CD-R erratically detected
 

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
On an elderly PC I help a friend with, where he's copying a lot of his
old LPs to CD, we use burn4free (though I think the problem is not
with burn4free itself).

More often than not, when hitting the "burn" button, it says "please
insert a disc" - even if there's one in. When, by fiddling, ejecting,
closing and reopening b4f, and so on, it finally decides that there
_is_ a blank disc in, it does the burn fine.

While looking, it rattles the floppy drive before it "finds" the
writer (from within b4f, that is).

It isn't the _drive_ that's not being detected - that always shows up
in explorer; it's only the fact that there's a blank disc in it that
is so often missed.

Any ideas what's causing it, and what will improve it?

Try a different brand of CD blanks...Taiyo Yuden are among the best.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

CD-R erratically detected
 

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
On an elderly PC I help a friend with, where he's copying a lot of his
old LPs to CD, we use burn4free (though I think the problem is not with
burn4free itself).

More often than not, when hitting the "burn" button, it says "please
insert a disc" - even if there's one in. When, by fiddling, ejecting,
closing and reopening b4f, and so on, it finally decides that there _is_
a blank disc in, it does the burn fine.

While looking, it rattles the floppy drive before it "finds" the writer
(from within b4f, that is).

It isn't the _drive_ that's not being detected - that always shows up in
explorer; it's only the fact that there's a blank disc in it that is so
often missed.

Any ideas what's causing it, and what will improve it?


You said it's an elderly PC so I'm guess the cdrom is also elderly...
probably time for a new one

CD-R erratically detected
 

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
On an elderly PC I help a friend with, where he's copying a lot of his
old LPs to CD, we use burn4free (though I think the problem is not with
burn4free itself).

More often than not, when hitting the "burn" button, it says "please
insert a disc" - even if there's one in. When, by fiddling, ejecting,
closing and reopening b4f, and so on, it finally decides that there _is_
a blank disc in, it does the burn fine.

While looking, it rattles the floppy drive before it "finds" the writer
(from within b4f, that is).

It isn't the _drive_ that's not being detected - that always shows up in
explorer; it's only the fact that there's a blank disc in it that is so
often missed.

Any ideas what's causing it, and what will improve it?


You said it's an elderly PC so I'm guess the cdrom is also elderly...
probably time for a new one

CD-R erratically detected
 

In message , Andy
writes:
[]
It isn't the _drive_ that's not being detected - that always shows up
in explorer; it's only the fact that there's a blank disc in it that
is so often missed.

Any ideas what's causing it, and what will improve it?

Try a different brand of CD blanks...Taiyo Yuden are among the best.

And once you've wasted a couple of quality blank CDs, throw the drive
away and spend $20-$30 to replace it.

It's ****ed. They don't last forever.

I think if it was the blanks, it wouldn't have been burning faultlessly
for the last few times we did manage to make it realise there was a disc
present. (And with cheap blanks, too.)

It's not that old - only a year or two; the elderly PC had a non-writing
drive (still there). It's actually a CD and DVD writer, as I couldn't
even find a CD-only one. It's not been used much.

I will try the cleaning disc suggestion, but I do think it's a system
configuration funny: as I mentioned earlier, when burn4free is told to
do a burn, it accesses the floppy drive before getting to the writer.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

If at first you DO succeed, try not to look astonished!

CD-R erratically detected
 

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
In message , RobertVA
writes:
thanatoid wrote:
"glee" wrote in
:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
in message ...
[]
It isn't the _drive_ that's not being detected - that
always shows up in explorer; it's only the fact that
there's a blank disc in it that is so often missed.

Any ideas what's causing it, and what will improve it?

Did you try cleaning the lens with an audio cleaning disc?
You can not be serious.

With all the air that cooling fans draw through tower systems? There
might even be contaminates in the air from cooking or tobacco smoking.

(The PC's in the spare bedroom, and I don't think John or his wife
smoke.) It's not a daft suggestion, which I may try, though I don't
_think_ it is likely to be the problem; if I put a data CD in,
Explorer usually sees it.

@than: Yes, I was serious....a cleaning disc has helped in almost
identical situations for me in the past, a number of times.

@J.P.: If you really do mean "Explorer usually sees it" rather than
"Explorer always sees it", then a cleaning disc may help.

The suggestion elsewhere in this thread about trying a different brand
of disc is also a good idea, especially if the issue is *only* with
burning discs, not reading them.

It's also possible the drive is just getting old and taking too long to
recognize the blank disc.

Have you tried another burning program?
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
A+
http://dts-l.net/

CD-R erratically detected
 

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
In message , RobertVA
writes:
thanatoid wrote:
"glee" wrote in
:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
in message ...
[]
It isn't the _drive_ that's not being detected - that
always shows up in explorer; it's only the fact that
there's a blank disc in it that is so often missed.

Any ideas what's causing it, and what will improve it?

Did you try cleaning the lens with an audio cleaning disc?
You can not be serious.

With all the air that cooling fans draw through tower systems? There
might even be contaminates in the air from cooking or tobacco smoking.

(The PC's in the spare bedroom, and I don't think John or his wife
smoke.) It's not a daft suggestion, which I may try, though I don't
_think_ it is likely to be the problem; if I put a data CD in,
Explorer usually sees it.

@than: Yes, I was serious....a cleaning disc has helped in almost
identical situations for me in the past, a number of times.

@J.P.: If you really do mean "Explorer usually sees it" rather than
"Explorer always sees it", then a cleaning disc may help.

The suggestion elsewhere in this thread about trying a different brand
of disc is also a good idea, especially if the issue is *only* with
burning discs, not reading them.

It's also possible the drive is just getting old and taking too long to
recognize the blank disc.

Have you tried another burning program?
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
A+
http://dts-l.net/

CD-R erratically detected
 

In message , glee
writes:
[]
@than: Yes, I was serious....a cleaning disc has helped in almost
identical situations for me in the past, a number of times.

I'll certainly try it, then.

.: If you really do mean "Explorer usually sees it" rather than
"Explorer always sees it", then a cleaning disc may help.

I think it always sees the drive as present, just not always with
anything in it. Your line of reasoning makes sense.

The suggestion elsewhere in this thread about trying a different brand
of disc is also a good idea, especially if the issue is *only* with
burning discs, not reading them.

The first few we did were with cheap unlabelled ones, which were mostly
fine (we had a couple of part-burned ones, but that was I think more a
buffer problem - it is a BURN-proof drive, and the software knows that,
but still; and moving the "temporary files" space for the .mp3-to-wav
conversion to a different partition, combined with reducing the burning
speed, seemed to solve that). I've still got plenty of those, so will
try.

It's also possible the drive is just getting old and taking too long to
recognize the blank disc.

Possibly. Until he started burning (he's done less than a dozen albums,
I think) he hardly ever used CDs, even for reading (in which case he'd
have probably used the older drive anyway).

Have you tried another burning program?

Initially I used Easy CD Creator - I know a lot of people don't think
much of it, but I was used to it, and it seemed to work fine. (I used
updates, which were necessary for it to recognise the new drive.) After
a complete system rebuild - I forget what prompted that, but it was, I'm
pretty sure, necessary (no point in discussing it, anyway - 'tis done) -
I couldn't get ECDC to recognise the drive, whatever I did, hence the
installation of burn4free. Until the recent problems, _that_ has been
working fine too. I've downloaded burnaware_free, deep_burner, and
microburner, and will try one or all next time I visit John; the trouble
is, I don't know if they allow the temp. files location to be specified
as burn4free does, and there's not really enough space on the C drive.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will
eventually reproduce the entire Works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the
Internet, we know this is not true." Robert Wilensky, computer science
division,
University of California Digital Library Project, 1996 (Computing 1999-12-16)

CD-R erratically detected
 

In message , glee
writes:
[]
@than: Yes, I was serious....a cleaning disc has helped in almost
identical situations for me in the past, a number of times.

I'll certainly try it, then.

.: If you really do mean "Explorer usually sees it" rather than
"Explorer always sees it", then a cleaning disc may help.

I think it always sees the drive as present, just not always with
anything in it. Your line of reasoning makes sense.

The suggestion elsewhere in this thread about trying a different brand
of disc is also a good idea, especially if the issue is *only* with
burning discs, not reading them.

The first few we did were with cheap unlabelled ones, which were mostly
fine (we had a couple of part-burned ones, but that was I think more a
buffer problem - it is a BURN-proof drive, and the software knows that,
but still; and moving the "temporary files" space for the .mp3-to-wav
conversion to a different partition, combined with reducing the burning
speed, seemed to solve that). I've still got plenty of those, so will
try.

It's also possible the drive is just getting old and taking too long to
recognize the blank disc.

Possibly. Until he started burning (he's done less than a dozen albums,
I think) he hardly ever used CDs, even for reading (in which case he'd
have probably used the older drive anyway).

Have you tried another burning program?

Initially I used Easy CD Creator - I know a lot of people don't think
much of it, but I was used to it, and it seemed to work fine. (I used
updates, which were necessary for it to recognise the new drive.) After
a complete system rebuild - I forget what prompted that, but it was, I'm
pretty sure, necessary (no point in discussing it, anyway - 'tis done) -
I couldn't get ECDC to recognise the drive, whatever I did, hence the
installation of burn4free. Until the recent problems, _that_ has been
working fine too. I've downloaded burnaware_free, deep_burner, and
microburner, and will try one or all next time I visit John; the trouble
is, I don't know if they allow the temp. files location to be specified
as burn4free does, and there's not really enough space on the C drive.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will
eventually reproduce the entire Works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the
Internet, we know this is not true." Robert Wilensky, computer science
division,
University of California Digital Library Project, 1996 (Computing 1999-12-16)

CD-R erratically detected
 

In message , "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:
In message , Andy
writes:
[]
It isn't the _drive_ that's not being detected - that always shows up
in explorer; it's only the fact that there's a blank disc in it that
is so often missed.

Any ideas what's causing it, and what will improve it?

Try a different brand of CD blanks...Taiyo Yuden are among the best.

And once you've wasted a couple of quality blank CDs, throw the drive
away and spend $20-$30 to replace it.

It's ****ed. They don't last forever.

I think if it was the blanks, it wouldn't have been burning faultlessly
for the last few times we did manage to make it realise there was a disc
present. (And with cheap blanks, too.)

Will it recongnise if theres a disc in the drive that has data on it?
If so then its probably the media itself.
CD/RW discs are a problem sometimes.

It's not that old - only a year or two; the elderly PC had a non-writing
drive (still there). It's actually a CD and DVD writer, as I couldn't
even find a CD-only one. It's not been used much.

Did you ever drop it?
:)

I will try the cleaning disc suggestion, but I do think it's a system
configuration funny: as I mentioned earlier, when burn4free is told to
do a burn, it accesses the floppy drive before getting to the writer.

Then you need to g00gle up the website for that app and look for a support
section, mate.

--
http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/wolves/
Proof of Americas 3rd world status:
http://www.ramusa.org/
Cash for *who*?
http://www.bartcop.com/list-the-facts.htm
http://www.pavlovianobeisance.com/

CD-R erratically detected
 

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

The suggestion elsewhere in this thread about trying a different
brand of disc is also a good idea, especially if the issue is *only*
with burning discs, not reading them.

The first few we did were with cheap unlabelled ones, which were
mostly fine (we had a couple of part-burned ones, but that was I
think more a buffer problem - it is a BURN-proof drive, and the
software knows that, but still; and moving the "temporary files"
space for the .mp3-to-wav conversion to a different partition,
combined with reducing the burning speed, seemed to solve that).

A fail-safe method is to just decode the MP3s to wave yourself then burn the
waves. Many programs to do decoding/encoding, CDex is good, easy and free.
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/


--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico