Hi, Sorry if these are really basic/stupid questions, but please bear with me as I'm a novice when it comes to burning CDs. I have a CD Re-writer drive - the info on it is: IDE-CD R/RW 4x4x24 Write Speed : 4x600kb/sec Read Speed : 24x3600 kb/sec Firmware Rev: 1.08 Address : 1:1:0 I don't burn many CDs, but when I have in the past (using Roxio DirecCD) everything was working fine until I recently bought some new blank CD-RW discs (Packard Bell CD-RW 12x Speed 700mb capacity). Now, on the CD Info page, it says . I tried putting a previously burnt CD-RW disc which says 4x guaranteed 650mb/74 mins and it read it ok. When I tried to re-format it, instead of taking the usual 50 odd minutes, it took over [bold]8 hours![/bold] although it eventually worked and I could drag files from my C: drive onto the CD. So here are my questions: 1. Why are the 12x speed CDs incompatible? I asked when I bought the discs whether they would work with my drive and was told that they would write at 4x speed - it just means that, depending on the drive, it can write up to 12x speed if you have the capability. Is that true? Would it work if I bought CD-RW 4x discs? 2. Why did it suddenly take more than 8 hours to format a disc it had successfully previously burnt? Does that mean there’s something wrong with the hardware? Any help/explanation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in anticipation.
The CD writer you have on your PC is able to burn at 4X -- irregardless of the media being at 12X RATED -- it will burn at its maximum speed of 4X. You can always get an exchange for that media 12X -- try a different brand -- older drives were critical as to what you fed them ~~ smiles. Your drive must be an older model for it to have such slow burning speed ! As to the formatting that you did and took 8 hours -- that is a bit long , i would say. But if that CD-RW was nearly full , it could very well be the time it takes on a slow drive mounted on a slow PC. Edited for typos. _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Do It Right , and you will be a Happy Camper ![/small]
Thanks for the reply. The drive is about 4 years old - is that old?! From what you're saying it should be able to burn a 12X disc. Is there any firmware update I could apply to sort it out or do you think I should just try buying some 4x discs instead? It just seems odd that I can't use the 12X discs when, in theory, I should be able to...
4 years could be considered as OLD ! A lot as happen in those 4 years in developping burners that are efficient and more tolerable to media. Roxio DirectCd is not the fastest software -- It may be worth something if you were to UNINSTALL first Roxio and then get Nero 6 Ultra on a FREE trial basis including the INCd part , that is the equivalent of DirectCd. As for newer firmware for your drive -- you would have to look at the manufacturer's website under Support --Downloads. You didnt specify the Brand name and Model number of your 4 years old drive. _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Do It Right , and you will be a Happy Camper ![/small]
Ok, stupid question coming up... How do I find out the Brand name and model nbr of my CD re-write drive?
~~ Usually in Device Manager , this piece of hardware is listed under its name and model number .(CD-Rom Drive) ~~ am not familiar with Roxio burning software , but maybe there is a place where it regognizes your Drive and shows the model number. ~~ Last resort would be to look at the drive itself , there must be a sticker on it. Nero has a tool that will post the description of the drive. There are various Cd-Rom checking or PC info program that will also bring out that information. PCWizard 2004 is one. At:- http://www.cpuid.com/pcw.php
I haven't used CDRWs in so long because CDRs are so cheap these days, so bear with me if I'm not 100% correct. Why are you using DirectCD? Formatting a disc using DirectCD used to take forever because it formats it in such a way that allows you to use it like a super floppy disk so you can write and delete files from it easily without having to activate a burn program. Why don't you just to a quick erase/format and just burn your data onto the disc like a normal person?
A quick format would be your best option with DirectCD, it takes about 15secs and works just as good as a full format =)
