Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 02 May 09 - 06:24 AM

This is great, thanks for all your comments/suggestions - especially "JohnInKansas".

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: Simon G
Date: 01 May 09 - 03:08 PM

If your CD has a printed label stuck to it this might be slightly off centre and as a result a fast spinning drive that you find in a PC is much more likely to be unable to read the vibrating disk than a slow spinning audio CD player.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 May 09 - 06:10 AM

I don't have WinXP to look at, but my Vista Help file gives a definition for CD-RW but nothing else. It indexes instructions for burning CDs (CD-R) and DVDs, but nothing that comes up easily for the RW uses.

To be used in RW mode, the disk has to be "mounted" so that the computer recognizes it as a rewritable "hard drive." If the disk is removed from the drive, it usually has to be "re-mounted" before it's usable in RW mode.

Nero or Roxio should have "trial versions" you can download that should have instructions for how to mount an RW disk, but I'm not finding the capability in Vista. Maybe someone with XP can tell us if it's a built-in capability there. If you bought your computer with software loaded, one or the other may have been in the "extras" that commonly come on the recovery disc or on a secondary one(?).

Just sticking a CD-RW in the drive doesn't make it automatically rewritable. There is a procedure to be followed, and the burner software (even if it's in the OS) has to be of the right kind before it will work. Among other things, to be rewritable the CD-RW has to use a "File Allocation Table" that's "hard-drive compatible" and that's not the same kind of "index" used on normal CDs.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 01 May 09 - 05:39 AM

John, I'm not using a burner prog.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 10:23 PM

John, I'm not using a burner prog.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 09:58 PM

old dude:

your comment is on point. CD's are much more subject to damage and degradation than people assume. I've tried to use CD's from the library and they have usually picked up longitudinal scratches that make them skip (or worse). I second John's comment that magnetic hard drives are not only inexpensive, I would add they are good long term storage (though you should always have a backup). I trust my music on external hard drive more than on CD, the main caveat being to make sure you have on hand a program that will 'play' the digital music.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 09:49 PM

One thing that could cause this issue on commercially printed cds is that the cd may be copy protected.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 09:19 PM

The computer should be okay, WinXP shouldn't have a problem, and your burner has all the logos it needs.

Next question is are you using a burner program (Nero?, Roxio? ??) or just WinXP drag-n-drop?

Also, if you have a program, have you checked for updates with the program maker; and, if you can identify who made the burner, have you checked for driver/BIOS updates?

None of this is very specific to your problem; but especially the check for updates is a GTTD (good thing to do) anytime something isn't working the way you expect.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 05:59 AM

John - my PC's a Dell Dimension 3100C with Windows XP.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 01:32 AM

Jim -

I have a "problem" with my newest computer due to the combination CD/DVD burner being a bit "too good." It's compounded by the requirement to replace burner software for compatibility with Vista.

I don't do "media" and for data CDs it is best to use a slower burn speed. For music and video, a few "dropped bits" don't really matter, but for data every bit must be right.

With my new burner/software there is no way to set the burn speed below 48x to burn a data CD, and I've been getting 100% failures on CD burns since getting the new machine. Fortunately, I had already switched to external hard drive backups, but it is annoying.

The entire industry apparently assumes that "it's all about video."

John

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 29 Apr 09 - 06:13 PM

Yes, thanks JohnInKansas, I've got those on my PC.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Apr 09 - 01:01 PM

A CD-RW does need to be "mounted" as a rewritable drive before the rewritability is available. I've frankly had so little interest in them that I don't recall whether recent Windows versions have a built-in capability for mounting them, but the function should be available in most "burner" programs.

It is necessary that the drive also have RW capability, and not all CD burners do, although the capability is almost universal in recently manufactured ones.

For any recent hardware, there are standardized "logos" that should appear on the front of the tray (or immediately adjacent to the slot) that tell you what your device can do. If your drive has logos reembling the current ones, it's probably new enough that RW capability should be indicated by a logo if it's present; and if there isn't a logo that says REWRITABLE or RW somewhere in one of them, it's possible that you have a burner that lacks read/write/rewrite capability. Your program may tell it what to do, and the program may think that the instruction was received, but the burner won't obey.

A few burner logos are shown near the bottom of the page HERE just for reference.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 29 Apr 09 - 11:51 AM

Sorry, my mistake - I meant CD-RW's!

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Apr 09 - 09:27 AM

before you do anything do this, put some toothpaste on your finger and wet it, gently swirl in a circular motion, rinse it off good, dry off the CD and try it again. CD's that have been stored for a bit can get dust in them and some scratches that you cannot even see, however this works everytime for me

Dan

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Apr 09 - 08:41 AM

Jim Martin -

CD-R means recordable just ONCE.

You're thinking of CD-R/W which means rewriteable.

A CD-R/W can be "mounted" like a hard drive, and you can drag and drop stuff on and off of it, but generally when any part of the "track" has been rewritten more than a dozen or so times, it turns "scabby" and you start getting data errors. Since the CD-R/W only lasts for about 10 writes, but costs at least 12 times as much as a CD-R, most people decided "way back when" to just burn a new CD-R and throw the old one away, instead of having to worry about whether the data was going to be safe.

As noted, if the disk isn't "finaled" you can add files to a CD-R, and you can add a new "directory" that omits one you want "deleted." I'm told that doesn't work very well for music, but it does ok for data CDs.

Hard Drives are so cheap now that CD-R/W makes no sense at all for data, and if you mount them in "rewritable mode" they're crap for media.

(The shop I was in yesterday had a whole display case full of 1TB hard drives for $130 each (ten CD-R/Ws?) and a few 1.5TBs for $159.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: artbrooks
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 09:14 PM

A CD-R is a write-once critter. On the other hand, a CD-RW can be overwrit.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 06:49 PM

I though (mistakenly, I guess) that the whole ides of CD-R's was to be able to re-use them! They're not (apparently) as flexible as I thought they were.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 02:25 PM

I think what John's saying is that you can't edit a file on a CD - nobody can.

What you can do sometimes - with some types of CD, with some CD drives - is to read a file off a CD, edit it and write an edited copy of the same file back to the CD. In that case, you're adding another version of the file to the CD - the old version stays there. I have to admit I've never done that - but then, I've never wanted to.

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 02:06 PM

Sorry John, I hardly understood a word of all that jargon - but I did turn off the "read-only" attribute!

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: Bernard
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 07:47 AM

It isn't raining!

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 07:42 AM

get a mac

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 07:12 AM

GUEST,Jim Martin

If you burn as a data CD-R and don't "close" the burn, you can open a Word DOC from the CD, edit it, and burn it back to the CD.

The glitch is that any file that comes off a CD is automatically "read only" so you have to save it on a real drive (hard drive, floppy, or thumb drive?), and turn off the "R" attribute, before you open it.

When you burn the edited file back to the CD, the original stays there but it's "de-indexed" so it's forever non-recoverable, but the new version is added on the end. The old index/directory also sits there lost forever, and a complete new index (directory) for the disk is written.

It's a pretty wasteful process, but if you're not just jerkin' our appendages, you're probably just not turning off the read-only attribute before you open the file for editing - and the file has to be copied to someplace where you can change the attribute before you can open for editing.

Once you've copied the file to your hard drive, you can right click it, select properties, and uncheck a box. If you've copied a bunch of files, you can go to the folder in a Command Prompt (i.e. in DOS) and just do "ATTRIB -R *.* /S" to change them all at once.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 06:08 AM

I've been trying now for a couple of years (without success) to copy & edit Word docs to CD-R!
I've copied them OK but cannot edit, I've ticked all the right boxes - but no joy! What's there stays there & will not be moved!

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 28 Apr 09 - 03:46 AM

"My computer beats me at chess and I beat it at kickboxing."

Was the CD in question replicated or duplicated?

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: Fergie
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 07:41 PM

Hi Martin

I'm sort of thinking about going to the cuckoo festival. It's a toss up between Kinvara and the spring flowers in Inis Meáin. I'll decide between now and wednesday.

Ferg

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 06:26 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 02:03 PM

I hate computers and the feeling is mutual

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 11:26 AM

I've just had a similar experience in my Acer Vista laptop. One out of 10 CDs simply isn't recognized (although I'm positive it was recognized yesterday. This is using the program iTunes. The same exact (and clean) CD IS recognized in my Acer XP laptop, no problem. Put it back in the Vista laptop, and no show.

I put it down to a 'JOOT' (Just One Of Those things).

Good luck,

robo

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 11:05 AM

Fergie

I think it's stretching it to describe The Fishers Cot as "commerically produced". IIRC it was done a few years ago on CD-R. I have a copy (somewhere!) and will check it out. They can be tempremental. What's the operating system on your desktop PC? How old is it?

Regards
p.s. you coming to Kinvara for the Cuckoo?

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: breezy
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 09:59 AM

Thats life


Tuesday 12th may cellarfolk

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: Fergie
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 08:56 AM

Hi bobad

I took your advice and cleaned the drive and the lens but no luck it still won't play the CDs in question. It works just fine with 99.9% of my CDs but won't play some. Thanks for your interest

Fergus

Subject: RE: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: bobad
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 07:57 AM

When that happens to me I open up the CD drive and clean the lens of dust and general detritus, which is preventing the drive from reading and recognizing the CD, and it works fine thereafter.

Subject: Tech: What is wrong with my CDs?
From: Fergie
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 07:38 AM

Hi

Why is it that my CD players and my laptop recognises and plays all my CDs but SOME of my CDs seem to be invisible to my PC?

For example: I have a commercially produced CD 'The Fishers Cot' by Geordie Hanna. I can play it in any one of the 5 CD players in the house and also in my laptop but if I insert it into the CD-RW Drive of my PC, the tray closes and the green light flashes intelligently for half a minute or so and then it stops flashing and nothing happens. If I go to 'My Computer' and open up the CD-RW drive the window is blank as if there is nothing in the D drive. This is also the case when I attempt to play recordable compact discs that I have copied from LPs. It it a software problem? How can I cure it?

Fergus