Thanks for your attention on this. I think I've exhausted all of the software tricks (driver updates, windows patches, etc.), unless I've made some screw-up along the way, so my thinking certainly agrees with you that my system may not be able to handle it.

I think I can still return my USB 2.0 card if I do it right away. I think I'll trade it for a Firewire card. It might work.

You have a point about me getting a super fast burner and having a slow system (400MHz). I guess it sounded very sexy (why not get a fast one?) and no one at the store said it wouldn't work. However, since my laptop is limited for connection possibilities (parallel port, outdated iLINK 1394, or USB 1.0) to ANY burner--even a slower one--I would STILL be stuck using the USB 1.0 since it's the fastest choice I have. Correct? If so, I am limited with ANY burner to the 4X limitations of USB 1.0. So even if I got a lower performance one (32x, maybe?) I'd still have the same problem.

So unless anyone can tell me what software issue I can fix (incorrect USB 2.0 configuring, weirdness with the Adaptec USB 2.0 card, Win98SE driver conflicts, having lots of Iomega Zip software installed when I first installed drive, etc.), then the last logical choice is to try a Firewire card.

Is it worth to upgrade from 128MB to 192MB? Anyone think that will make the difference? That's about all the hardware upgrading I can do to my system. And I guess ending all other tasks running when I burn CD's to maximize system resources.

(in reply to parabolic)

Firewire 1, USB 2.0 0 in Vaio Shootout

FYI: Mission Accomplished!!!!

To those of you who said the path to salvation begins with Firewire--you were right!

I returned my USB 2.0 card and got an Orange Micro Firewire card. Voila! No more errors! I was able to burn a 622MB data CD in 2:50! Nero CD Speed says the drive reaches 43.44X, so I guess I'm back in business with full-speed use of my burner. Guess I didn't have to get a new computer after all. Sorry, Sony. I've been able to burn at 44X just fine. I even did an on-the-fly audio CD copy from the computer's built-in CD-ROM (only 5X audio reading). No errors.

Now I finally got back to Square One. Now that I have a working burner, I can start to learn what I can do with it for data CDs, audio files, CD-RW, etc., etc. Any suggestions where to start reading? There's so much out there.

Thanks to all of you who pitched in your two cents. Gotta say that your info was worth many times more than the sometimes clueless tech support I've been getting.

Problems solved, for now. Now to learn new problems as I explore the world of CD burning.

(in reply to parabolic)

Where to start reading???? Here of course!!! There is a wealth of info here we provide, just spent time in our numerous forums and don't hesitate to ask a question in the right forums!

(in reply to parabolic)

Also, please read our various articles here. That goes for everyone too! [:I]

(in reply to parabolic)

CDR-Info.com is really great! One of the best forums on the net for this exploding field. You are really doing a service to both users and mfrs. by helping folks like us get started and not bogged down with the technical problems. Extremely helpful and responsive. I really appreciate getting the feedback so quickly. The moderators are really attentive to their topics. I had spent so much time troubleshooting that I was really ready to throw everything out.

One comment about your Search function. Perhaps you already know, but it seems to be extremely slow in starting up. I've quit before it gets done. Is this being fixed?

Now time to begin to learn the basics. I was asking for a specific article to read but of course there are several. The articles on this forum are a good place for me to start. There's so much info on the web it's a bit overwhelming. Plus it can't all be accurate.

Next step is to pick my software tools. I don't really want to spend a lot of time trying too many programs -- plus I hear you can invite problems when you install/uninstall a lot. I just need to get started and experiment. Seems that I can stick with Nero Burning Rom (5.5.10.15) as my primary burning/ripping software. It seems to have a pretty good rep. But now I need to find a great mp3 player/manager. I'm considering using the other programs bundled with my drive, but I've heard that some are buggy, including InCD and Nero Jukebox.

I've got some other questions that may better be answered in other areas of the forum. Like how to make perfect and most reliable audio compilations in Nero (I'm thinking maybe: 1) extract songs to HD as WAV files (if I have room); 2) burn to CD at 1x; 3) use Yamaha's Audio Master Q.R. mode for better reliability on more players (deeper pits, longer lands, or whatever it is). Also want to learn Nero inside out (choosing modes, implications of various choices. But then again, perhaps there is more sophistication here than I really need. It can be a distraction to try and master it.

BTW, for those of you interested in the FireWire vs. USB 2.0 issue, PC Magazine did a recent exploration of the issue, including use of PCI/CardBus cards and reviews of various CD drives. There's a lot of info here including speculation on the future:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,847716,00.asp

It's great to be back in business with my drive. Maybe some day in the future the industry can automate a lot of the "techy" side of burning so it could possibly be almost as easy and idiot-proof as using floppy disks.

(in reply to parabolic)

For the best audio results with the CRW-F1, it depends on what media you use. High-speed CD-R's produce better results at 4X~8X nominal speed. IE. A 48X TY disc will be better quality (in terms of jitter) burnt at 4X~8X A.A.M.Q.R. than 1X. This is because this media is optomised for high-speed recording, and 1X actually creates more C1 errors apon reading. For the best results for all media it's probably best for you to insert the desired media, and select "AAMQR" + "Bestwrite speed" in Nero. The recorder will then decide the optimal speed in AAMQR (1-4-8X) for the best results and write it at that.

The best method for DAE would be to create the waves in EAC first and save them to the HDD, then burn. There are many speed/quality options in Exact Audio Copy - just experiment!

BTW, Thanks for the comments - we are glad to help [^]

(in reply to parabolic)

Thanks for the info.

I will try the AMQR setting for burning with "Best writespeed" option as you suggested.

What's your opinion of creating WAV's with Nero rather than EAC? Is the quality good enough? And also, is the "CD Copy" program in Nero good for copying audio CD's? Obviously it's easier for me right now to just master one program, Nero. Is there a difference between the "Save Tracks" option and the "File Encoding" option? It seems to me that the "Save Tracks" option is for getting tracks off of a CD and encoding them along the way, while "File Encoding" is for changing formats when you've already got the files on your hard disk? Correct?

Right now, I think I'll use the WAV route for making compilations, then just delete the WAV's when I'm done to free up space on my hard disk (only 6GB). And for audio CD copies, I'll use the "CD Copy" option in Nero. Is the EAC CD Copy option far superior to Nero's?

I'm a little confused re: MP3s. Since Nero requires me to buy a plug-in to get unlimited MP3 encoding, I just did. There is a box to click on to enable MP3pro or don't do it and get regular MP3. It seems to be pushing their "MP3pro" format (which they say compresses even more than MP3 without losing much audio quality), but they also offer regular MP3. Is this "MP3pro" format great? It's a little confusing. Which do you suggest? I don't want to go with a format that may not be readable everywhere (though I'm only using it for my own computer at the moment).

Also, along with choosing between MP3pro or MP3, I'm a little confused about the Encoding Quality (should I go with Highest, or is Fast OK?) and Bitrate options (there are so many choices), which are different for each of the above. Seems to make sense to me to pick what's best and then stick to it to keep all of my music uniform.

Can you suggest a standard choice that I should use for MP3 encoding that will offer great quality and that I can stay with?

Also, when I start looking for MP3's on the web, do I have to pick ones made with a certain quality (bitrate) so that all my music will match? I've usually seen files up there in a variety of flavors, so which one is the "standard" that I should pick?

Obviously there's a lot to MP3s if you really get into it.

I realize that these questions may not belong in this section of the forum. Shall I repost them somewhere else?

You guys are really helpful.

(in reply to parabolic)

EAC would be the best ripper for your drive.... and you can get the LAME encoder to use for MP3 encoding for it. If you would like an "all in one" package that supports MP3, MP3Pro, Wav, and Windows Media, get MusicMatch... at www.musicmatch.com

(in reply to parabolic)

Thanks for the suggestions. When I have some more time, I'll look into the other programs. EAC seems to be very popular. Will its copy be better than Nero's?

For now, it's easier for me to do it in Nero since it seems to be able to do most things. Now that my system seems to be working (no more coasters! ;) ), I'm going to experiment to see what it can do. Once I've got a firm handle on it, then I'll experiment.

BTW, I'm leaning toward using regular MP3 encoding (not mp3PRO) at 192-bit, 44.1 KHz as my standard, if the files aren't too large. I'll have to see. I don't have a portable MP3 player so it would only be for my own enjoyment on my computer or for burning audio CDs.

BTW, in Nero I used CD Copy with the AMQR option for an audio CD but it wouldn't work since the disk I was copying was about 76 minutes (769MB or so), too long, even though I enabled overburning. AMQR limits the total time to about 69 min. on a regular 80 min./700MB rated disk. So I first made an image and then burned it at 8x, DAO mode. Seemed to work fine. Would I get a better copy if I extracted all the files as WAVs and then burned them to a new disk? Or is disk copy just fine for this purpose?

One other question. Nero gives me the option to vary the read speed when creating the image. It defaults to the fastest for the drive (44X for me). Would I get better results if I lower it? If so, to what?

(in reply to parabolic)

I haven't noticed any difference at High speed burning on the quality of the discs, however I have a 2.4 P4 system that screams. I don't however, feel that you will either. As far as the encoding, I also stick with 192 Bit encoding, the sound quality is excellent at this rate, and it's great for a music library.

(in reply to parabolic)

Wow, you guys are really responsive.

Quick question: At 192-bit/44.1 mp3 encoding, how large is an average song? Filesize? Thanks for helping me to finalize on this.

BTW, I have gotten brazen in my quest to get my CD-RW to work and now work better. I just got the courage to get some RAM to max out my laptop (it was 128MB, now it's 192MB). Took me only 5 minutes to do the install and only cost $46 from Crucial. In case anyone is interested, they're one of the few companies that sells older (PC66) memory for older computers like mine (with 66MHz bus speeds). Anyway, the computer is much zippier, can open pix fast, multiple programs running. I even burned a 622MB CD from Nero in 2:55, while other progams were open. Pretty cool!

Now that I've optimized my system a bit, it's time to focus less on the technical and more on the application.

BTW, I read that the CRW-F1 creates 1 bad sector after writing data from the hard disk because it can't read lead-outs properly. Apparently Yamaha's desire to include DiscT@2 meant some compromises in accuracy and performance (doesn't do 100% EMS and the F1's chips could go to 48X). See, once I start getting technical it's hard to stop since there's so much info out there.

You guys are great!

Now if I could only get my Winamp to display artist and title info for the songs I have burned to a CD... When I burned the disk, all the right info was there from my database, but when I try to play the disk none of the info comes up. Only seems to work with a factory pressed audio disk.

(in reply to parabolic)

Thats only because Winamp is reading the songs from the internet. It cannot technically (CORRECTLY) read TAGS's from mp3 files. I have yet to see a good piece of software that does. MusicMatch claims that it supports CD Text, however, I have YET to see it work, and when you PUSH the technicians, they admit that it does not work. As for the F-1 creating a bad sector when reading from the harddisk while writing the leadout, this is news to me, I have never heard someone mention that before. Care to share the information... i.e. include a link to it. Thanks

(in reply to parabolic)

To parabolic:

First off, it's hard to get what are you trying to achieve: resolve the burning issue close to the maximum possible at the given circumstances or to get some extended theoretical knowledge for a future use?

Recently, a friend of mine wanted to pass his IBM 133 Mhz laptop to me as a gift. But I declined despite I don't have a one: it's absolutely not worth the time spent to make it performing appropriately well.

Having a pretty outdated laptop (even not a desktop!) without hopes for a reasonable hardware and software updates and even being not able to get a Windows 98 (SE) installation CD (or a copy of it) you are found in the situation when anything can hardly help you out.

I would even go so far as to say that if you really need to heavily do CDR/W burning, your laptop is totally unsuitable for the purpose.

This does not mean, however, that you should not try to make it working at a satisfactory degree. And here are what I can tell and suggest to you in the issue:

1. If you have a possibilty, check your drive with a modern system, equipped with either FW or/and USB2 ports. If the drive performs as the Yamaha prescribed, and I believe this is the case, you would know for sure, it is your PC system (laptop) who is in an error.

2. BIOS and 1394 driver updates could help a lot - that's for sure. Beside example given by Clint, I've seen several instances of such the situations just within a few last months. However, as you can't do anything, this case is closed...

3. Your existing FireWire built-in card does not do any good. It is not an issue of just its speed (200 Mbits/sec)! It is the issue of the interface, i.e. how it actually carries out and performs the drive access commands.

4. In the view of the above, the only thinkable solution would be using an add-on card, either FW or USB2. However, it is far not that certain that either one will perform properly on your old system.

5. A bright example is the known issue (confirmed by the Yamaha, by the way) between the USB2 add-on interface and the quite modern Intel 845 chipset. This pops up in particular on my new PC (assembled in December 2002). It is equipped with USB 1.1 ports only. I've installed a USB 2.0 card with VIA 1602 chipset. Of the two external ports, only one functions properly. I've checked my card on an Athlon system and ... both ports have no problems there. Both systems are Win XP Pro.

6. Now, the definition of the USB2 interface is indeed exceeds the one of the FireWire. But! In fact, it does have some, quite insignificant though, impact only when it comes to the external hard drives. As for the optical drives, the FW interface is a bit faster yet smoothier, believe it or not. There was a good report on such the testings on the issue somewhere on the WEB but I can't remember where. There even were the explanations of the reasons for this not that obvious result...

7. In your situation, I'd definitely try a FW card rather than a USB2 one. I don't believe your laptop's BIOS can treat the latter one properly while there is a chance of a successful co-operation with a FW card. Yes, because this interface was already established at the time you laptop was designed and built.

8. Again, without at least software updates and downloads, you can't really hope to make your system working well with an external drive (they are much more picky that the internal ones). Now, if you don't have the installation CD for Windows 98 SE, why don't you buy one?

9. The alternative would be to buy a modern desktop at least for the CD burning purposes. For under $500., Dell offers the Dimension 4550 system with the Intel 2.53 Mhz processor, 533 Mhz bus speed, DDR memory, built-in USB2 ports (sic!) and so on.

10. If you would say that it's too much money for you to spend for the purpose, I'd answer: it depends on how you value the time of yourself and the people you are requesting an assistance from.

Good luck in your investigations!

(in reply to parabolic)

Thanks for the CD Text info. I'm starting to learn more about it. I thought that adding artist and song title info which appears in Nero would come up in Winamp when playing my disks, but I see it's not that simple.

Also, you wanted to know where I read about the F1 creating bad sectors. Actually, it was in another topic in this forum:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8463

To sambs0:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions. I certainly appreciate any and all comments which are all helpful.

However, I think it would be much more productive for us all if everyone were to take a few moments to read the topic from the beginning (or at least scan) before you make your comments.

First off, to all of those who told me (including Sony Tech Support) that my old laptop (400MHz/128MB/6GB/Win98SE) could not handle a high-performance drive like the CRW-F1....

...guess what? They were all wrong. All I had to do was pick the right combination for my interface: the external Firewire card worked like a charm and gave me 44x burning no problem! (please read earlier posts) And yesterday I added 64MB of memory (now maxed at 192MB) and my machine is running even better. I've been burning all kinds of things with Nero and no matter what I do, I haven't gotten a single error. So it certainly seems to be suitable. Of course a brand-new screaming computer (laptop or desktop) would be a nice thing, but it wasn't essential for me to get fast burning out of my drive.

Please do not disparage my laptop. I do not do heavy burning and am not running a commercial enterprise. It is simply for my own uses and enjoyment.

As far as your question about what I'm trying to achieve, the answer is two-fold: 1) to get as much of the performance out of my new drive as it can offer (I've now done that!) and that I paid for ($240); 2) to gain a better understanding of CD-R knowledge so I can better utilize my tools. Plus, I'm one of those people who is more comfortable learning as much "behind the scenes" info as I can handle. It takes time to absorb it all.

With regards to software updates, I did all the ones that were possible: 1394 drivers for Win98SE had already been updated, ASPI layer was updated. New drivers for the iLINK were not available and wouldn't have helped anyway. And it turns out that actually I do have my Win98SE installation CD. But.... in the end, it turned out that there was NO problem with my software, once I had the right card.

As helpful as some of your suggestions were, nearly all had already been addressed prior:

2. No BIOS updates were available. The 1394 drivers that came with my OrangeLink Firewire card worked just fine.

3. Yes, I have already stated that the built-in Firewire (Sony iLINK) would not work. This has already been established.

4. Suggesting that I use a FW or USB2 card. This has also already been addressed. The USB2 card didn't work right (I tried everything to fix it) but the FW worked just fine.

7. Suggesting I try the FW card... Already did and I said it works great.

8. Turns out that I have my Win98SE installation CD, but that had nothing to do with the problem.

9. Buying a modern desktop might be nice, but my current financial situation cannot support it. Just a note that Sony's tech support strongly suggested I buy one of their newer Vaio laptops.

10. As far as your comment about valuing the time of people I'm requesting assistance from, I think you would be wise to read the topics thoroughly before you waste your time to comment on issues and suggestions that have already been covered.

I'd like to think that this forum supports the dissemination of knowledge. There are those of us who know much and others who are still learning. The funny thing is that the mfr's tech support really had no clear idea of what was wrong. Nobody could give me an answer that worked. Funny that they all said that it was the other guy's fault. It was very disorienting. I really appreciated the down-to-earth, friendly help I received from people in this forum.

Thanks to those of you who have supported me through my initial obstacles and prevented me from throwing my CD-RW into the trash.

(in reply to parabolic)

Very well Said, I see that someone suggested you buy a firewire card 10 (TEN) days after you had already purchased it and had success. Oh well... Happy Burning everyone!

(in reply to parabolic)

I really apology for not seeing the second page of this thread before posting the comment. I can't even understand why I did not realize there were two pages!? Had I seen it, there would be no reason for me to say anything in the issue.

Anyway, I'm glad the problem has been resolved. Yet, the FW add-on card works fine while a USB2 does not - that's what I suspected.

As for the bad trailing sector on a CDR created by the F1 burner (but not by any of my other three writers) when creating it off the hard disk data (only in this scenario though), I confirmed it many times even after that post. Still, there are no any known to me consequences because of it. Moreover, if I copy that CDR with the bad trailing sector, the copy CDR made by the same Yamaha F1 comes out perfect.

Why? I do not know.

A note on AMQR. In some other thread, I promised to get an opinion on this F1 feature from a world-class musician (violinist). Indeed, I got a chance. Upon comparing the conventional and AMQR writing (both done with 4x speed) he undoubtedly pointed to the AMQR one as producing a much better and clearer sound.

Me and my wife also like AMQR better (however, I've seen some negative responces on AMQR style sound elsewhere on the WEB).

Once again, please accept my apologies for being blind. But, of course, I had no any offensives: that was and is, without the second page's presence, my opinion.

By the way, there is some kind of a contradiction in the approach: $240. for a burner, but not $450. for a modern computer...

(in reply to parabolic)