Problem Burning Backups

[Drifter113]

Hi, I thought i would start a new thread as i have been narrowing down my problem. I have a PS2 v7 Magic 3 professionally installed. everything is fresh out of the box. I have tested the unit at the installers location with all types of backups, including cd-r and dvd-r. the unit is functioning great.

My problem is that i cannot burn backups of my games. I am using the latest versions of Nero, CDRWIN, and Fireburner. I have tried on 2 different CDRW Drives. One is a Toshiba SD-R2002 CDRW and the other is a LG Electronics CED 8080B CDRW. I have used 4 different kinds of media including, Maxell, Imation, Sony and Office Depot brand. Both of my burners are listed as compatable with CDRWIN. I have made more coasters than i know what to do with. I know i am making the CD-R's properly, as i have gone over the tutorials and gone over it with the installer and have tried every different way of making them i could think of, including build and record ISO 9660 in CDRWIN and the many different ways using Nero. I took my backups to the installers location and they do not boot on his machine. He was able to make a copy of my coaster and it worked fine. I have tried everything i could think of, everything i could find on the boards, and everything people have suggested to me to try. I have no idea why i cannot make backups that work. Obviously there must be something wrong with my burners, but i cannot believe that both burners would have some problem.

Anyone with any ideas is greatly appreciated. Anyone has made backups using either of these two burners? I just cant justify going out and buying another CDRW if it could be something else. I have been saving up for a DVD-R drive. I am going to try a 3rd burner this weekend.

Thanks

[SledDog]

The problem is more likely in the way your PC is configured, but without some really basic trouble-shooting info, it's impossible to help you. (unless you want us to just keep taking wild guesses...)

1.) Describe your PC, i.e. CPU, RAM, drives, accessories, etc.

2.) What OS are you using?

3.) Describe how are the drives configured in you PC, i.e. Master/Slave pinning and what drive is on what cable.

4.) What method is the IDE controller talking to the drives? PIO? DMA?

5.) Is your ASPI layer up to date? Follow the link provided at the CDRWin site (www.goldenhawk.com) for the free v4.70 from Adaptec.

[Drifter113]

hey balto,

I have 2 PC's. One is a Dell Laptop PIII 1G 512 M RAM and the Toshiba CDRW XP Professional updated. CDRW Slave on Primary Channel Ultra DMA Mode 2.

The Second is a Desktop Dell Dimension PIII 1 Ghz 512 M RAM with the LG CDRW Win98 SE. CDRW is Master on Primary Channel, 2 - 30 Gig SCSI HDD.

ASPI Layers are up to date. I think i will try PIO mode on the CDRW just to see if that makes any difference. Thanks again for your help.

[SledDog]

Burning on laptops has always been a crapshoot due to the interface to the drive. Laptops just aren't buss structured the same as a desktop with a full, dependable PCI slot acrhitecture. CardBus and PCMCIA ain't all it's made up to be...

On your desktop, the issue is likely the difference between the two drive interfaces, i.e., SCSI and IDE. Odds are the onboard IDE chipset can't keep up with the transfer rate coming from the SCSI adapter. IDE is very CPU intensive in it's data transfers as its so reliant on the CPU to process the memory block moves, especially in any sort of DMA mode. SCSI on the other hand, relies on the on-board electronics of the card and rarely bothers the CPU in drive-to-drive operations, plus it has better flow control.

In your present scenario, the burner calls the controller which in turn calls the CPU for a DMA block of data through the IDE chipset. Odds are it ain't sitting there in a memory buffer (and even if it is, its likely there's a SCSI buffer and IDE buffer.) The CPU has to interrupt the buss, call to the SCSI card to access the HD drive for the data, transfer it into memory, then go back and service the DMA request for the IDE controller and finally transfer the data to the LG so it can burn it. Whew...

My main system has an Adaptec 2940U2W with 3 - IBM LVD (80Mb/sec) SCSI drives (18,18,36) and a SCSI Plextor 1210S and I routinely do disc-to-disc bulk file transfers between C: and D: while my SCSI Plextor is burning a CD-R off of E: without a hiccup.

The first thing I'd suggest is visit the LG site and see what transfer modes your drive supports (DMA, PIO, etc.) by default. Then check the Dell support site for any updated IDE drivers for Win98. After that, go into Control Panel | System | Device Manager and look at the current driver options available for the IDE controller on the Primary channel. Make sure the transfer format setting for the Primary channel matches one of the options the LG supports. If it's the same, you could try PIO mode and then reboot and try a 4X test burn. I'm guessing it may not make much difference, but hey, blanks are fairly cheap, plus whadaya got to lose...?

If that fails, then you probably only have two options:

1.) Yank the LG, sell it on eBay, and buy a SCSI Yamaha or Plextor and add it to your existing SCSI controller, preferably on a separate interface header with it's own cable (as I suspect your 2 existing drives are wide SCSI [Ultra SCSI-2 or 3, 40 Mb/sec] which uses a 68-pin cable and the burner [SCSI-2, 20 Mb/sec] uses a 40-pin cable. If you attempt to use a 68-to-40 pin adapter, it may slow down the single chain as the controller will down-shift to the lowest common denominator to maintain data integrity.)

2.) Buy a cheap IDE HD that the chipset supports (ATA-100 or ATA-66) and install it as the Master on the Primary channel and move the LG to the Secondary as a Master. Copy any existing image or direct CDRWin to image to the IDE drive and then burn to the LG.

With option #2, be sure that the SCSI card's BIOS bootstrap image is loading into memory during boot-up and before it scans the IDE chains to avoid having the system look for Win98 on the IDE drive. If the Dell BIOS setup routine has a selectable drive order, select the SCSI card first followed by the CD-ROM, and then the IDE drive.

I'll be out most of next week, so if you try it and reply with your results and I don't get right back to you, hang in there, eh?

Good luck...