CD rewriter for Win95?
Ciarán Ó Duibhín
I want to buy a CD rewriter, but all the boxes I have read say that Win98
(usually 2nd edition) is the minimum software.
Can anyone tell me of a model which definitely works in Win95 and is
available on the market? I'm not over-concerned about the speed of the
thing. I am happy with either an external USB connection, or (slightly
preferred) an internal IDE connection.
Thanks for any help,
Ciarán Ó Duibhín.
philo
"Ciarán Ó Duibhín" <cia...@oduibhin.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ba2va9$4ai$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
an internal writer *might* work
but there is essentially *no* useb support in win95
Lee
Hi,
Forget a USB CD/rw. I bought a IDE drive recently thats works fine -
real cheap - a BTC model BCE4012M
Use Nero software.
Lee
John Thompson
> I have Win95 4.00.950 B, with (at least some) USB support.
>
> I want to buy a CD rewriter, but all the boxes I have read say that Win98
> (usually 2nd edition) is the minimum software.
You're setting yourself up for a lesson in frustration. Win95's USB
support is minimal and flaky at best. If you really can't move to a newer
OS with better USB support, stick with ATAPI or SCSI if you can afford it.
--
-John (John.T...@attglobal.net)
Mark Young
"Ciarán Ó Duibhín" <cia...@oduibhin.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ba2va9$4ai$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
Les Feinstein
I'm using a Memorex 52/24/52. It works well with W95OSR2.1 and Nero.
Roger Hamlett
"Mark Young" <markyoungAT...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ve2k6al...@corp.supernews.com...
Basically, the limit on 'Windows 98', is that many units are only bothering
to look back this far, and in some cases, the 'bundled' software doesn't go
back to older OS's. So long as you stick with normal IDE interfaces, most
drives will work, but you may need to buy seperate software (though, since
Nero is a standard bundle on many drives, looking for a version with this,
should solve the problem).
Forget about USB versions. Unfortunately, the implementation on 950B, lacks
the high speed 'block IO' mode, and this is fairly common for CD writers,
and certain video cameras.
Best Wishes
Ciarán Ó Duibhín
installed it in place of my old CD reader (in place of it because I've
already got 3 IDE hard drives, 2 fixed and 1 removable).
It works... sort of. Right after bootup, it's fine, but change the CD and
it won't recognise the new one. It either says the device is inaccessible,
or comes up with the details of the previous disk, or identifies the new
disk as audio when it's not.
I suspect my CD driver may be unable to handle the rewriter, though it
handled the reader fine. I believe the CD driving software is part of
Windows, not obtained from the hardware manufacturer, as used to be the case
with DOS - is this right? If so, what Windows file should I be looking at?
And where would I look for an update? The control panel identifies the
device as "CDWRITER ISO5224" and says "No driver files are required or have
been loaded for this device."
Some things that are NOT the cause of the problem:
1. the ribbon cable - I bought a new one;
2. the jumper - it is set to slave as it should be
Thanks for any ideas,
Ciarán Ó Duibhín.
Johnny B Good
from "Ciarán Ó Duibhín" <cia...@oduibhin.freeserve.co.uk> contains these
words:
> Thanks to all for advice on this. I bought a Kobian Mercury W52X, and
> installed it in place of my old CD reader (in place of it because I've
> already got 3 IDE hard drives, 2 fixed and 1 removable).
> It works... sort of. Right after bootup, it's fine, but change the CD and
> it won't recognise the new one. It either says the device is inaccessible,
> or comes up with the details of the previous disk, or identifies the new
> disk as audio when it's not.
> I suspect my CD driver may be unable to handle the rewriter, though it
> handled the reader fine. I believe the CD driving software is part of
> Windows, not obtained from the hardware manufacturer, as used to be the case
> with DOS - is this right?
YES!
> If so, what Windows
> file should I be
> looking at?
> And where would I look for an update?
Chipset driver update, maybe?
> The control panel identifies the
> device as "CDWRITER ISO5224" and says "No driver files are required or have
> been loaded for this device."
CORRECT!
> Some things that are NOT the cause of the problem:
> 1. the ribbon cable - I bought a new one;
> 2. the jumper - it is set to slave as it should be
As long as the master is correctly jumpered. Some hard disk drives
distinguish between master with no slave and master with slave present
in the jumpering options. It might be worth checking this out although
if the cdrw has simply replaced a cdrom, I doubt this would be the
problem.
> Thanks for any ideas,
> Ciarán Ó Duibhín.
Win95 OSR2 quite happily supports cd writers for cdrom reading purposes
and I've had no problems with nero and 4x through to 48x cdrw drives
and a 4x DVD -R/ -RW drive.
Win95 OSR2 doesn't provide cd writing functions (A Good Thing) but this
allows you to install 3rd party cdrom/dvdrom writing programs _without_
interference from the OS.
That 52x cdrw will support udma33 and needs to have DMA mode set if
it's to write at faster than 8x. It's also a good idea to set DMA mode
for your hard disks as well (assuming they support udma modes). However,
you'll need to make sure you have installed the latest MoBo chipset
driver updates, especially if the MoBo chipset _isn't_ an intel one.
It's also a good idea to disable 'Auto-insert notification' if you plan
on avoiding creating coasters.
If you've installed Nero, you may have allowed it to disable the
'Auto-insert notification' feature (Good Idea) which would explain the
symptoms. Working with cdroms without the dreaded 'Auto-insert
notification' feature requires you to "Mount" (and unmount, though not
essential) by focusing on the My Computer window and pressing the F5
shortcut key for 'refresh view'. A small inconvenience for the pleasure
of regaining some control over the cavalier behaviour due to the default
setting.
However, if you hanker for the "Nanny Knows Best" hand-grasping
behaviour of 'Auto-insert notification', Nero can cope with this (and I
suspect that by now, so will other cd writing software) so you can
enable this feature if you must.
HTH
--
Regards, John.
To reply directly, please remove "buttplug" .Mail via the
"Reply Direct" button and Spam-bots will be rejected.
Ciarán Ó Duibhín
To try and get to the root of the problem, I uninstalled Nero. If I
understand right, I should still be able to *read* disks on my new CDRW
drive, using the same (Windows) software as my old CDROM drive used.
But the problems persist. Things are fine after bootup, but after a while
the CDRW drive can't read disks anymore: either the drive is "inaccessible",
or more often now, all disks are identified as AudioCDs - and when it really
*is* an AudioCD, CD-Player says it is not the "right" one.
Anytime I open the case and change back to the CDROM drive (ATAPI CD-ROM
50X, in the Device Manager), reading is fine.
So I still have no idea whether the hardware of my CDRW drive is faulty, or
whether the (Windows) software that worked with my old CDROM drive needs
updated. But I'm getting close to bringing the drive back to the shop.
With all the trouble I'm having just getting the CDRW drive to do what the
CDROM drive did - just to read the disks - I'm wondering what will it be
like when I try to burn a disk!!!
Thanks again for any ideas,
Ciarán Ó Duibhín.
Some details of my system:
Win 95 4.00.950 B.
CDFS.VXD: the Microsoft one of 1996/08/24.
The CD drive is secondary slave.
The secondary master is a removable HD, the problems with the CDRW drive are
the same whether or not the HD is in place.
DMA - don't know if it is on or off.
The CDRW drive shows up in the System control panel as CDWRITER IDE5224, and
"no driver files are required or have been loaded for this device".
"Disconnect" and "Auto insert notification" are on (as they had been with
the CDROM drive).
Software changes, possibly due to installing and uninstalling Nero:
1. The contents of Windows\System\Iosubsys have not changed at all, except
that I manually updated Esdi_506.pdr from 4.00.1111 (1996/08/24) to
4.00.1116 (1997/08/25) in an unsuccessful effort to solve the present
problems.
2. Auto-Insert Notification remains on, but both Autoplay for Audio CDs and
Autorun for Program CDs had been disabled. Hmm, Nero was messing about with
the registry. I re-enabled them.
Ciarán Ó Duibhín
> understand right, I should still be able to *read* disks on my new CDRW
> drive, using the same (Windows) software as my old CDROM drive used.
>
> But the problems persist. Things are fine after bootup, but after a while
> the CDRW drive can't read disks anymore: either the drive is
"inaccessible",
> or more often now, all disks are identified as AudioCDs - and when it
really
> *is* an AudioCD, CD-Player says it is not the "right" one.
I hope I'm not celebrating too soon, but I think the problem is solved,
thanks to a hint picked up at the annoyances.org site. What was required was
to remove a line from config.sys, which was installing a DOS driver,
VIDE-CDD.SYS, for the CD devices. This did not cause any problem with the
CDROM drive, but it seems to be what was upsetting the CDRW drive.
While I'm very happy to find the solution (if it turns out to be such), I
blame the manufacturer for not providing installation instructions, either
in the box or on-line. It simply says, on the outside of the box, "easy to
install"! When I asked for instructions by e-mail, they said to take the
problem to the retailer.
Now to reinstall Nero and get burning...
Ciarán Ó Duibhín.
Johnny B Good
> Thanks for that very helpful response, John.
> To try and get to the root of the problem, I uninstalled Nero. If I
> understand right, I should still be able to *read* disks on my new CDRW
> drive, using the same (Windows) software as my old CDROM drive used.
> But the problems persist. Things are fine after bootup, but after a while
> the CDRW drive can't read disks anymore: either the drive is "inaccessible",
> or more often now, all disks are identified as AudioCDs - and when it really
> *is* an AudioCD, CD-Player says it is not the "right" one.
> Anytime I open the case and change back to the CDROM drive (ATAPI CD-ROM
> 50X, in the Device Manager), reading is fine.
> So I still have no idea whether the hardware of my CDRW drive is faulty, or
> whether the (Windows) software that worked with my old CDROM drive needs
> updated. But I'm getting close to bringing the drive back to the shop.
> With all the trouble I'm having just getting the CDRW drive to do what the
> CDROM drive did - just to read the disks - I'm wondering what will it be
> like when I try to burn a disk!!!
> Thanks again for any ideas,
> Ciarán Ó Duibhín.
> Some details of my system:
> Win 95 4.00.950 B.
> CDFS.VXD: the Microsoft one of 1996/08/24.
Mine is the same version
> The CD drive is secondary slave.
> The secondary master is a removable HD, the problems with the CDRW drive are
> the same whether or not the HD is in place.
> DMA - don't know if it is on or off.
> The CDRW drive shows up in the System control panel as CDWRITER IDE5224, and
> "no driver files are required or have been loaded for this device".
> "Disconnect" and "Auto insert notification" are on (as they had been with
> the CDROM drive).
> Software changes, possibly due to installing and uninstalling Nero:
> 1. The contents of Windows\System\Iosubsys have not changed at all, except
> that I manually updated Esdi_506.pdr from 4.00.1111 (1996/08/24) to
> 4.00.1116 (1997/08/25) in an unsuccessful effort to solve the present
> problems.
The version in my system is 4.00.1111 You could try and extract the
origional version from whichever cab file it resides in and replace the
version 4.00.1116 you have on your system. BTW, is the cpu an AMD
K6/2/350Mhz (or faster)? I have a sneaking suspicion that that file was
one of the updated drivers supplied in the AMD Fast CPU fix. If your cpu
is a fast K6/2 (3D Now!), then don't revert back to version 4.00.1111 or
you may find your system becomes unbootable, especially if the cpu is
400MHz or faster.
> 2. Auto-Insert Notification remains on, but both Autoplay for Audio CDs and
> Autorun for Program CDs had been disabled. Hmm, Nero was messing about with
> the registry. I re-enabled them.
Quite frankly, I think you simply have a faulty cdrom re-writer. You
have enough 'evidence' to present a case to your supplier to get an RMA
and have them check it out with a view to replacement if found
defective.
For the record, my system is based on a Jetway Mobo model 7BXAN. This
is an intel BX440 chipset based board which, for the past four years,
has been running at a FSB clock speed of 133.3MHz (The BX440 chipset was
never officially rated above 100MHz, but that never stopped all the
other 7BXANs from testing at 150MHz with full complement of dimms!).
This means my P2/350 slot 1 CPU is quite happily running at 467MHz and
running rings around via chipset systems with 1GHz P3s and giving
XP2000+ systems a run for their money!
In addition, this system sports a 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 16MB AGP graphics
adapter (it might seem old hat, but I have news for all those gamers out
there. 3D rendering stopped being a bottleneck the moment that card
appeared on the scene!). The drives are 45GB and 120GB with a 4GB DDS2
DAT tape streamer (little used now) a 16xDVD reader and (currently) a 4x
DVD re-writer. Other adapter cards consist of an AWE64Gold (isa slot),
an adaptec AHA1542 scsi controller (also ISA), a Rockwell HCF 56k PCI
modem and a Netvin NV100R II/III fast ethernet adapter(PCI).
The last time I had to do a "Clean Install"(tm) of the OS (Win95 OSR2)
must be well over three years ago. This is thanks due in large part to
the Powerquest Drive Image 3 backups of my 2GB boot partition saving me
on several occaisions from "Shitty Installs"(tm). Notably, one of those
"Shitty Installs"(tm) being "Norton Utilities 2000"(tm) amongst others.
Johnny B Good
----------snip-------------
> I hope I'm not celebrating too soon, but I think the problem is solved,
> thanks to a hint picked up at the annoyances.org site. What was required was
> to remove a line from config.sys, which was installing a DOS driver,
> VIDE-CDD.SYS, for the CD devices. This did not cause any problem with the
> CDROM drive, but it seems to be what was upsetting the CDRW drive.
Oops! I forgot to mention that possibility (and funnily enough I used to
use that same driver file). The best solution is to 'rem' it out just in
case you ever need dos realmode support again in the future.
It was supposed to be ok to have the dos realmode driver loaded
provided you left the mscdex command in the autoexec.bat remmed out.
It's only of any use if you require cdrom access during a "Restart in
DOS mode" session (The dosstart.bat file is the only place for
invocation of mscdex). As far as the 32bit gui environment is concerned,
the dos realmode driver is totally redundent.
If you rarely restart in DOS and normally don't require cdrom support
when you do, remming the driver out of the config.sys gives you a
relatively easy way to restore dos realmode cdrom support in the event
you ever need it again.
> While I'm very happy to find the solution (if it turns out to be such), I
> blame the manufacturer for not providing installation instructions, either
> in the box or on-line. It simply says, on the outside of the box, "easy to
> install"! When I asked for instructions by e-mail, they said to take the
> problem to the retailer.
Please remember, the manufacturer isn't a mind reader! These days it's
unlikely anyone would need cdrom support in a DOS realmode session
except on startup boot disks.
> Now to reinstall Nero and get burning...
> Ciarán Ó Duibhín.
I hope you're right. The real test, however, will be how well it works
as a cd writer. Try simulation for your first tests B4 actually writing
a cdrom. Almost every problem that can effect a real writing session
will show up in a simulated session so is worth doing. Once you are
confident that the system works, you can uncheck the simulate option and
write directly for all future sessions.
Ciarán Ó Duibhín
> I hope I'm not celebrating too soon, but I think the problem is solved,
> thanks to a hint picked up at the annoyances.org site. What was required
was
> to remove a line from config.sys, which was installing a DOS driver,
> VIDE-CDD.SYS, for the CD devices. This did not cause any problem with the
> CDROM drive, but it seems to be what was upsetting the CDRW drive.
Just for the record: removing the DOS driver from config.sys did NOT fix the
problem after all.
Here's the current restatement of the position with reading CDs in this CDRW
drive. On bootup, the drive may or may not work. If there is a disk in it
during bootup, it will work. If it works, it will continue to work as long
as a disk is left in it. The disc may generally be changed - without undue
delay - and the drive will continue to work.
However, leave the drive empty for five minutes, and it will not accept a
disk again. The drive will then either identify all disks as audio disks, or
it will be inaccessible. It seems to be a problem with polling the drive
when it is empty. If I switch off auto-insert detection AND bootup with a
disk in the drive, thus avoiding empty polling, the problem seems to be
avoided. But I don't want to do that.
Anyway, I took the drive back to the shop today, and they agreed it was
faulty, and will replace it.
I was also wrong to blame Nero for resetting the autorun and autoplay
options. I now realise this happened when I accidentally clicked the Disc
Detector control panel - that's a Creative Audio thing, which I leave
disabled.
Thanks again,
Ciarán Ó Duibhín.
Johnny B Good
> I said on 21 June:
> > I hope I'm not celebrating too soon, but I think the problem is solved,
> > thanks to a hint picked up at the annoyances.org site. What was required
> was
> > to remove a line from config.sys, which was installing a DOS driver,
> > VIDE-CDD.SYS, for the CD devices. This did not cause any problem with the
> > CDROM drive, but it seems to be what was upsetting the CDRW drive.
> Just for the record: removing the DOS driver from config.sys did NOT fix the
> problem after all.
> Here's the current restatement of the position with reading CDs in this CDRW
> drive. On bootup, the drive may or may not work. If there is a disk in it
> during bootup, it will work. If it works, it will continue to work as long
> as a disk is left in it. The disc may generally be changed - without undue
> delay - and the drive will continue to work.
That reminds me of a similar problem related to exceptionally few
models of motherboard. Most MoBo bioses are quite happy detecting cdroms
when the IDE port has been set to 'None' (as in set all ports to 'None'
then use autodetect to apply user settings for detected hard drives).
Exceptionally, some motherboards will fail to see the cdrom on bootup
unless the port has been left as 'Auto'.
Another 'gotcha' is that whilst the vast majority of MoBos are quite
happy with a cdrom slave on the secondary port _without_ a master
present, some MoBos, like the intel Zappa board, will disable the
secondary port altogether if it doesn't see a master on this port! In
other words, if the only device on the secondary IDE port is a cdrom, it
_has_ to be set as master.
AFAIR, your setup had both a master and a slave device so the second
'gotcha' doesn't apply. However, the first gotcha regarding the 'Auto'
setting might do.