Copying Problems

[Meaty]

I can only burn cd's at 1x speed. This is taking too long and very annoying.

I used to be able to burn at 10x.

Will formatting my hard disk do the trick?

Thanks in advance guys!

[Charlie]

I doubt it - you'll wipe out your recording software. Can you provide more info:

1 Operating System
2 Burning software
3 Reading/Burning hardware
4 Reading/Burning settings
5 Two examples of what you are burning and where it comes from (CD/Download?)
6 What's different? What have you changed?
7 How fragmented is your hard disk?

[Meaty]

Right Charlie, Thanks for replying.

I used to be able to copy at 10x, with ease. This was when I first bought my PC. This was with Nero. Since then I think everyone has installed too much crap on my PC.

Here are the details of what you are wanting to know.

1 - Windows ME
2 - I have Clone CD, Nero and CDRWIN. I know these are the main ones, at least thats something!
3 - Reading - Creative 52x
Writing - Ricoh Dvd/Writing combi Drive 4x12x16x
4 - I can read the image fine, it's the writing. I use the settings on the sites and write images at 1x, sometimes these fail. If I go ANY higher it fails within about 10 seconds.
5 - I burn copied games and originals. I have never copied downloaded games, although I'm gonna try this in the future. I would ask if anyone knew where I could get them but that is breaking the rules, isn't it?
6 - I haven't changed anything, except having only half memory left on my PC.
7 - How can you tell? I have run de-fragment on my PC(tried) but I get a message saying this is not installed on my PC.

Please can you help

[Charlie]

This looks like a dogs dinner! Burning software of the type you have can determine the maximum burning speed from info written by the manufacturer onto the non-user portion of the CD. But there is no current CD media of which I know confined to 1x speed.

The burner also mediates between the source device and itself. But I don't see a problem there.

Next, I notice that the devices you use MIGHT be Nero compatible (probably are because it uses the ASPI layer - but a special layer is required for Windows ME). Theyt are not truly CloneCD compatibele, so we'll disregard that. But Nero and the other software would need to be properly registered. Cracked versions or expired demos behave oddly. Demo mode only works at 1x - but I'm sure you know all that.

So on to your speed options. From what you describe, it seems that you can choose the speed but the burn fails at speeds higher than 1x. If you have no licensing problems, this tells me that your hard disk can't supply the data as fast as the burner would like to burn it - that's the dreaded buffer under-run. This can be caused by one of two things:

1) Another intensive application or Windows functron is running at the same time as Nero.
2) Your disk (HDD) is totally screwed up - fragmented.

The optimum conditions for any CD burning software is:

a. The HDD needs to be on the primary IDE channel
b. The Burner needs to be the master on the secondary IDE channel
c. The Reader needs to be the slave on the secondary IDE channel
d. The HDD FAT system for ME should be FAT32
e. The HDD should not be so fragmented that the file you are burning is all over the place
f. The burning software is legal (no risk due to cracked serials)

How do you compare with the above optimum conditions?

[Darkness]

Bzzzzt

Just make sure you have DMA turned on for all your HD's and CD Drives,. will more than likely fix the problem

Cheers.

[Meaty]

Charlie (11-11-2001 02:10):

a. The HDD needs to be on the primary IDE channel
b. The Burner needs to be the master on the secondary IDE channel
c. The Reader needs to be the slave on the secondary IDE channel
d. The HDD FAT system for ME should be FAT32
e. The HDD should not be so fragmented that the file you are burning is all over the place
f. The burning software is legal (no risk due to cracked serials)

How do you compare with the above optimum conditions?

Yes they are all the same as on my puter. Except, fragmenting. I've now got this on my comp but it takes AGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS.

Can you help?

[Charlie]

Well you've waited this long another few hours to get your disk in shape won't hurt! Of course we'll all be shattered if after that it still doesn't work. I hope you'll agree that working at web's length we've tried hard to help you and if this doesn't work you'll need to go back to the start, de-install your copy programs, re-install them in the sequence I indicated in my post on Windows XP and see what happens again. Remember to note your various unlock codes.

[Meaty]

I appreciate you have tried to help, I have defragmented my machine and I can now copy with 2x. Although it took a good few hours to defrag it seemed to work.

Thanks for the help mate!

[Charlie]

2x is still not right. Something is choking the transfer. Have you beenn into Device Manager to look at the Hard Drive (Write Cache enabled) and in Advanced Settings, as already suggested, DMA mode?

For the burner, you have to be careful with DMA as there are potential IDE clashes. But at least try and change the burner from PIO (which it probably is) to DMA because you can always change it back.

Halving your memory (to what) puts a strain on Windows paging. So it may be linked.

[frogfish]

How fast should I be able to burn on an IDE HDD/burner setup? My burner is rated 24x and I've got a 7200 RPM IBM ide hard drive running in win XP; 384 megs of ram on a P3-733, and I can't burn at 24x (or even 12 or 16) without buffer underruns - I can do it with the underrun protection enabled but that slows the process CONSIDERABLY. I'm curious if 24x is just not realistic on an IDE setup?

[Charlie]

My burner is a Yamaha 2100SCSI with 8MB buffer; the HDD is IDE. Sometimes I can burn at 16x but anything over 8x has a 1 in 6 failure rate due to buffer underrun even though I think I've got nothing running. But if FindFast or Norton or any daemon kicks in on the vinegar stroke and then uses the HDD, you'll more likely get a buffer underrun in proportion to a combination of higher speed burn as handicapped by a fragmented HDD.

EIDE in the Primary/Secondary HDD/Burner relationship with DMA set for the HDD should perform as per SCSI. Windows is the bugger!