CD-RW software

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Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 05 9:50 pm Post subject: CD-RW software

I have been given an external CD-RW drive to go with my hand-me-down Win 98SE PC. To get windows to recognise the drive have had to install nero v4 that came with the drive. However, I can see the drive and the data on the disks but if I try and read anything windows just freezes.

I could upgrade Nero but I may as well buy a new drive for the same price.

Are there any freeware CD-RW utils out there?

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 05 10:28 pm Post subject:

I'm a Mac person, so this may be mere prejudice - but here's a suggestion...

The problem is Win98SE, Nero4 & an *external* CD writer... I'm going to guess its USB not SCSI. Does Win98SE know about USB2? (I'd doubt it) And USB1 isn't fast enough even for reliable 4x writing... And 4x reading is not fun. Even if Nero4 would do it.
At that time an external writer would have been expected to be SCSI, and they're a bit rare these days...

But -
It should be possible to remove the drive mech from an external USB enclosure and connect it (internally) as the IDE drive that it would be.
And I'd expect that way it would have a much better chance of working with Win98SE...

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 6:56 am Post subject:
I have a USB2 driver disk and it was used with the PC by the people before me. Next time I see them I'll ask if they had any problems.

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 8:47 am Post subject:
I have managed to get the CD-Writer to behave in a more stable way by using a different USB port. Speed is not that important to me, just a reliable way to back up files. So if there is any other software ideas out there please let me know. (I may also try and remove and re-install the current driver and software)

culpepper

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 638
Location: Kent

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 11:58 am Post subject:
cant you upgrade nero by just going to nero's site ? Surely if the nero you have came with the drive,it has a registration number on the sleeve so should be upgradeable?

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 12:05 pm Post subject:
Nope, they expect you to buy an upgrade. I can install linux and that will probably sort everything, but it would be nice to get windows working with the drive.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 12:10 pm Post subject:
I don't think Nero likes win 98, I tried to install a plextor external cd on my dads old machine and it didn't work at all, although it worked fine on an Xp machine.

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 12:13 pm Post subject:
Did you use anything else then?

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 12:14 pm Post subject:
Upgraded his machine.

N.V.M.

Joined: 05 Feb 2005
Posts: 207
Location: British Columbia,Canada,eh!

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 2:24 pm Post subject:
if your only problem is reading from the device, can you not use your internal cdrom to do the reading?

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 2:35 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

I have a USB2 driver disk and it was used with the PC by the people before me. Next time I see them I'll ask if they had any problems.

I'm surprised to learn that Win98 can indeed support USB2.
So the combination of soft & hardware that you have probably *should* work - there should be no *need* to upgrade...

Inside that USB2 box there *will* be an IDE interfaced drive, which could be mounted internally and interfaced by IDE. As a USB2 product, it will not be an ancient drive - so it should be ATAPI, ie useable as a CD _reader_ *without* additional drivers.

Only vaguely tricky bit would be setting the master/slave jumper...

Last edited by dougal on Tue Mar 01, 05 3:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 2:37 pm Post subject:

N.V.M. wrote:

if your only problem is reading from the device, can you not use your internal cdrom to do the reading?

Verifying the 'write' ought to be important... !!

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 9:29 pm Post subject:
Well, I've done a 400Mb burn and it took about 40mins. I can read from the disk as long as I use the rear USB port and don't touch the keyboard, not sure why. I also thought windows 98SE only used USB1.1 and not 2. I also thought USB2 would need a hardware upgrade. Anyway, I can live with this now and I'll keep an eye out for any freeware. Cheers, TD.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 9:35 pm Post subject:
USB2 needs USB2 hardware (on a PCI card on an old machine). It kinda sounds like you might be running at USB1 speed... Did it verify? (If you don't do that, don't trust it!)

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 05 10:06 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

Did it verify? (If you don't do that, don't trust it!)

It doesn't seem to go through a separate process to verify, but I can access the data. I just dragged and dropped.

I think the USB2 drive just makes the drive work on Win98, it doesn't mean it's running at USB2 speed, like you say.

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