ImgBurn Stalls part way thru cd burn

[silver007]

Hi folks-

 

Just registered.

 

My NEC dvd-rw bruner crapped out on me so I ordered Pioneer 115D based on good reviews. Installed it and have burned iso data disks no problem with ImgBurn. But, I have only been able to burn a complete audio cd from mp's once. It was to an old verbatim CD-RW.

 

Every other burn attempt to any media (new Verbatim, TDK, Memorex) fails somewhere between 20 and 60%. The whole app just stops. No blinking lights, no nothing. I can hit the Cancel button but it never cancels or unfreezes. I have to end task and reboot to get my drive back.

 

System is a PIII 500, 512mb ram, Win2k sp3.

 

I tried the drive as cable select then put it to master (it's the only thing on 2nd channel, hd's are on primary). The only difference I noticed was on cable select it got good speed and on master it maxes at 4x on everything.

 

I don't know if this is a drive problem, win2k problem or imgburn problem. I am very irritated and would like to blow something up . Anybody got any suggestions for further testing? During my testing, I noticed that somehow device 1 on primary ide got reset to PIO mode (my 2nd hd). Thought that was a but odd but got everything back to dma as of now.

Edited April 26, 2008 by silver007

[dontasciime]

scan hard drives for file system errors, uninstall the ide controller and reboot to make sure your drives are indeed in UDMA mode.

 

Install latest firmware for 115 which should be 1.18

 

change ide cables to 80 wire ones, replace with 80 wire one to make sure your cables are not dodgy

 

Really speaking on a 2 IDE machine I would set up devices as follows

 

Primary IDE boot Hard drive [MASTER] as in the one with operating system on then connect another hard drive or IDE device as SLAVE to other end of cable. (say a dvd rom reader) (not the pioneer 115 though)

 

Secondary IDE Pioneer 115 set to MASTER and then say another Hard drive set to slave or IDE device set to slave to other end of cable. I would try and avoid cable select on any machine if possible.

 

 

Use scratch free cdrw cdr

 

 

do you know what the max udma that old p3 handles ?

[silver007]

updated to 1.18 upon install.

 

using 40 pin ribbons.

 

did a chkdsk and defragged yesterday, no change.

 

i do not have a seperate ide controller

 

i *believe* my max udma is 166

 

devices are setup i believe just how you suggested:

small hd with OS on primary as master

secondary large hd (with mp3's, etc) on primary as slave

pioneer on secondary as master

 

do you think i should move one of the hd's to secondary as slave to the pioneer?

 

i tried something just for the heck of it: i copied the mp3's on my cue sheet and the cue file over to the small hd and it burned complete. the pc buffer kept running dry but it recovered and the cd turned out good. first success with cd-r's. could my second hd be too slow for some reason? before it wouldn't even work at 4x but my previous two drives burned fine.

 

so you don't think this is imgburn related do you?

Edited April 26, 2008 by silver007

[dontasciime]

Your right it is not related to ImgBurn.

 

I assume you meant ATA66

 

I would slave the 2nd hard drive to pio 115 and get an 80 wire cable for the pioneer as using a 40 wire will slow it down.

 

I would get 2 and change both your ide cables whilst you are at it.

[Cynthia]

Pioneers are crappy for high speed CD burning. If you used MAX speed - try to lower the speed.

[silver007]

Well even at 4x it's been doing it.

 

I tried to move hd 2 to the writer channel but the system wouldn't boot.

 

So now I have OS HD on primary as master, hd 2 on primary as slave and pioneer on secondary as master, like before.

 

I ran a diagnostic test on hd2 and get some type of SMART error. I have no idea what the culprit is at this point, but am leaning more towards hd 2... any other suggestions welcome. I think I'll try one at 2x.

[Cynthia]

You have set the jumpers/switches back on the burner as donta suggested?

[blutach]

SMART errors can indicate the hard drive is on the way out. Make sure your valuable data is backed up.

 

Regards