posted on July 16, 2001 10:16:36 AM
A while ago I had asked if anyone knew why my 8 X 4 cdrw drive never gives me more than 4x on cdrs and 2x on cdrws. Someone suggested it might have to do with the speed of the machine. Yesterday I move the drive to a 700 mhz computer with 128mb ram and 20g hard drive with 19g free. Nothing else is running and nothing is being loaded in the startup except adaptec cd creator 4. Yet I still only get 4x cdrs and 2x cdrws. I am using media that is rated to 16x. Suggestions would be appreciated. The Cdrw is on the same ATA-66 cable as the hard drive and the cdr drive is on a separate cable. I am also getting buffer underruns. I put the same drive back in my old 200 mhz machine and outside of the low speed, I get no errors.
posted on July 16, 2001 10:41:43 AM
usually mixing a HD and cd drive on the same drive cable can result in slow throughput, since it is reading the data from the HD and then writing to the cdrw drive, which has to share the ide controller. As a quick experiment, run the cdrw on a separate cable and see what happens.
Oh, and maybe try different media. When burning first started, there was all kinds of burner/media mismatches. I think most of that has gone away, but maybe you still have a poor match that is resulting in slowdown perhaps?
After that, I'm SURE a new P4 1.4GHZ machine will solve your problems...or at least distract you from them!
[ edited by captainkirk on Jul 16, 2001 10:43 AM ]
posted on July 16, 2001 10:47:09 AM
I have 2 IDE cables, each capable of controlling two devices. I have a hard drive, a cd rom (read) drive and a cdrw. If I follow you, I should put the hard drive and cd rom drive on one cable and the cdrw on its own cable. I have bought different media from different companies rated 8X, 12x and 16x. None of that made a difference.
posted on July 16, 2001 10:53:29 AM
My setup at home is the harddrive on its own cable, as primary IDE, and the second cable (secondary IDE) has the cdrom drive and cdrw drive. I have no problem writing at 8X speed (the max. of my cdrw drive) - I assemble the cd image on the harddrive then burn it at 8X. Even if I directly copy a cd, I copy from the cdrom drive to the harddrive then to the cdrw (I hit "copy" and walk away, so even if this takes a bit longer than drive -> drive copy, it doesn't matter to me, and I haven't produced a "coaster" yet).
I suggest this mostly to test my suggestion. I'm not sure I'm right, but its an easy switch. If it works, then you can keep it, if not, onto something else. Like maybe your drive is just plain bad? Check the web site of the manufacturer to make sure there aren't any updates to the firmware, driver, etc.
posted on July 16, 2001 10:57:27 AM
Since you already have a higher speed CD Rom, The read speed of the CD RW should not be that important. So I guess the only issue is the write speed to the CD RW.
I am not sure if this is worth the headaches. Unless you are continually burning disks, it is pretty best to leave things alone if the drive is writing properly.
Also, I have heard from others that it is best to write at a lower speed in that it has a better chance of creating a reliable disk. Not sure if this is true or just unfounded superstition.
posted on July 16, 2001 11:00:54 AM
I was told a long time ago that the two CD drives should NOT be on the same cable. And if I have to copy to the hard drive first and then to the cdrw, that really defeats the purpose of the 8X, even if I do manage to get it. I was just wondering how the program knows what speed choices to give me. Does it actually test the drive first? I didn't see it do that. As soon as I installed the software, it came up with the choices of 2x or 4x. Does it look at the drive and decide from the model number that it is a 4x? Since the manufacturer is out of business, I wont be getting any answers from them.
posted on July 16, 2001 11:16:05 AM
My setup doesn't defeat the purpose of getting a higher speed, since the way it works is that it starts reading from the cdrom drive (at 40X by the way), and when it builds up "enough" data, it then starts the writing on the cdrw drive at 8X. Even if it were "dumb" and copied the entire disk first, at 40X it would only take around 2-3 minutes to do that first step, then it could write at 8X (instead of, say, 4X). So my double-step only adds another minute, but then I save 8 minutes.
I'm guessing its your burning software that determines write speed in your case, so you should be looking into adaptec and how it decides to pick only 4X. Maybe its getting bad info from the cdrw drive (like the drive is saying "4X max" ),but maybe there is some way to force adaptec to write at 8X. (My software can be set to 1X, 2X, 4X, 8X, 16X, or "max", which allows it to pick a speed - and it picks 8X in my case).
If you are doing cdrom -> cdrw drive copies, maybe they shouldn't be on the same cable, for the same reason as I have them on the same cable - the source for your write should be a different cable than the cdrw drive, so that they can take advantage of the two different IDE controllers. I just suggest trying this to see if it helps or not.
But do check the software.
Or live with 4x. If you can "write and walk away", maybe its ok?
PS - just thought..maybe your software is doing (as a default perhaps) a cdrom drive -> hard drive -> cdrw drive copy...in which case I could see how it would be slowing down given how your cables are set up?
PPS - have you tried different software? I use "hot burn", but I got it free after rebate, and it seems to work great...
[ edited by captainkirk on Jul 16, 2001 11:20 AM ]
posted on July 16, 2001 11:37:18 AM
CaptainKirk: You've certainly given me enough tricks to try, thanks. I hardly use my cdrw much, so I usually can write and walk away. My main use for it is I copy every CD I buy (particularly for my kids) and then use the copy so I know the original is safe. Last night a friend from out-of-town stopped by and he had a few CDs he had just bought for his kids that he wanted me to copy sohe could put the originals away. It would have been nice if I could copy them at 8X instead of 4X. If I had known I would only get 4X, I could have saved a few bucks on the cdrw drive too.
posted on July 16, 2001 11:45:17 AM
good luck! Try the easier things, then if they don't work, well, it isn't the worst problem in the world to live with.
Nowhere do you mention the speed of the unit being used as the source. An old 12X or 8X CD is not going to supply data fast enough to the recorder to avoid buffer underruns. The software is choosing the 4X or 2x because CD Creator has tested the TRANSFER rate and found this is the most reliable.
Hookup should be the hard drive on IDE0 and the 2 CDs on IDE1. The SPEED of a CD, meaning the "X" number is a totally useless figure meant for advertizing hype. Nowdays it refers to the MAXIMUM drive rotational speed. A "52X" can have an average rotational speed of 14 or lower. The only things that judge a CD are transfer rate and the amount of CPU time it hogs. It sounds like you have a real dog of a player. See if you can borrow a friend's newer 48X or 50X drive and do a test. I'll bet it will work.
I personally use SCSI CDs and Burners. I regularly burn CD's at 16X directly from player to recorder, and at the same time I run the browse, Word, and you name it. With an IDE system you won't be able to do as much multi-tasking, but it should still work on your system.
In the last comparisons I read, Plextors have statistically the best data throughput with the least CPU usage.
Tony
posted on July 16, 2001 05:16:08 PM
adone36: I have tried this drive in several machines with several cd roms in the 48-52x range. Doesnt seem to make a difference. But I was told long ago that the cdrom and cdrw should not be on the same cable, so I havent tried that. Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe the person who told me that was wrong.
posted on July 16, 2001 05:28:15 PM
"Hookup should be the hard drive on IDE0 and the 2 CDs on IDE1"
Excellent idea! Since its exactly what I do
SCSI does work very, very well for multitasking. If you are a non-multitasker ("hit enter and walk away and have a beer", then the IDE works just fine, and I paid a grand total of $5 for my cdrom and burner (memorex 48X cdrom and phillips 8X cdrw). If you are on a limited budget, like I am, that's a much more affordable solution than SCSI.
I wonder how well the USB external burners do? I kinda like that solution when the prices come down, since I could move them around, and it gets around this silly "hard drive on cable 0, drives on cable 1..." nonsense we have to put up with now.
posted on July 16, 2001 08:08:27 PM
I burn 800 - 1000 CDs per month and I have had plenty of experiences with what works and what doesn't.
As mentioned previously, you definitely need to keep your source and destination off the same cable. IDE is not bi-directional. Having both on the same cable causes collisions and date throughput problems. If you want your CD-ROM to be your source then separate it from your recorder.
Another thing I have found is most CD-ROM drives are garbage. Back when I first started to need the high volume I do now I discovered that the typical CD-ROM drive would never be consistent in its data throughput.
Many of them even time out two-thirds of the way through the disc and suddenly your recorder doesn't have any data. Those drives are easy to spot when you watch them. Start the copy process and watch the buffer level on the software and listen to the drive. You'll hear it spin up and buffer a bit of data and then shut down again. At the same time you'll see your buffer go up and down with that activity.
Early on I went through many drives trying to find an acceptable one. I went to the electronics stores and bought the 52X drives that weren't cheap and still got pretty poor results. Then I decided to try the Kenwood TrueX 72. This is a very expensive drive but most definitely worthy of praise! Very fast throughput because it reads from 7 beam splits at the same time. It is just an amazing drive and I replaced all my CD-ROMs with the Kenwood.
As for your question about where it gets it's rate. When you first use EZ CD-Copier for your duplication it will run a test on the source drive. If you have a data disc in the drive it will run a data test to determine throughput and then set the maximum speed without first copying to the hard drive. If you decide to copy an audio CD it will then run an audio read test to determine the rate for audio discs. These tests and results can be found by running the EZ CD Creator software. If you need to retest a disc type it will allow you to do that. You can find all of this under the Tools > Sytem Tests menu selection.
Essentially it says to keep devices with greatly different throughput on separate IDE channels. Some combos will force a reduction in HD throughput if you connect a CD to the same channel. Running like speed devices on the same channel eliminates a lot of problems.
In all of that goop it says the degree to which your CDs and motherboard controller adhere to the various IDE specs is totally hit and miss. It suggests running a drive data transfer test (such as coretest) with the CD connected with the HD and separated and compare the results.
Yisgood,
You haven't mentioned your OS. Did your motherboard come with drivers for the IDE chipset??? That machine should write just fine @8X. There is something wrong with this picture. If you are running 95 or 98 with a VIA chipset w/o the interrupt and IDE drivers you're going to have problems. 98-2 and Win2K have these drivers built in.
Tony
posted on July 16, 2001 09:36:02 PM
My guess, as others have suggested, would be that the software is the problem. Possibly an older version of the CD-copying software.
"Who's tending the bar? Sniping works up a thirst"
First of all the speed rating of the blank CDs has nothing whatever to do with the speed capacity of the CD burner itself.
It appears you have a 4x burner, which is only capable of 1X, 2X, and 4X speeds, period. A higher speed capability of the blanks would be indicative of better quality blanks for faster machines, and for a 4x I would get blanks rated at least 8X.
The reading speed of the burner or secondary CD has again nothing whatever to do with the writing speed of the burner machine.
Since apparently you do not have a SCSI burner you must realize that ATAPI burners have certain inherent limitations. You CANNOT read and write from 2 CD's on the same IDE channel. On seperate channels this is possible, but only if you can ensure no interruption in data flow, which is very difficult with M$ garbage. The only effective way to copy CD's is by writing the image of the CD to hard drive first, and then recording the image.
WIth ATAPI burners you can have *some* background tasks running, but it is wise to shut down all but the absolutely required. The newer ones with 2-8 meg of onboard cache are more tolerant of background processes, but even these have a limit. In short, don't touch your machine while it is burning.
Your new, faster machine may have a newer version of WIndoze with the added bloat and background garbage that is what is interfering with your writes.
Basically, anything over a P133 should handle even the fastest writers. Machine speed is not a real issue. What is a real issue is whether you have the latest ASPI drivers, whether Windoze knows how to handle your burner without mistaking it for a SCSI,
and whether your burner software interfaces well with the burner. There are even issues dealing with IDE settings such as whether to use DMA or set it as removable.
A well scrubbed Windoze system cleaned out of all unnecessary junk should work quite well with most burners. WIth my 8x, I do not even try to burn higher than 6x, and for particularly valuable copies will go down to 4x. Across my slow 10Mb network I have even burned at 4x, though I would not recommend more than 2X for a guaranteed copy, though I have never had a coaster at 4x. I am currently using an HP burner, and it has worked flawlessly from day one. No coasters.
My Acer 2X slowly died, after first hiccupping on ASPI drivers, and then having increasing difficulty completing a full CD copy. Spent alot of time working on software problems with that, that were not the cause.
If problems persist, drop down to 2X, or lower, as the unit may be nearing its useful life.
Don't load too many writer programs, as some, like Nero will load drivers that will conflict with others such as EAZY-CD, and cause havoc. Stick with Easy-CD unless you have sophisticated needs to where something like CDRWIN would be useful. Just remember that anything that dumps anything in /SYSTEM/IOSUBSYS can cause problems. And most writer programs do.
posted on July 17, 2001 06:08:20 AM
Thanks for all your suggestions. Just to set the record straight, I am using a brand new 700 mhz computer with 128mb ram and a brand new win98SE installation. No other software is running or loaded other than the system drivers.
The software is Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4.0 which though is not the newest, was definitely able to do 8X copying on other systems. The CDRW is a smart and friendly 8 X 4 X 32. The CD ROM is a 52X and I have tried several different CD ROMS. When I get a chance over the weekend I will try putting both CD drives on the same cable and with the CDRW on its own cable and with buffering to the hard drive. If anything works, I'll come back to report.
posted on July 22, 2001 02:18:41 AM
Are you sure that is a Smart and Friendly?
They have ATAPI/IDE drives which are 4x4x32 and 6x4x24 (as well as slower speeds). No 8x4x32 that I know of. Their faster drives, an 8x2x20 and a 12x4x32 are all SCSI.
posted on July 22, 2001 07:01:23 AM
heres my opinion......first off dump adaptec and use nero...if you are using windows 2000 adaptec is going to cause soem problems, the 4 version and the new 5 version too. i used adaptec and it ate so many cd's when i used copy mode it wasn't funny. i switched to nero 2 yrs ago and it is the best, in my opinion. user friendly and little errors. about 8 months ago i upgraded from a 4x burner to a tdk velocd 12x burnere. the velo technology allows you to multi task while the cd is burning with ZERO ERRORS> the technology holds the laser in place when you go to do something else and restarts when that programs kicks in.other burners end the burn process when the laser stops, thats where the error cd's come from. example, i burn cd's while i download files, transfer files, upload pics and surf the net, ALL AT THE SAME TIME.....the tdk is awesome, i have had no errors since i got it. there is one or 2 other brands that have the burn proof technology now, i think maybe yamaha has it now too and one other. if you are a serious burner tdk velo cd is the way to go, it comes with nero by the way. a 12x will kick a cd out in less than 6 minutes.....there are now 24x burners out there with burn time of 4 minutes......but i think the cost between 12 and 24 combined with only a 2 minute difference, make the 12 a steal of a deal....i burn approx 30 to 50 cd's a week..i love my tdk
posted on July 22, 2001 10:03:17 AM
Onlineops: Sometimes the simple answer is the right one. When I bought the cdrw over a year ago, I paid more to get a 4 X 4 rather than a 2 X 2 or 2 X 4. Then I was annoyed because it never went over 2X. Someone suggested that I get a faster machine, so I finally did that about a week ago and was disappointed to see only 2X on the CDRW. So I tried a CDR rated at 16X and saw 4X and in my mind I thought I had an 8 X 4, so I thought it still wasn't working. Now that I see your post, I dig up the documentation and discover that my drive is a 4 X 4. Since my cdrw disks are older, they are probably only 2X. So I guess the drive is at maximum speed. Thanks for setting me straight.
, then the IDE works just fine, and I paid a grand total of $5 for my cdrom and burner (memorex 48X cdrom and phillips 8X cdrw). If you are on a limited budget, like I am, that's a much more affordable solution than SCSI.
Sniping works up a thirst"