Communication Error when burning

[Paggerman]

Hi, Santa brought me a nice new Sony DRU-710A. I took out my old CD burner and put in the Sony. I installed all the nero software. Whenever I try to burn either a CD or a DVD, it starts goping through the process but soon after it starts buring, I get a report of a Communications Error and the burning fails. I have updated the Firmware on the burner (successfully), the drivers on the mobo (Asus with AMD Athlon 2200), the Nero software (now 6.6.x.x) and still I get coasters. The burn process certainly start because the coasters have some files on them (e.g a collection of 98 JPGs managed to get the first 76 on to a CD-R before kakking itself). Do I need to remove ALL other buring sw (eg WMP, Real, the stuff that comes with XP (I have SP2 loaded)? Or have a I got a Sony lemon?

[shamus]

Originally Posted by Paggerman

Do I need to remove ALL other buring sw (eg WMP, Real, the stuff that comes with XP (I have SP2 loaded)? Or have a I got a Sony lemon?

Welcome to Windrivers Paggerman.
I think you've answered that question yourself...
Remove all the software, uninstall and reinstall the drivers for the Sony while your at it.
OK, start from scratch in other words...
You may even want to uninstall SP2, I've run into a rash of probs becuase of it.

[TripleRLtd]

For now, I wouldn't worry about the other s/w. Typically, that should not matter anyway.
Try burning at a slower rate, say 32/40 or so.
Tell us how it goes.

[shamus]

Good call...hadn't considered that

[Paggerman]

Originally Posted by TripleRLtd

For now, I wouldn't worry about the other s/w. Typically, that should not matter anyway.
Try burning at a slower rate, say 32/40 or so.
Tell us how it goes.

Thanks for the tips. My experience with burners in the past has shown that I should burn at low speeds (I'm not in that much of a hurry anyway) so I tend to burn at the lower end of the speed spectrum (8 or 16x for CD). I have got a bunch of coasters to show for it with the new Sony.

re the drivers for the Sony: there doesn't seem to be a specific driver for it. It seems to rely on a Microsoft driver dated 1 July 2001 (v 5.1.2535.0) as a generic IDE driver. The Sony website doesn't seem to have anything to update.

I'll try uninstalling all the other stuff and give it a whizz. I'll let you know what happens.

Cheers (and Happy New Year!)

Paggerman

[hudsonsmith]

As far as software, you should be ok leaving the native xp stuff, wmp, real, etc. The conflicts are more with things like roxio.

Have you tried a different brand of media?
Do you have dma enabled on the drive?

[Paggerman]

Hi, I am using TDK Gold CD-R and Ritek DVD-R. In the meantime I have uninstalled Real and WMP with no success. I have just enabled DMA (as opposed to PIO) and got the same problem. My next step is to disconnect the generic CD Rom (set to slave) on the same IDE cable as I noticed that when playing an audio CD there were 'pops' on it (but not when played on the Sony DVD-R, which is set to master).

Watch out for the next enthralling installment...

Cheers

Paggerman

Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

As far as software, you should be ok leaving the native xp stuff, wmp, real, etc. The conflicts are more with things like roxio.

Have you tried a different brand of media?
Do you have dma enabled on the drive?

[Paggerman]

Hi all,

Very many thanks for your tips and help. I did all sorts of things (which I have previously documented) but what seems to have actually worked is disconnecting the other CD-ROM on the secondary IDE cable (same as Sony DVD-R cable). I have used Nero BackITup to burn a backup of my hard drive on two DVDs and received a success message, although I haven't tried to actually use the backup. I have also 'backed up' an audio CD which I am listening to now and it sounds perfect to me.

Of course, this presents the next question: why? will I ever be able to run another CD drive on the same cable? Is it likely to be a problem with the generic CD-ROM? Do you reckon I might have more success by putting in my LG CD burner as a slave CD?

happy new year to you all

Paggerman