dbminter

i thought just today I saw a use of DID/Disc ID in one of the right window fields in ImgBurn.

I, too, haven't had much luck with overburns. I only ever managed to overburn 1 CD because the MP3 was like 30 seconds longer than the maximum length allowed. That disc plays but I cannot copy it back to an image file. I forget the error. I just kept the MP3 on HD for future to make CD's if I ever need to. I tried like 4 other overburns of DVD's and they all pass write and verifies, but were unreadable afterwards. So, I just gave up on overburning all together.

Sometimes I've seen the manufacturer's string displayed as a Manufacturer ID and sometimes as a Disc ID. Is one term just an older term for the other and is no longer used? Or is there supposed to be one term preferred over the other? Of course, I'm only going by memory, so who knows how long MID might no longer be used.

I'd need to check the power cable situation in my PC. I think there's at least 1 free kind of supply that goes to SATA optical drives/hard drives. However, I think I'd need some kind of extension cable to reach it. Unless there are some cables located more the PCI slots. I put a USB 2 card in my 2000 PC for use with USB HD's. I don't think it needed a power cable. But, that was 13 years ago. I guess the USB 3 card needs one to power devices and probably for device charging?

You are right. I would have done some price comparisons when I got around to actually getting it. I had just bookmarked the first thing I found in a search. And, even if this project doesn't work, I'm not out much to begin with. I haven't played a PS 1 game for any considerable length of time since before 2006. So, even if I can no longer restore my saved PS 1 games, it's nothing big. What I would try to do, though, is see if the PS 2 can copy PS 1 saves to PS 2 memory cards for temporary storage. Then, I can use CodeBreaker's USB game save method.

Don't see why that card wouldn't be like what I have bookmarked to try someday: http://www.eio.com/p-16998-bytecc-bt-pe2s-2-ports-pci-e-serial-card-model-retail.aspx

What exactly is molex? The old style power cable that used to connection to PATA type old drives? Edit: I did a search for molex on NewEgg. Looks like molex is what I was thinking of.

Actually, you know what? The DexDrive is so old there are no drivers! It's all entirely in the software interface. The DexDrive goes back to like 1997; it's used to read Playstation 1 saved game files from memory cards to PC files and back. It's one of the reasons why the serial to USB doesn't work. The software looks specifically for serial COM ports only. I haven't really looked at the PCI slots since I opened the PC to put in the extra SATA cables and optical drives into the PC back in summer of 2011. Plus, I'm not sure about the power cable situation mentioned in the PC World article.

That card looks like it might work. I believe it's the size of my slot not taken up by the graphics card, in a most idiotic design! However, I had wanted to use that slot to install a serial ports card so I can use my old DexDrive again. Inferring it would work on such a setup. It's so old and the software probably doesn't work. I've already tried serial to USB for this device and it doesn't work.

Nope, it's no good. I loaded a different test file and it just displays a blank screen where there should be video. So, while you can edit the file you have to know the EXACT time to start and end, which means using an external app to view it. Too complicated and much work for an application that should do it itself.

Sounds like it might. I've downloaded it and will have it on hand to try the next time I need to... and can think to test with it.

I came across some rather inspiring information on USB 3 speeds. Every day, I use the latest version of Macrium Reflect to backup 53 GB of partitions data to a USB 3 HDD on a USB 3 cable. However, I don't have USB 3 ports on this PC. So, I'm still stuck in the USB 2 speed past as this PC was bought new in summer 2011. I read on a post on Macrium's forums that someone backs up 60 GB in 8 minutes! I can only dream of getting those kinds of speeds. I don't think I can add a USB 3 card into this PC. The expansion slot is taken up by the graphics card! There's some smaller PCI slots, I think, but I don't know if a card can be added to them for USB 3. Actually, I think a Dell representative told me in chat that they could add one when I chatted with them to ask them if there were USB 3 ports on this Dell XPS 8300. So, who knows?

Well, I took the plunge. I just burned a BD-R with an inkjet printable surface on it. I wrote to it with a Sharpee CD/DVD safe marker. Well, they call it a CD/DVD marker. Not necessarily safe. Anyway, it wrote to the surface just fine.

You know the funny thing? I use inkjet printable surface discs for my DVD+R DL's even though I don't have a printer that will write to them. I use them so I can write on them with CD/DVD safe markers. I don't know if Sharpee ink would bleed through, so I don't use those. And, the funnier thing is I've never actually written to their surfaces with markers! I don't even know if this idea works! It's something I just plan to do one day.

Odd, I thought I had just read that inkjet printable disc label surfaces were just stuck on there like those labels you apply with those large, circular button type things.

Plus, I read Windows 8 might have been the killer. Supposedly, Lightscribe drivers don't work in Windows 8 because they were never updated to work with them. I still Windows 7 so I can't say. I have no problem finding them as Amazon.com always has the Verbatim DVD-R's in stock I look for. It's the drives that are hard to find. The drawback to printed labels on discs is that over time they separate from the disc. The drawback to Lightscribe is the labels fade awfully easily. I've got some that only like 2 years old and they're already very faint. Still, I like to use them as a somewhat convenient way to label a disc's contents.

Looks like Lightscribe was already phased out! From HP's official site, they started phasing out Lightscribe drives in HP computers in 2011, due to "industry conditions beyond our control." Which probably translates into "low sales."

I have to wonder if Lightscribe is being phased out. NewEgg no longer offers internal Lightscribe enabled DVD burners. Only USB ones, and even at that, only a handful at inflated prices. Well, there is one older drive from a reseller, but that, too, is being offered at too high of an inflated price. $99! What really makes me wonder if Lightscribe is on its way out is lightscribe.com. I went by the main site and it's no longer active. It's dead. Why would they kill off the main site if the technology is still viable?

Oh, yeah, there was also Pioneer to choose from. I forgot about that. I currently have an LG but there are limitations to it that make me wary of getting another one. The DVD-RW's it writes are apparently written in some proprietary way. DVD-RW's it writes cannot be formatted or used in my Panasonic DVD recorder until they are fully formatted by one of my Lite-On's. And it's just iffy on rewritables to begin with. My experience with DVD+RW has been that, randomly, writes and verifies will finish, but when you try to read the contents, the discs are unreadable and can't be reused/formatted again. So, there's apparently some sort of proprietary write strategies to rewritables on this LG that make it unusable.

My current Lite-On drive is listed with PLDS in its ID string in ImgBurn. I found that PLDS stands for Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions. So, does that mean that Philips and Lite-On are basically the same company? Sort of like how Sony and Optiarc were basically the same thing after Sony bought them up. I ask because when I choose my next Blu-Ray burner, I have a choice of Philips or Asus over LG. I had a Lite-On Blu-Ray burner and it swore me off of Lite-On after my last DVD burner from them was bad, too. So, I definitely don't want a Philips if they are essentially Lite-On rebranded, or vice versa. Thanks!

Question about BD-R DL's and BD-RE DL's. Do they read the same way? With Layer 0 reading to a maximum X speed and then the reading of Layer 1 starting at that X maximum and then the speed gradually decreases? I've not had a chance yet to get any DL or XL media.

Oops! I said SATA VI was actually a type of cable! I meant SATA III, which supports 6 Gbps, I believe.

Yeah, it's been so long since I had a new DVD-RW, I wouldn't remember if it needed an erase or not. But, it makes sense that a new one wouldn't as there's nothing on it yet.

I noticed that when writing to DVD-RW's, they have to be quick erased by ImgBurn before they can be written to. DVD+RW just write directly.

Something that might work if you have UltraIISO, if UltraISO supports the proprietary NRG format, is to try loading the NRG in UltraISO. Then, saving it as an ISO file. I don't know if this will work, but it's a suggestion.