Troubles with TDK Writers

I went out and got myself a 24x TDK drive in feb and it was fantastic! I could use Nero, Clone CD, Disk Juggles etc.... The lot. It would burn (on the fly) at 24x no problems. For some reason it stopped working after 2 months, so I took it back to the shop and it was sent away. 2 Weeks later a brand new 32x TDK was sent to the shop. But now with the new drive fitted it doesn't burn at 32x on the fly :o (

I think it could be because my old Pioneer 6x DVD drive can't keep up. Sometimes it'll get to 50% and some times it'll get to about 90% and then the drive just stops writing. If thats the problem shouldn't the burn proof kick in and slow down the writer? It'll burn at 32x from my hard drive or an image. I do alot of cd's and it's a pain to copy to the hard drive first.

The drive is on it's own IDE cable with my hard drive and dvd on the other.

Anyone else having problems burning at 32 or higher speeds?? :confused:

If, you don't say, its a VIA chipset you may find that certain versions of the IDE driver have this effect, all I can say is try another! The current version seems to have this effect, I am now limited to x24.... :(

Realistically you only had a x24 in the first place <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> :rolleyes: :)

Via 4.38 IDE driver is fine for writing at all speeds without problems. Versions prior to 4.29 had a few niggly problems (mainly with Win2K). Burning OTF at 40x using a Plextor 40x12x40 CDRW is no problems using 32x certified media & Toshiba 16x DVD-Rom drive, with the 4.38 4-in-1's & XP.

Few things to check first.

The media that you are trying to burn at 32x is certified by TDK to burn at this speed with their writers. Media made by different companies vary a fair bit in quality and perform different on different writers.

Burning on the fly at high speeds is generally not recommended due to the actual depth of the burn onto the blank media is then very shallow and a lot of readers will report errors on the CD that has been burnt. Audio & video playback an be effected greatly if being burnt at high speeds.

Make sure that your ASPI layer is up to date and reinstalled after changing drives for best compatiability.

Also there is a slim chance that your PSU is being overloaded when burning OTF which could be causing the freeze ups.