stops the deal (profgrams stop responding -- copying stops -- all goes to hell in a hand basket and I throw another 11 cent CD away. Any ideas what I am doing wrong or how I need to set up this deal to work. I do not even understand the formatting deal on CR-R's. I try to cppy a CD and after I format it it show 30 MB gone alread before I start co[ying anything -- what the hell is that -- show that space as USED when nothing is on the CD

 

[StrangeRanger]

What os and burner software are you running? Try this set up, i have found it to work best when you have 1 HD, 1 cd-rom and 1 cd-rw (assuming you have an IDE system).

- HD is primary master
- cd-rom is primary slave
- cd-rw is secondary master
- enable DMA on all devices
- disable auto-insert notification

You do not need to "format" your cd-r or cd-rw media for "normal" burning. "formating" is only needed for packet writing. An example for you: to burn an audio cd from a HD image, be sure to keep your HD regularly defragmented, simply drag the files you want to burn (i don't know your burning software so i can't get specific) into the burning software's set up screen and burn. Something aint right with your set up for sure. with a p3 700, you should have no problem burning and doing SOME other tasks. let us know if setting things as above helped.
j

 

[JJordan]

I am running windows 98 (not second edition, but with all current updates). The software I am using is what came with ithe HP Burner -- The HP software,HP MyCD and also Adaptec Direct CD. Both are runing and doing something when I try to bun a CD. I will check to see if UDMA is on on all three. Right now, I have my 10 gig IBM 7200 rpm drive as master, 20 gig 7200 rpm quantum as slave on Primary and DC-RW primary and CD slave on the secondary. When the HP MyCd pops up, it asks if I am creating a data CD or a Music CD. I assume if I was copying files like drivers, and other programs onto the CD it would be data, not music. When I select Data, it does some formatting of the CD and uses up some space for something as I noted above. Teh Adaptec program, however is what is launched to do the formatting. When it is done, it tells you to just copy to the CD using explorer which is what I have been doing.

Should I just be selecting Music CD for all stuff -- I do not understand the "packets" reference. I want to be able to create copies of CD's my kids use for example for kids games becuase they ALWAYS end up scratching the CD's up so bad they quit working (they are 3 and 5). Also I want tp put driver executable programs on the CD's instead of my hard drive for use in rebuilding the system, updates, etc. Are these "data" or Music" Hope this helps someone help me.

 

[StrangeRanger]

Jjordan, well, i have no exp. with that HP software, and never liked Adaptec stuff. I use Nero mostly and clone cd (which would be perfect for copying your kid's stuff) and Fuerio.
Packet writing is like using the cd as a floppy. allows you to write some here and there, add more later etc.
Since you are completely new to burning cd's i would suggest you go here and do some reading. There are a lot of great links on this page that will explain everything you ever would or could want to know about burning. Spend some time reading and you will be much happier in the future.
j

 

[haslup]

JJordan,

I just recently bought the 9350i, too, and the little software that comes with it isn't very good. My original HP came with a version of Adaptec's Easy CD Creator and I was surprised when I noticed that the 9350i jut came with Adaptec's DirectCD.

For the best burning, you'll probably want to get either Nero (which I tried and couldn't get to work on my new machine + 9350i), or Adaptec's software (CD creator deluxe?).

The DirectCD stuff lets you initialize ("format&quot a CD-R (or -RW) and then you can drag and drop stuff onto that drive from explorer. I don't like that...

Good luck...

jason

 

[JJordan]

Thanks for the Link. Lot's of information ! I just hope I can understand it.

 

[PCAddict]

I too don't use the HP software that came with my 9350i. I have Adaptec EZ-CD Creator on a CD and I just installed that. I have my system set up as follows and have yet to make a coaster:

Primary Master: HDD
Primary Slave: HDD
Secondary Master: CD-RW
Secondary Slave: DVD