At 08:32 AM 7/30/99 , Cesar Mendoza wrote:
>Hi. Thanks for helping me with my last two problems, I'll try the things you
>said.
>
>Problems seem to follow me.
>
>Problem 3.
>I have been working with my old and trustable MITSUMI CD-ROM 4X for the last
>4 years. I was beginning to have problems with it from time to time. The
>chance came to buy a new drive and I did. I bought a CREATIVE CD-ROM 24X
>(CD2423E). Now some of my CDs (or to be precisely some of my files on those
>CDs) I can not read.
>
>The strange thing is that I have an HP CD-WRITER PLUS 7100 (the one I use to
>record my CDs, always in 1X) and it can read (in "normal mode" 6X, not
>"recording mode" 1X) all my CDs without problems. I have tried in some other
>CD-ROM drives and the problems seem to be random (sometimes they appear
>here, sometimes they appear in some other file).
>
>Why is that? Aren't CD-ROM drives supposed to accomplish some standard or
>something to be sure all can read the same CD? I have experienced these
>problems with some old units, but I thought the age was their problem. I
>would like to understand what is going on. Please.

The big secret about using CD-R drives is in the recording software.   This
software activates the drive, sets the format for the recordings and controls
how the data is arranged on the blank CD.

We could discuss the different formats for writing data CDs, but I have found the
largest issue most people face is they are using older CD writer software.  The
sad truth is you will probably need to purchase one of the newest CD writer
software packages such as:
NERO                       http://www.ahead.de/
CDRWIN                   http://www.goldenhawk.com/
EASY CD  Creator    http://www.adaptec.com/products/solutions/cdrec.html

I had occasional problems with Easy CD Creator and switched to NERO.  I
have not created a bad CD since.  One issue that comes up is the writer
software works well with the CDR drive, only creating CDs that are not
universal to all CD drives.  If you use the latest writer software, set the
write speed to 2x or faster, you should not experience these problems.

About your existing CDs, you may need to copy them to a hard drive and make
fresh copies of the data.

This is not a technical discussion of the possible causes of your problems,
but at this point I believe you need solutions...  I wish I had a cheaper
answer for you, but writing CDs with most of the software packages included
with the drive at purchase can be problematic.  Remember they included
the cheapest version of software that worked with their drive, which causes
problems using the drive.




                 Bob Wright
        The NOSPIN Group, Inc
http://nospin.com - http://nospin.org

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