Bronze, thanks for the compliment. Here goes ...
- Nero is probably better than Adaptec ECDC and compared to CloneCd is to be used for music and data. It is flexible and powerful with simple drag and drop commands and a wizard for the newbie, not to mention also available for download "gratis" as is CloneCd too.
- However, CloneCd is the best program for copying protected cdroms because of it's ability to utilize a supported burner's RAW writing capability which simply put copies a cdrom bit by bit including the copy protection. Nero doesn't do this. I'm pretty sure that Nero can't, for example, "backup" Diablo2 with Safedisc2 protection. CloneCd has been shown to pretty much copy almost anything put on cdrom. OTOH, CloneCd does not do compilations, it is a straight one to one copy program and will image first and then burn from image for best results. You do not have an option about that. Nero will do straight cd to cd copy and you can do on the fly if you wish but you have to make sure that your cdrom will keep up with your burner. For example: my Toshiba 32x IDE cdrom is conservatively rated at 8x audio extraction which works well since I have a Plex 8/4/32a. You don't want to burn on the fly if your cdrom is 8x and you are running a 12x or even a 16x burner.
To be honest, i've only used Adaptec ECDC 4.02 a couple of times before I uninstalled it and cleaned out the registry. It seems relatively simple to use
but there have been many reports of funky behavior with Adaptec and people's particular setup both hardware and software. I've talked to quite a few people who have had problems with ECDC and then after switching to Nero, have had none. Taking into consideration that Adaptec and other software don't like to be mixed together. So, if you uninstall Adaptec EDCD you should also erase all traces from the registry too just in case. If you go to alt.comp.periphs.cdr on UseNet you won't find many people who are Adaptec fans - probably mirroring people here too.
IMO, the bottom line is:
If it ain't broke don't fix it. Or, if it ain't broke don't break it!
If you like using Adaptec and haven't had any problems with it then by all means stick with it. Most computer junkies have a disturbing habit of wanting to try out new stuff
and have found Nero and CloneCd to be the best examples of their technology.
I'm babbling.
Assorted comments:
- copy protection detection through a front end like MOD's CloneCd database is nice to have if you like to "backup" games because it's a simple operation of selecting the right game title and then hit "burn" and it does it all for you. Otherwise you will have to find out what protection it is and then determine the right setup ... which most programs will tell you anyways. In addition, it's nice to find out what protection, if any, a cdrom has that is not game-related.
- I like the cdrw erase on Nero better than CloneCd.
Hope this helps. Sorry for the rambling.