ODD Troubleshooter 0.3
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Ok, this one is less formal and is basically a 'Try this first' guide.
If u have some optical drive that isn't working as it should, or some programme isnt working with ur drive as it should, try the following, as most times, these are the culprits:
Motherboard Drivers:If u have a via or nforce chipset board, update to the latest drivers or try the M$ standard IDE drivers.
Try removing the atapi/ide controller in device manager, reboot and let them get redected and reinstalled.
Software:If a program isn't working with ur drive properly, check the net for updates to the programme, as many times, a newer version comes out with bug fixes which may just sort u out.
ASPI Layer:Another source of trouble could be the aspi layer gone a bit bonkers. U can use nero infotool to see the status of ur aspi. If its whack, use
FORCE ASPI to kill ur aspi layer completely and reload it.
Drive Layout:try moving ur drive around on the IDE chain. Sometimes setting it to master (or slave for that matter) can make all the difference. If there's another drive on the chain, remove it and let the drive in question operate alone, and see if that fixes it. In general, Cable Select mode isn't really advised.
Slow Reads/Writes:Does ur drive's burning light flash to different colours or on/off?
For the best speeds, ur drives should be in DMA transfer mode (instead of PIO mode). Sometimes the OS puts the drive in pio mode. Go into device manager and set the transfer mode to DMA then reboot. If u've set the drive to DMA but after rebooting it still comes up as PIO, go in device manager, remove the ide controller that the drive is connected to and let windows redetect it, that should sort it. Alternatively, u can try moving the drive to a different channel on the IDE controller.
Is ur hard drive defragged? that can make a world of difference.
If using drives in external cases, then....
External Drive problems This applies to usb/usb2/firewire drives. The long and short of it is that firewire tends to work better than other protocols, if u can use firewire, then that's probably the best thing. Usb2 tends to have trouble burning faster than 4x although a few people have no problems depending on their setup. So in general (not always though), if u can't burn over 4x with usb2 its a limitation of the drive enclosure and host chipset.
If burning with DVD Decrypter, go into the advanced settings and change transfer block size to 64k, that can help sometimes.
HistoryHave u had good burns before, but now it doesn't work? Chances are, it's something that's changed on ur system. Check out the last things u did, answer could lie there.
Media Importance:Can't stress it enuff, if ur discs have crappy burns or give hell to read back, its usually the media is crap or ur drive hates that media as it is. No point in saying media is good on another drive, if it sucks on ur drive, leave it alone (unless u can get new firmware or hacks to address the problem).
Have u tried burning on other discs? did that same batch of discs work before? are they brand new untested discs? can u post a
Kprobe of the resulting disks?
Informative Posts:after at least checking all these 'hotspots', if ur problem still persists, when u post, give us a bit of info about ur hardware/software setup, what u did to the machine, what error messages u get and exactly what problem u have. After all, just saying that "the burn didn't work" could mean a lot of things. This is all in an effort so we can get help to u sooner rather than have the first 5 posts go thru basic queries.
What burner do u have, what firmware is on it, what burning app do u use, what's the problem, when did it start, what's ur computer spec? etc.... typical info that should be posted.
Happy burning to all
Revision History
0.1 - initial release
0.2 - added bit about transfer rates
0.3 - added history, other posting tips
By
booma
