There are some things we should check as they have a direct influence over how our drives behave.
Firmware
Let's check for up-to-date Firmware for your burner.
"OK, so what is this "Firmware" garbage?"
Fair question. Firmware is a "tutor" who's job it is to "introduce" all the different kinds of media to your burner and to tell your burner a little bit about it. What type of media it is and at what speed to burn it.
As new media is introduced OR, as the manufacturers of your burner find new ways to use it, new Firmware updates come out to "school" your burner, keeping it up-to-date.
What firmware do you have? Download this Firmware tool and find out. This tool will check out your firmware's health (up-to-date wise).
You can probably get a current upgrade here The Firmware page at RPC1
Firmware, You can't burn backups without it! Keep yours updated !
ASPI
We need to see if we have a working ASPI Layer.
"Yea right, and ASPI stands for Another Stupid Piece of Insanity, right ?"
No, not quite, it stands for " Advanced SCSI Programming Interface".
"Yeh, right ! Was that English ? Well that told me nothing, what's it do?"
That's a much easier question to answer. It is kind of a "translator" allowing your software to talk your hardware in a manner that your hardware will understand.
Let's imagine an Astronaut, visiting another planet and trying to ask some talking rocks to disperse. Now, think of a sledgehammer as being an interface. With that interface in play, the Astronaut can tell the rocks to disperse in a language the rocks will understand no matter what planet the rocks are from, OK ?
Good, let's see if we have a sledgehammer...
We need to check for your ASPI Layer. If one isn't present OR isn't working, we'll need to get one and install it, then reboot our PC to allow it to "settle in".
You'll need a tool to check your ASPI layer. Download:
Adaptec ASPI Checker with ForceASPI 1.8
After running the checker, install, if needed, ForceASPI 1.8
If you're having trouble getting the one above OR would like to learn more about ASPI layers use this link
http://www.cd-rw.org/articles/archive/aspisetup.cfm Installing a working ASPI layer
DMA
Finally, we need to check your DMA. "Ooohh, no you're not ! Only my husband or my Doctor checks my "D", "M" . . whatever . . ." No, no, it's OK, DMA stands for ""Direct Memory Access" transfer mode OR as we say in the computer field, it's a really, fast way to move stuff.
Many PC's today are using UDMA or Ultra Direct Memory Access transfer mode, or as we like to call it, a really super-duper fast way to move stuff as opposed to the PIO mode. The PIO or Programmed I/O mode, is a technique whereby the system CPU and support hardware directly control the transfer of data between the system and the hard disk since shortly after the beginning of PC's up until the mid-1990's. So we want DMA (fast) more than we want PIO (slow).
Let's check your Drive's transfer mode. It should be DMA-4, not PIO. Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving six CRC errors and drops it down to the much slower PIO mode.
To enable DMA mode using the Device Manager
1. Open Device Manager
2. Double-click IDE ATA//ATAPI Controllers to display the list of controllers and channels.
3. Right-click the icon for the channel to which your burner is connected and select Properties. Now click the Advanced Settings tab.
4. In the Current Transfer Mode drop-down box, select DMA if available if the current setting says, "PIO Only."
If the drop-down box already says, "DMA if Available" but the current transfer mode is PIO, then the user must "toggle" the settings. That is, change the selection from "DMA if available" to PIO only, and click "OK".Then repeat the steps above to change the selection to "DMA if available".
OPTION:
Right-click the burner and select "Uninstall" and then "OK" to all prompts until the PC reboots. Upon rebooting, the PC should "find" your burner and reinstall it, setting it by default to DMA.
CLEAN UP YOUR HARD DRIVE
when did you last defrag your Hard Drive?
"Well I have NEVER ... Ooohh De-fragment you say, Huuummm, let me see . . . . . " If you have to stop and think about the last time you did it, then it's way, way overdue. We need to do it now. Ready ? Here we go,Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. When it opens, choose your HD, analyse it to see where we stand then, if you need it, (you probably will) choose Defragment. then toddle off and mow the back yard, it's lQQking pretty shabby . . . .
After you finish doing it, you might want to think about having "Scheduled Tasks " in your Control Panel do it for you on a daily basis. You're in "Control Panel", "Scheduled Tasks" and you can't locate your Defrag program? No worries, in Windows XP, Browse for C:\windows\system32\defrag.
A fragmented HD not only drastically slows down your system but it can cause a number of things to happen inside your PC, a messed up burn being one of them.
Give it a test run and see how we do after this PC adjustment.
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