Quatermass Posted September 26, 2007 Posted September 26, 2007 I'm using Imgburn to archive some of my old data CDs to ISO using Win XP pro SP2 with a internal IDE Plextor PX-W4012A 1.07 drive. On occasion whilst I'm watching the imgburn panel telling me how far it has to go, I'll notice that the read rate drops to 0% for say 5-10secs then continue as before. No errors are reported and the ISO file is created every time. I can see that CPU usage is less 50% at all times. I'm curious to know what this indicates, if anything. Is it having trouble reading the surface? As an IT admin, I'd like to know if the CD or indeed the CD writer is starting to have problems with wear and tear? What does the experts on CDs make of this? :-)
chewy Posted September 26, 2007 Posted September 26, 2007 the drive could be dirty if it's been used a lot, pretty old model, otherwise the disks are probably degraded or iffy burns to start out with it's a good idea to reburn from time to time, what blanks are you using? what speed were the old ones burned at?
Shamus_McFartfinger Posted September 26, 2007 Posted September 26, 2007 As an IT admin, I'd like to know if the CD or indeed the CD writer is starting to have problems with wear and tear? What does the experts on CDs make of this? :-) As an IT admin, you should know that it would help if you gave us all the available info you have, such as a logfile. It might not fix the problem but it wouldn't hurt.
Quatermass Posted September 27, 2007 Author Posted September 27, 2007 As an IT admin, you should know that it would help if you gave us all the available info you have, such as a logfile. It might not fix the problem but it wouldn't hurt. Very true. But the log file doesn't indicate any real problem which is why I didn't include it. I just had a slow read rate with a particular disc otherwise it reads other discs of the same make just fine. Here is it.... ie slow one: I 09:09:42 Operation Started! I 09:09:42 Source Device: [2:0:0] PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4012A 1.07 (E:) (ATA) I 09:09:42 Source Media Type: CD-R (Disc ID: 97m17s06f) I 09:09:42 Source Media Sectors: 300,927 I 09:09:42 Source Media Volume Identifier: VSE600ENU1 I 09:09:42 Source Media Application Identifier: CDIMAGE 2.39 (12/04/97 TM) I 09:09:42 Source Media File System(s): ISO9660 I 09:09:42 Destination File: D:\ISO\Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise\VSE600ENU1.iso I 09:09:42 Destination Free Space: 33,232,314,368 bytes (32,453,432 KB) (31,692 MB) (30 GB) I 09:09:42 Destination File System: NTFS I 09:09:42 File Splitting: Auto I 09:09:43 Reading Sectors... (LBA: 0 - 300926) I 09:22:11 Image MD5: 910e73eafb90ed629948d913eab9b8ba I 09:22:11 Exporting Graph Data... I 09:22:11 Graph Data File: C:\Program Files\ImgBurn\PLEXTOR_CD-R_PX-W4012A_1.07_26-SEPTEMBER-2007_09-09_97m17s06f.ibg I 09:22:11 Export Successfully Completed! I 09:22:11 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:12:22 I 09:22:11 Average Read Rate: 811 KB/s (5.4x) - Maximum Read Rate: 5,508 KB/s (36.7x) The CD-Rs we use are TDK metallic CD-R80. Type: Disc type: 0 (CD-R / DDCD-R ) Disc sub type: 4 (Normal ReWritable (CLV) Media) Start Time of Lead-in: M: 97 S: 17 F: 6 Manufacturer: Moser Baer India Limited / TDK / TDK Corporation / TDK / TDK Video SuperX Dye type: Short strategy - e.g. Phthalocyanine Last Possible Start Time of Lead-out: M: 79 S: 59 F: 74 Capacity: 702 MB (736,970,752 bytes) / 79:59.55 / LBA: 359,849 more normal one: I 11:25:38 Operation Started! I 11:25:38 Source Device: [2:0:0] PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4012A 1.07 (E:) (ATA) I 11:25:38 Source Media Type: CD-R (Disc ID: 97m17s06f) I 11:25:38 Source Media Sectors: 301,968 I 11:25:38 Source Media Volume Identifier: VSE600ENU2 I 11:25:38 Source Media Application Identifier: CDIMAGE 2.39 (12/04/97 TM) I 11:25:38 Source Media File System(s): ISO9660 I 11:25:38 Destination File: D:\ISO\Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise\VSE600ENU2.ISO I 11:25:38 Destination Free Space: 32,616,009,728 bytes (31,851,572 KB) (31,105 MB) (30 GB) I 11:25:38 Destination File System: NTFS I 11:25:38 File Splitting: Auto I 11:25:38 Reading Sectors... (LBA: 0 - 301967) I 11:28:02 Image MD5: 129c54df5b83b34ae6b8534dd57233ad I 11:28:02 Exporting Graph Data... I 11:28:02 Graph Data File: C:\Program Files\ImgBurn\PLEXTOR_CD-R_PX-W4012A_1.07_26-SEPTEMBER-2007_11-25_97m17s06f.ibg I 11:28:02 Export Successfully Completed! I 11:28:02 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:02:17 I 11:28:02 Average Read Rate: 4,408 KB/s (29.4x) - Maximum Read Rate: 6,376 KB/s (42.5x) Imgburn header: I 16:01:58 ImgBurn Version 2.3.2.0 started! I 16:01:58 Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 2) I 16:01:58 Total Physical Memory: 1,048,048 KB - Available: 118,400 KB I 16:01:58 Initialising SPTI... I 16:01:58 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... I 16:01:58 Found 1 CD-ROM and 1 CD-RW!
Quatermass Posted September 27, 2007 Author Posted September 27, 2007 the drive could be dirty if it's been used a lot, pretty old model, otherwise the disks are probably degraded or iffy burns to start out with what speed were the old ones burned at? Who can remember? It's been a year since I burned them. Though I do tend to use a 4x burn speed as I've found that this makes the CD more playable in old CD players. I'm very wary of burning at any CD speed greater than 12x as I've never found it very reliable after long term storage or play-back on old CD players that our customers tend to have. I've been burning CDs for at least 15 years now and I've always found this to be the case. I'm aware that the leading and trailing edges of a burnt 'pit' of data becomes less uniform when burnt at high speeds which leads to data errors in playback. Am I wrong you think to still do this? I also try to only buy Phthalocyanine dye type CD-R and Plextor CD writers too. I'm also currently investigating if storing the CDs in a CO2 environment will help also. It'll stop mould and Oxygen is the big oxidiser of course! But it may be overkill as we only intend to store the CDs for 10 years at a time.
chewy Posted September 27, 2007 Posted September 27, 2007 google showed a little inconsistency in those disks 2-4 years ago, I would try to purchase cd's made in japan for important data archiving, your drive's ability to read certain disks fast, Average Read Rate: 4,408 KB/s (29.4x) would indicate it's still get some life in it the plextor premium's seem to be the best cd-writers available today, not sure they are worth the price tho
Shamus_McFartfinger Posted September 27, 2007 Posted September 27, 2007 As an IT admin, you should know that it would help if you gave us all the available info you have, such as a logfile. It might not fix the problem but it wouldn't hurt. Very true. But the log file doesn't indicate any real problem which is why I didn't include it. I just had a slow read rate with a particular disc otherwise it reads other discs of the same make just fine. FWIW, the logfile helps us alot. Even if your burn fails, the log shows the model of your drive, the firmware version and the media you are using. These three things are the root of most of the problems we see here. The more we know, the better equipped we are to help by dismissing the obvious and finding the heart of the problem alot faster. Alot like IT really.
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