PCA Forums

Hello all,

I am a very new member here (this is my first post). I am joining because of the recommendation of my lil bro, Shmithers. He says that the forums are respectible and most helpful.

Here is my first question:

I recently acquired (swindled daddy into buying) an external HDD and DVD burner <evil grin>. (my excuse was that I could keep all of his company data safe from viruses) I thought that I could use the DVD burner as a backup option for mostly un used data, and the HDD for more common used stuff. I have been doing backups with my HDD for a while, quite successfully with a program (free) which I highly recommend, called Syncback. When I recently tried to burn a data DVD of some useless, but space consuming data, I wasted three DVDs. The first one I suspected failed because I ran a CPU demanding program (which I also highly recommend) called supermouse. The second one I had no idea why it failed. The third time I used image recorder to make an image of the data before I put it on the disk. The first two are unreadable, the third one reads fine, but it should have had 3.29 gigs on the disk, which it says it has, but when I look at the disk, it only looks 1/8th full, just like the other failures. When I insert it all the data appears to be there though, so I'm very confused. Nero gave me an error each time I burned the disk at about the same spot. I got some error about not being able to write “disk-at-once”, which I'm not exactly sure the meaning of. I am using single layered DVDs, Benq, a “write master” DVD burner, USB. And Nero StartSmart program (which doesn't seem to have an online tutorial for. I could only find the older versions of Nero.) Also, why does my fathers computer give me the message that my USB devices can perform faster if they were hooked up to a high speed USB port? Aren’t all USB 2.0 ports high speed?

Your help is much appreciated,

Welcome to PCA!

If you received the Nero software with the burner, then there should be a program called Nero Express (go to Start->Programs->Ahead->Nero). Don't bother with Smart Start, just run Nero Express and leave a shortcut for it on your desktop. Select "Data Disc" from the menu.

This is the most reliable and fool proof way to copy files to a CD or DVD, and if you're just archiving (burning files to a data DVD so you can delete them off your drive and free up space) it's the best way to go because these files can be read on ANY computer, using ANY DVD-Rom reader from ANY version of Windows with no special application. If you need those files 2 years from now, you can be certain to still be able to read them.

If you use a specialized backup program (and one I can highly recommend is Stomp's BackupMyPC) the disc will have a backup image file on it instead of directly readable files, and you can only restore those files if you have the backup program installed and use that program to restore them.

The benefits of a backup program versus a regular CD burning program are that you can setup up backups to occur on a schedule, and you can do incremental backups. The average user doesn't need this though - this is better suited for businesses that need to make daily backups of their data files.

Don't look at the disc and expect to see the "tracks" showing how much of the disc is being used. Unlike CDs you generally can't see the actual burned tracks on a DVD.

If you use Nero, there will be an option in the final menu - before you click the "Burn" button 0- to "Verify data on disc after burning". Make sure to check the box. Takes a little longer than just doing a burn, but it's worth it. Nero will automatically compare the files on the disc to the original files and confirm that they are an exact copy. Gives you a measure of security. I never burn a disc without verify enabled. It's a bitch to find out later (after you've deleted the originals) that your disc is worthless. Bad burns are rare, but they DO happen.

Also be aware that you may have a hardware issue. I've found that some computer's USB ports don't fully support CD Burners. I occasionally run across a computer that has problems with USB burners and USB hard drives. It'll drop data. My LAN party system is such a computer, and it has a high end NForce2 motherboard which is disappointing.

On many budget systems, the front USB jacks may not be USB 2.0 compliant, but the back ones usually are. I generally prefer to connect to the back jacks to play safe.

The computer's manufacturer may have an updated USB driver on their website. You can also buy a good quality Belkin add-on USB card, but if you're going to crack the case open anyway, you'd be better off returning the external drive and buying an internal IDE drive. I can highly recommend the Lite-On drives and they generally sell for under $60 mail order. They also support double sided DVD for 9Gb of data (the media is too pricey right now, but they'll come down).

Also you can experiment with reducing the burn speed. Faster is not always better.

If it continues to give you problems, try the burner on another computer if possible. It's possible you have a bad burner.

Hope this helps...

Well, thanks for the help. Actualy I had assumed that the data burned successfully on the third disk, because i could see it on explorer. however none of the files work . Atleast i didnt lose anything too important. it was just a test disk actualy. im on my other computer now, and im going to try burning the disk the way you suggested. i would like to run a simulation burn, but the check box is greyed out. what do i have to change to be able to burn a simulation? Yes I always do varify data too. I was using the ports on the back of the PC. None of the ports seem to be high speed.

Thanks and i will let you know the result of my next trial.

A simulation does a burn but with the laser at too low a power to actually write anything on the disk.

It was used in the old days before Smartburn was introduced to test for buffer underruns. Before Smartburn (which all drives support in one form or another now) if the hard drive ever lagged behind the burner, you'd blow the burn. Back then you couldn't even touch the computer while it was burning or you'd blow the burn - anything accessing the hard drive might cause a buffer underrun.

Nowadays you can do just about anything while burning - even play a game. Buffer underruns can't happen anymore, and there's really no point in performing a simulation.

I would recommend you use a re-writable DVD media for your testing, otherwise you'll waste media. DVDs don't cost much anymore, but it can still add up if you ruin 20 burns trying to figure this out.

hey, i just noticed something. now that im burning on the PC with high speed USB the buffer level is around 100, while on the other one it would jump around random numbers below the 50% mark. interesting...

What is the Used Read buffer? How is it different from the buffer level? Ive never really understood the buffer consept.

Well the burn is complete. I burned it at 4x and it worked fine. I think my dad needs high speed USB. That was likely the problem. Even though 12 MB/s should be way fast enough for 4x, I think that more data needs to be transmited than is writen. Thanks for the help. I found nero express under: start-> all programs -> nero -> nero oem.

It looks like there is an option for an MP3 disk. However, when I play low bit rate MP3s in my DVD player in my (awsome) home theatre the only sound i get is from my front speakers. would the DVD fix this? is it a problem with my DVD player? Amp?

Welcome to PCA fogus...

Just a note on USB 1.1 it's 11Mbps not MBps so it only transfers about 1.3MBps..

Enjoy Your Stay

eGo

I don't think that its USB 1.1, as it doesnt have the little pin thingies. it looks like a UBS 2.0 socket, its just really slow. i expect that its just using the slow 12 MBps band of usb.

USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 are physically identical. Impossible to tell the difference looking at it. WindowsXP will generally give you a warning if you plug a 2.0 into a 1.1 socket.

USB 1.1 is adequate for 4X burns on a DVD but the problem is that a lot of older USB ports just can't hack those kind of speeds consistently. They were designed for mice, cameras and keyboards. Some of them will corrupt data when pushed to the limit.

You have two buffers: a hardware cache on the drive itself, and a software buffer used by the burning software. If either buffer runs out, you get a buffer underrun, which on modern drives won't do anything except make the burn take even longer (the burner just pauses and waits for the buffer to refill). In the old days, a buffer underrun would immediately blow the burn.

A lot of things can cause a buffer underrun. Slow data bus, slow drive access, something running in the backgound stealing CPU cycles, a old slow computer.

MP3 files are stereo,. You won't get surround unless your sound system simulates surround from a 2 channel audio source. Most do.

Oh. Thanks. I think I will be buy my dad a pci slot high speed usb. He will be very happy, I think. Are some USB cables not sheilded? Have any of you ever had a problem with not using sheilding?

I tried burning at 6x on my high speed usb port on my upstairs comp. I got an error saying something small went wrong in the data verification (burn was smooth). I think it was only one file. The files played fine, and nothing was missing that I could see. The disk had the full appearence of a perfect disk. Should I reburn it?

My amp does split other signasl from my DVD. It was a good amp and a recent purchase. I use an optical cable to carry the signal. I have also tried to use RCA cables to no avail. Is it possible that these are mono recordings, and therefore it will only split right, left, and centre off of it?

Success!!!

Thank you Flying Penguin! I have now burned 3 disks successfully! I had a sweet deal with the DVDs, so I'm too, too worried about making mistakes. I think I will test out my DVD player in my home theatre, to see what I does with an MP3 disk.

Thanks again,

All USB cables are shielded. Some are cheaper than others. Some are also only for use with USB 1.0 (older cables). If the cable is for USB 2.0 it'll be printed on the wire.

Glad you got it working.

Enjoy!