# cd drive issue

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Saturday, 02-Aug-2008 20:21:37

When I'm trying to burn a CD, the drive moves very slowly, even though I have it set at the maximum speed. Also, 9 times out of 10, I get an error that says the burn process has failed. About half the songs on the CD will play after this, but it only seems to burn up to a certain point. The weirdest part is that while the CD is burning, Jaws speaks the percents, and the voice is slowed down and sounds distorted, almost like an echo. I had gotten my computer fixed awhile ago, and this same issue was around then, so I asked to have a new CD drive installed. This did not solve the problem. Any suggestion for what this might be?

## Post 2 by Squiggles (Account disabled) on Sunday, 03-Aug-2008 8:22:20

sounds like a software issue or a motherboard/ide cable issue. replacing/formatting or doing a virus scan may fix this issue.

## Post 3 by Thom3of5 (Do the Doo.) on Sunday, 03-Aug-2008 9:04:55

Slow down your writing speed to something really slow, like 4x. It seems like you are running out of the buffered space. There may be a lot going on in your computer. Keep only the important things running. If you do this when not online, shut off all virus scanners and spyware programs running in the background.
Thom

## Post 4 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Sunday, 03-Aug-2008 10:23:40

Thanks for the suggestions. Virus scan has shown nothing, so I'll try shutting down the programs next time I burn a CD.

## Post 5 by skpoet711 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Sunday, 03-Aug-2008 22:53:32

Or add ram
1. how much total physical ram do you have?
2. what OS are you running?
3. how old is your computer and what brand?
4. what software are you running to burn the disk?
Answers to this question will help me to diagnose your problem and suggest a proper fix.

## Post 6 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Monday, 04-Aug-2008 17:47:10

Hi,
1. how much total physical ram do you have? 2 gigs, at least that's what it said in the system properties.
2. what OS are you running? Windows XP service pack 2
3. how old is your computer and what brand? This computer is about 3 years old, and it's an HP.
4. what software are you running to burn the disk? I use Nero Start Smart, which I don't like, so if it is an issue with the software I'll happily switch.
Hope that was helpful.

## Post 7 by blindndangerous (the blind and dangerous one) on Monday, 04-Aug-2008 19:43:10

What's wrong with Nero? I've used it, but do like Thom said, and slow the writing speed down.

## Post 8 by skpoet711 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Monday, 04-Aug-2008 19:58:31

hmmm, 2 gigs is plenty even with a virus scanner/firewall/chat programs etc running in the background.
3 years old, I presume you are running a d2c or at least the first generation pentium d processors.
Make sure that your cd burner is running in DMA mode
check this in the device manager under ide/atapi and select the primary or secondary ide that your cd burner runs under. I can't tell you which one it is, as I don't know myself lol. Perhaps you still have pata primary for your hds, which makes your cd burner secondary. *shrug*
Anyhow, once you have determined which one it is, right click, click properties go to advance, and make sure that DMA mode if possible is selected in the combo boxes.
Finally, if you have some sight or access to some, check the BIOS and make sure that its set to DMA for your cd burner's connection.
If this doesn't work, I'd switch to roxio, I have used roxio for over 8 years, back since it was easy cd creator 3.
You should have more than ample resources/power to burn at max speed.
Let me know if any of what I mentioned helps :)

## Post 9 by b3n (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Tuesday, 05-Aug-2008 20:10:07

Imho, the person that "repared" your computer didn't do a very good job, what with this and the amount of drives that are showing.
Try reseeting the ide cable and if the drive is on the same cable as your hdd, put it on its own one.
Its quite a hard thing to give instructions for over the internet, but fyi, I had a machine in from someone who had the same simptons as your having, by the time I got it, both there controlers had packed up.

## Post 10 by skpoet711 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Wednesday, 06-Aug-2008 0:46:15

lol, I never considered that someone would have place an hd on the same cable as the cd burner... hahahah
and they called themself a "tech"?
For the future, its basic elementary tech 101
1. master and secondary ide cables, hd on master, cd on secondary.
2. hd on master primary, 2nd hd on master slave, cd/dvd burner on secondary primary, dvd player/burner on secondary slave.
set jumpers accordingly
This is the very reason why I love SATA folks.
No crap slave this and that, jumpers here and there.

## Post 11 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Wednesday, 06-Aug-2008 11:41:39

This actually sounds like what might be happening. I went into the settings and it was already set to DMA mode. I'll have to open up my tower and see what I can do. As for the extra drives, I guess they're there in case I ever wanted to add extra memory.