LIGHTNING UK!

Ok Cynthia, I've added that switch for you. Lucky I did actually, I found some problems with the normal /CLOSE switch that had come about because of the new queue system! So 'Thanks' !

Although I've never tried Ricoh DL discs, I've nothing but respect for the Ricoh brand. They make some great DVD+R discs - which I have purchased on many occasions. If you can get them at the Ritek price, I see no reason why Ritek should EVER sell another DL disc!

Sorry, by 'cope' I meant that is has some compatibilty issue with it, rather than it not being powerful enough. That's why I said to check the motherboard bios. I guess you didn't build the PC yourself or you'd already know how to configure the bios, so just go to the site of whoever made your machine and find the latest bios update for it. Once you're sure it's on the latest version, select the option to reset to default values. Then just double check everything and anything that's related to IDE, DMA etc is enabled and on the fastest option. Most bios auto detect the drives now. I have a 875 chipset on my board but I can see the diagnostics screen just before windows boots up and it clearly says what speeds my drives are running at. To see that diagnostics screen you may need to disable 'quiet boot' / 'quick boot' within the bios and also possibly turn off the 'show logo' option. As for the filter tool, yeah that's the one. Only thing I don't like seeing there is the pxhelp20 driver. That's normally from recordnow max or some other 'pinnacle' tool. If you're not using such tools, I suggest you uninstall them. There's a chance pxhelp20 wont vanish. You 'could' remove it via regedit but perhaps you're not quite ready for that task. Maybe in device manager with 'show hidden devices' enabled in the menu system, you could find it in the 'Non-Plug and play drivers' section. Just right click it and select uninstall. What you could also do for me is to export the following key via the regedit tool. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} Just navigate to it, right click and then select export. Save it to a file, open that file in notepad and then copy + paste the contents to a post here in the forum.

Does test mode on your main pc also go at 2x? (Not sure you've mentioned trying that before). As you've come from the Digital Digest forums, did you try the filter driver discovery tool I suggested (via someone else perhaps) ? You get it from the free downloads section over at www.bustrace.com Either your PC just cant cope with that drive, there's a bad driver in your system, or DMA STILL isn't working properly. You've got the latest firmware on your pioneer but how about on the motherboard? Is the bios correctly configured to use DMA on the drive etc? These things are so hard to fix when you're not physically at the machine. I'd have either done it by now or just rebuilt the damn thing lol.

Eh, what did you guys just learn?! I thought I was explaining the 'whack' term more than anything! lol Shoomy, like I said, burn and verify something or read a burnt dvd back using another tool. Ahh, here we go! http://cdspeed2000.com/go.php3?link=download.html Download CD/DVD Speed 4.10 and test the read speed that way.

Ok, if 'Buffer' is always at 100%, reading from your hdd is not a problem. Have you burnt *any* dvds? You need to find a program that can read them and report the speed back to you. Or burn a disc in ImgBurn with Verify enabled and wait for it to verify. The verify part is reading the disc back and it tells you on the screen what speed it's doing it at. Is anything else attached to the cable your Pioneer drive is on? Have you tried a different cable? Oh and when I said whack the buffer right up, I meant go into the settings and change the 'Buffer' slider to 256MB rather than 20MB. But as you've already said the Buffer stays at 100%, there is no need to do that.

and both buffers go mad? According to windows device manager, your burner should be in running Ultra DMA 4 I believe. Just check that's the case for you. Try reading a disc (with a different program of course!), that too should reach a max of 2x if this problem is to make any sense at all! If you whack the buffer in ImgBurn right up, the 'Buffer' should just go down gradually - until it reaches the bottom where it may then start going mad. Whilst the Buffer is gradually going down, how is the Device Buffer behaving? The left one basically means the program cant read from your hdd quickly enough. Data goes from the hdd into memory - so should just be using the SATA stuff. The Device buffer is going from memory to your drive - so will be using your ATA connection. Even though you say the CPU usage isn't high, it seems VERY weird as what you describe has 'DMA problem' written all over it!

and just checking.... the hdd you're burning from isn't on that same cable?

Wow, your missus is one lucky lady lfc!

Nooooooooooooo, this is MY burn engine, nothing to do with Nero. File associations and linking to programs are just what appears on the context menu when you right click a file of that type (i.e. ISO, IMG, BIN etc.). My file associations add a 'Burn using ImgBurn' option to that menu. If no other program is accosiated with a file extension, when you double click an icon, it'll normally open with that program - having seen it to be the 'default' action. File associations in no way tie you down to only using those files with those programs.

Peter, There's no reason I can think of that your computer wouldn't shut down if ImgBurn is done burning and something else tries to shut it down. Cynthia, Ah yes, sorry, I thought /CLOSE only closed the program if it was successful. However, success/failure of the burn is only checked by the 'shutdown computer when done' bit of code. I personally think this feature would be useful to very few people... I can't think of many/any other tools that work in such a way! As such, I'm hesitant to add it to the GUI. I could offer an extended /CLOSE switch (i.e. /CLOSESUCCESS) that only closes if it was successful. Of course modifying your shortcut to pass that flag would then mean you couldn't turn it off within the GUI and that'll probably end up annoying you/people too - Doh! So basically, I think you're gonna have to live with clicking the little red X

Look in task manager when you're burning. Is it running at a high percentage? (i.e. 50% (with Hyperthreading) or 100% without) If it is, DMA is your problem. You're using an 80 wire cable yeah?

No, close doesn't do anything if there was an error. Add /close to your shortcut if you want that functionality all the time Can I ask, in what situation would you find this useful?

load the image in imgburn, right click the value next to 'Sectors:' in the Source box. There's only 1 option on the context menu so it shouldn't be hard to figure out which one you need to click

Aren't activex controls downloaded to your PC anyway?! I'm pretty sure they're not run from a remote server. Sorry, this one has to go on the 'never' list.

Not without making an image first. ImgTool Classic from www.coujo.de should do the job. It can auto load/burn with ImgBurn too.

This will happen one day, I just don't know when.

L0 = L1 is actually the best situation. It means there is no 'padding' at the end of L1. The padding is not as good as real data - according to MMC specs. An original PTP disc can have L1 > L0. As an Image file, of course the layer break doesn't matter. When you try to burn that image to a normal DL disc (that's then OTP), you obviously have to move the layer break position back to the previous cell - in the hope that the new layer break will be such that L0 >= L1. If that previous (or there abouts) cell LBA is not a multiple of 16, you're screwed! You then have to recreate the ISO, adding padding to the file system or whatever so that previous cell IS on an LBA that's a multiple of 16.

Yes, you're right in thinking it's a 'no-can-do' thing. Extract the contents and then merge them.... maybe. But the ISO's themselves, not a chance.

lol I meant the bit about buying monkeys! Clearly the buying of verbatims over Riteks is a very valid point... I just think buying monkeys is a little off topic

You get monkeys...although I don't see how that fits into this problem

Ooops yeah sorry

The layer break position.

You're not boring (me), I just don't think you've quite understood what PTP and OTP is all about. PgcEdit doesn't and cannot tell ImgBurn to burn OTP... there is no such things as 'Burning OTP' or 'Burning PTP'. Discs are either manufactured to be read/written OTP style, or they're manufactured to be read/written PTP style. The software doesn't give a monkeys if it's PTP or OTP - all it sees is LBA 0... LBA 1... LBA 2.... LBA XXXXXXXX. The Image PgcEdit spits out is also not specifically aimed at OTP or PTP discs, it's just an image that has Layer 0 smaller than or equal to the size of Layer 1. The image could be burnt onto an OTP disc or a PTP disc. The only time you can't burn an image onto a OTP disc is if Layer 0 is bigger than layer 1.