No Device Buffer Indication

[potomac]

I'm using a CH08LS10 drive (BD Read/DVD Read,Write) on a Windows 7 system.

Everything works fine: the data looks good, the graphs look good and the finished discs work/play just fine.

The only thing is that during the burning process the progress bar for the Device Buffer never moves; it stays at zero the whole time. The ImgBurn buffer on the other hand stays at 100%.

 

Clearly I don't have a problem other than that of curiosity. But why does the device buffer indication not work, can't ImgBurn read it?

ImgBurn.log

[mmalves]

I 14:04:15 Device: [0:1:0] HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH08LS10 1.00 (Z:) (ATAPI)

Update your burner's firmware (remove any disc and close the tray before updating then reboot after it's finished) and see if the problem goes away. You might also want to look for the latest Win7 drivers for your motherboard's chipset and/or SATA controllers (tip: use SIW to identify them).

[potomac]

Hi

 

Thanks for the tip. The drive's firmware wasn't up to date, which surprised me as the machine is only a couple of months old. I've now installed the latest code, but the 'problem' still remains.

'Problem' isn't really the word I want as everything works perfectly, apart from the progress bar! My suspicion is that the drive, being relatively new, is not exposing its buffer parameters conventionally. Maybe the author will be able to confirm.

I wonder if anyone else is using this drive with ImgBurn on a W7 system?

Very strange.

[mmalves]

The device buffer simply stays at 0% or is the Device Buffer label disabled (i.e. grayed out)? When I'm burning DVD-RAM discs on my LG burners the Device Buffer label is grayed out, which means the burner isn't reporting the buffer at all.

[potomac]

The progress bar is enabled, but not showing anything but zero (see attached screenshot).

Odd, isn't it?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Is it also like that if you burn a DVD-R or DVD+R?

[potomac]

The samples shown are DVDs (DVD-R and DVD-RW).

I'm not sure if CDs would produce the same results; they presumably would, but I don't have any blanks to try right now.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Ah sorry, I only really looked at the screenshot showing DVD-RW.

 

What (make/brand) controller is your drive attached to?

[potomac]

No worries.

 

I'm not sure what info you need precisely so I've attached a couple of Everest reports that I hope will cover everything. Please let me know if I've misunderstood.

Optical.txt

MoBo.txt

[mmalves]

Install this (reboot if asked) then install this (also reboot if asked).

 

While you're at it, also install the latest driver for your JMicron controller too

[potomac]

You have me confused. Why would the RAID0 controller/software affect the operation of the optical drive?

[mmalves]

The burner is connected to the Intel controller and the drivers could be discarding/tampering/blocking the information coming from the burner.

[potomac]

The burner is connected to the Intel controller and the drivers could be discarding/tampering/blocking the information coming from the burner.

 

Hmmm...they'd have to be ill behaved to do that.

Anyway, I've updated the drivers and infs in line with your suggestion, but the problem still remains.

 

It occurs to me on reflection that both progress bars are probably wrong. On other installations I've seen the ImgBurn buffer progress bar fluctuate as well as the device one. Here, we have the ImgBurn buffer at 100% the whole of the time and the device buffer at 0% the whole of the time. And it's clearly cosmetic as the underlying engine is doing a perfect job of burning discs.

 

Thanks for your help and guidance, but I think it's a problem for the author now.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Not ill behaved at all, just doing their job.

 

RAID drivers have to translate every command sent to them. If it gets one that's not typically for HDD's then is perfectly possible that it'll just drop/ignore it. We see this happen frequently.

 

Your main buffer should always be on 100%, that's normal and a good thing.

 

You can get I/O debugging on the device buffer if you really want it.

 

Open RegEdit to HKCU\Software\ImgBurn

 

Make a new DWORD key called 'OVERRIDE_DeviceBufferWithLogging' and set its value to 1.

 

Now load ImgBurn.

 

Just before you start the burn, press the F8 key.

 

When you're say 5% into the burn (that'll give us enough time to capture everything we need), press F8 again.

 

At that point (or when the burn completes), save the log to a file (via the 'File' menu in the Log window) and attach it here on the forum.

 

Close ImgBurn

 

Open RegEdit again and delete the 'OVERRIDE_DeviceBufferWithLogging' bit.

[potomac]

Not ill behaved at all, just doing their job.

 

RAID drivers have to translate every command sent to them. If it gets one that's not typically for HDD's then is perfectly possible that it'll just drop/ignore it. We see this happen frequently.

 

 

Well, your idea of ill-behaved and mine differ. Dropping or ignoring commands that should have been passed on...?

And if they were 'just doing their job' what was the point of updating them?

 

Anyway, enough of that, please find debug log attached as per instructions.

Debug.log

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Not quite as per instructions but it'll do. I said to press F8 *before* you start the burn, not after you've started it and during the LeadIn phase

 

As you can see from the log, the drive is processing the command ok (or at least something is).

 

I 14:43:25 [1:1:0] HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH08LS10 2.00 (Z:) (ATAPI)

I 14:43:25 CDB: 5C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 00

I 14:43:25 CDB Interpretation: Read Buffer Capacity

I 14:43:25 BUFFER: 00 0A 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 20 00 00

 

The size of the buffer are bytes 4 - 7.

The amount available are bytes 8 - 11.

 

So the size is 0x00200000 (= 2048KB)

and the amount available is 0x00200000 (= 2048KB)

 

So essentially it's reporting that the buffer is empty and ImgBurn's GUI reflects exactly what it's being told.

 

The only way to know for sure if this issue is from your machine/drivers or whatever is to try the drive in another PC (with basic XP or Vista 32 bit on it and the controller (preferable Intel) running in ATA mode rather than AHCI/RAID) - or perhaps via a USB adapter.

[potomac]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

I did hit F8 immediately on the first attempt, but it had to erase first (DVD-RW) and seemed to take an inordinate amount of time logging that part. So I did it again and tried to catch it at the point where it was actually writing data; that is, when the buffers would show something.

 

I'm not going any further with it. ImgBurn does the burning perfectly so I see no need to haul the drive out and try it somewhere else just for a cosmetic issue. Besides they - the drive and ImgBurn - have to work together in this system, not some hypothetical alternative.

At least the problem is flagged. If anyone else mentions it, remember you read it here first!

 

All the best.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It would be helpful to know if it's a generic drive issue or something on your system though wouldn't it?

 

Still, if you're happy for it to misbehave, that's your call.