Arggg!! HELP! CDR TROUBLE!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nilbog
  • Start date Start date
Nilbog

Nilbog

hello
Okay, I just bought a TEAC CDRW drive (4x4x32). I'm very happy with it so far for burning MP3's and such.

However, I tried copying a CD directly (i.e. from my cd drive (16x) to my CDR drive - bypassing my hard drive). And I keep getting errors a few minutes into the burning proccess. It's something like "Buffer Full" or "Cannot read data from disc" and such things like that. It's really pissing me off, and I've already wasted a few CD's.

Things that might help someone trying to solve this problem:

1. I set the thing up myself (Best Buy was gonna take 3 days to install). MY IDE cable going to my CD drive had another connecter about halfway up that I plugged my CDR into. I didnt use the analog audio cable beause I couldnt find a place on my soundcard to plug it in (my cd already took up the space) this is used only for playback right?

2. I'm using EZ CD creator 4.

3. I've tried copying at 1x and had the same errors.

4. when I select "Copy disc image" or whatever, and try to copy at 4x, it says my CD drive isnt fast enough to copy at 4x without copying to the hard drive first. But my CD drie is 16x, and I STILL get errors when I copy to the hardrive first.

5. In the windows info box about the drive, there's a checkbox for "sync data transfer" should this be check on both drives? It's currently NOT checked. There's also an unchecked box that says "DMA".

6. After an unsuccesful burning, my CD rom no longer shows up in the devices window. I can still acess it with explorer, and play CD's and such, but I can't see the settings in the devices window.

OKay, I'm going crazy, someone help please!

-Nilbog

CD Death Count: 4

[This message has been edited by Nilbog (edited 03-22-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Nilbog (edited 03-22-2000).]
 
Nilbog,
I had some similar problems with my mitsumi cdrw when trying to copy cds. It worked after I: 1) didn't allow a test writing (I just write directly to the cdr without test writing it first 2)write at the fastest speed I could (for me it is 4X)
After doing these things I was able to do it. This also has to be done if I want to write at disc at once, as well. I don't know why it works this way for me and not the prefered way of test writing first and to use a slower speed, but its the way mine likes it I guess. Good luck with it.
bobbo
 
1.) No real reason to plug in the audio cable between CD-R drive and soundcard.

2.) Should work, a little dodgey in some places, but should still work. Version 3.5C is a bit better overall.

3.) Well, 1x should have done it if everything was working fine -- even 2x. Are both units IDE??? If they both are, are they on the same IDE cable??? If they are on the same IDE cable, this is bad for going CD-to-CDR, otherwise good for HD-to-CDR. You aren't using a "slow" computer are you (slow as in Pentium Classic 133 or less)?
 
Sounds like you're trying to copy Playstation games without a YAMAHA . . . been there ! Is the disc you are trying to dupe new ? If it is, take the TEAC back and get a YAMAHA. You won't have any problems. The TEAC can't read the encoded error blocks ( a form of piracy protection ) on new CDs.

Regards,
PAPicker
 
Thanks for you help guys,

Bobbo- I will try disc at once at full speed. Do you copy to the HD first?

Gary- They ARE on the same IDE cable. What would you suggest as an alternative? I need to do both (copy from CD-CDR as well as HD-CDR). So where should I plug the thing in?

PAPicker- I WAS planning on copying playstation games. But I have a mod chip in my playstation, so if my TEAC corrects the errors, I should still be able to play it, right?
 
Assuming that you've only got one HD, connect the burner and the hard drive to one IDE cable, and the CD-ROM to the second IDE cable. That might fix it, otherwise drop the speed down to 1x (yeah, it sucks, but sometimes at least it works). Also check to see if there is a patch for EZ creater - I was in liquorice allsorts until I patched the software - suddenly everything worked.

- gaffa
 
When I connect it to the HD cable, will it mess up when I try to go HD -> CDR? I did this and it seems to copy CD -> CDR okay, but it still messed up on like the 14th song of the Cd I was copying.
-nil
 
Howdy Goblin
Well after reading all of the responses that you recieved and thinking about oyur problemI have come to the realization that all of the above are probable cures for your ailment. But for the fact that no said anything about the settings in the control pannel.

If I were to do it all over again I would do as gaffa said. Then I would check the setting in MY COMPUTER. One of the the things that may help is to free up some memory. Turn off all of the extra programs that may be running. Such as task scheduler. If the E'mail program is running in the back ground then turn it off also. Your problem may not be entirely caused by these settings. The size of your read ahead buffer for your Hard Drive may be too large. You can also affect the performance by reducing your screen resolution. Change to 800x600 and set the color to 16bit. also set the GUI accelorator to minimum. check under file system and make shure that the typical use for this machine says Desk top..

Hope this helps.
 
OKay, I got it working okay now. For some reason it's till kicking out on larger songs >10mins. But I just copied a playstation CD and it works fine (for backup porpuses of course).
Grizzly- I took your advice and I think that's what helped a lot.
I also switched software to DiscJuggler for some things.
BUT - I think that the CDR connecting to my HD is slowing down my hd. It makes more seeking noises now, and seems to be a little more sluggish. Should I maybe get an IDE card so that all those devices can have their own IDE cable? Would the help HD- CDR recordings?

Still much to learn,
Nilbog
 
Hi Nilbog,
I'm glad you're getting some things working. You asked before if I am copying to HD first and then recording, no I am not. I check the box in my software (winoncd) that says "record on the fly", so it will record directly from the cd I want to record from. These are just some of the things I am doing. I was trying for months to record an audio cd from the cdrom to my cdr, and found some info on the net about people having problems like this. Some of the answers I read just said to get it to the cdr as fast as possible. So I went 4X speed, on the fly, direct from cdrom, disc at once, without test writing before actual
writing and it worked for me and my setup. I had some computer place put my computer together, so I don't know how they did it, but I am wary of how they did it.
Good luck.
bobbo
 
Adding another IDE card will just cause you problems.
What is the bus speed of your MB?
Clock speed of your processor chip?
Size and type of RAM?
Size, Maker of the HD?
Rated seek speed?

Some, not all, older computers have trouble keepng up. Especially when doing multi track recording and mixdown. I have also seen problems like yours when copying CDs with older machines.

GRIZ
 
Nilbog,

It just occured to me that if you're CD-ROM is oldish, it might be having problems seeking/tracking. Some CD-ROMs just can't seem to track the laser properly - they keep getting lost. A test I've used to determine this is get AudioGrabber, and rip a CD using that (rip from your CD_ROM, not the burner).

There's a little lable when you're ripping that tells you the number of speed problems it's encountered so far. In my experience, the CD-ROMs I've had trouble copying from have alos been the ones that have produced a lot (> 5) of speed problems using audio grabber.

It could also be due to scratches on your CDs - while the CD-ROM is trying to re align itself after a jump, the CD burner (which at 4X wants a sustained transfer of 600K/sec to write correctly) has emptied the CD-ROMs output buffer.

Another IDE card would be a pain in the arse - I've never been able to get one going successfully - Windows always seems to find some sort of conflict.

Get a SCSI card and a SCSI CD-ROM instead. Better transfer, and it would remove the CD-ROM from the IDE channel, eliminating the HD dramas

- gaffa

[This message has been edited by gaffa (edited 03-23-2000).]
 
I think I'll go buy a new CD rom drive. Perhaps that will solve the problem. I think a 40x is only like $30 or $40 now. I suppose a CD ROM with a higher rate of digital extraction would help (although I still have problems at 1x) I suspect it's all the cdroms fault somehow.
-Nilbog
 
Well, certainly, unless you are using SCSI CD Rom drives, you will not be getting a "digital copy" of the CD. You will be using the CD Roms D/A converter, then the soundcards A/D converter. I think this is your problem.

There is a ripping program somewhere called WinDac32. Use it to "rip" the songs digitally off of the CD, then just burn a CD. I really don't think the way you are trying it is going to work. It has to do with the fact that IDE CD Rom drives cannot transfer .cda files from your music CD through the data cable attached to it. Only SCSI CD Rom drives can do this. You CD burner needs to see digital data. So, it the process of all the conversions, if in fact the computer is even doing it, something is getting messed up.

Also, for burning .cda disks, you should always buffer to the hard drive.

Ed
 
I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but check off the DMA box, it should help if your computer and burner are less than 5 years old.
 
Whaddaya mean, Ed? I have a 40x IDE CD-ROM
and a 4x4x16 IDE CDRW from Yamaha and the two of them produce digital copies, no SCSI involved and also my soundcard is not involved at all. Neither the CDRW nor the 40x CR-ROM drives are physically connected to the soundcard on my system so the converters on the 40x can't be involved. Occasionally the 40x can't "get it up" fast enough and ruins the copy. In these cases I make a disc image on the HD and burn the copy from there.
 
Ummmmm.....Well, last I heard, IDE CD Rom's where not capable of digital copies of .cda files without a software interface that does the conversion from .cda to .wav . With my Sony Hot Burn software, I cannot copy a .cda file at all.

When you insert a music CD into your drive the drive see's the .cda format and automatically sends the CD's information to the D/A converter that is on the drive. Of course to hear the CD music, you need the little cable that hooks up to your sound card. Only SCSI CD Rom drives have the ability to to output .cda files through the attached data cable. But, there is software out their that will make the CD Rom drive output the .cda file to the data output and convert it to .wav format. But, my experience with this has been shakey at best. Usually, there is a lot of errors with the .wav file. So, maybe the CD Creator software will do this conversion and install the neccesary driver to make it work, but then you are still dealing with the flakey conversion. SCSI is the way to go if you want to copy a .cda file from a CD Rom to a CD-RW drive. Don't know what else to say on the subject.

Ed
 
Well, I am now a retarded aragataung (sp?). I went out and bought that CD rom drive (see above post), and it didnt help (in fact the rate of digital audio extraction was WORSE). Well, best Buy better be nice, because the things going back to the store next day off I get.
OKay, now BACK to the problem. I'm at the end of my rope. I've written out my will, and I'm going to end it all. If I'm so pathetic I cant get some stupid piece of computer hardware working, it's not even worth TRYING to continue living. For anyone taking me seriously, i apologize. But seriously, I'm going nuts.

Grizzly-
Okay here's what i got:
Bus speed: It's a pentium 2 motherboard Although I dont know the bus speed
Clock Speed: 266Mhz (Pentium 2)
RAM: 128MB
HD: Quantam Fireball 2 gig IDE
HD seek: I havent the slightest

I did have trouble burning from a burned CD, so I ended up copying the image to my HD and copying from there, which seemed to work, although it could only handle 1x. This leads me to believe that it has to be something with my components, not my CDrom or CDR.

The only way I have gotten anything to work
is to brun MP3's. I havent tried burning many at once, thought. And I suppose I could rip MP3's from the CD, THEN burn a CD, but then whats the point of me burning cash on a 4x drive?

I was also paying attention to the buffer sizes when I made my blunder-isk purchase and noticed almost ALL (even the expensive) drives only had 128kb buffers. Also, the one I bought was advertised as being "fully capable of digital audio extraction" - ha- yeah, at 1x.

Maybe I should take both drives back, and buy something less dramatic, like a fricking butter churn.

Oh yeah..and Ed, how do I put the buffer on my HD?

Okay, one more thing. While writting this response, I put in a CD I tried burning before I went to work today, and the entire thing seems to be intact, although there were errors reported while burning. But the CD is acting weird, like saying there is 3809473242 minutes left on the song....ugghhhh....Why does this have to be so hard?

-Nil
 
I'm thoroughly familiar with half your problem. Not the technical problem, but the end-of-the-rope feeling. If you've got the latter, it gets in the way of solving the former. The only difference between you and me is that I not only get down on myself for being real stupid, but I also want to drop the computer out the window for good measure. Give it a break, take it easy, this'll get solved.
 
Nilbog,

Not sure if this helps at all, but here's my 2 cents.

- I gave up trying to copy audio cd's via cd to cd. Pointless, I didn't get errors but I did get glitches.

- I also gave up using my CD-ROM to extract the audio data to an image.

What worked for me was using the CD-RW to extract the audio data to the hard drive, and then burn that image.

This may not work for you, but thought I would mention it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top