DVD Write Software

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Does anyone have a recommendation for software to write to DVDs? My
unit came with Roxio software which I find to be fairly terrible. It's
good when it works, but I find it to be Very balky and crash prone.
It's the only software I run that can regularly crash the entire XP
system to where the power off switch is the only way to regain control.

Roxio of course says that I should buy their newest version and all will
be well. Given how bad this version is, I can't imagine paying money
for anything else of theirs.

So my question is whether anyone has a better experience with some other
vendor's software to manage DVDs?

Thanks....

Bill
 
Bill said:
Does anyone have a recommendation for software to write to DVDs? My
unit came with Roxio software which I find to be fairly terrible.
It's good when it works, but I find it to be Very balky and crash
prone. It's the only software I run that can regularly crash the
entire XP system to where the power off switch is the only way to
regain control.

Roxio of course says that I should buy their newest version and all
will be well. Given how bad this version is, I can't imagine paying
money for anything else of theirs.

So my question is whether anyone has a better experience with some
other vendor's software to manage DVDs?

Thanks....

Bill
Click to expand...


Hi Bill,

Roxio's big competitor is Nero. You can download a trial version of their
software and see if it works well on your system.

Good luck, Dan
 
Roxio's big competitor is Nero. You can download a trial version of their
software and see if it works well on your system.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try.

Bill
 
Bill Martin -- (Remove NOSPAM from address) said:
Does anyone have a recommendation for software to write to DVDs? My
unit came with Roxio software which I find to be fairly terrible. It's
good when it works, but I find it to be Very balky and crash prone.
It's the only software I run that can regularly crash the entire XP
system to where the power off switch is the only way to regain control.
Click to expand...
Not my experience at all. I am using version 6.
Jim
 
Not my experience at all. I am using version 6.
Jim
Click to expand...

My Drag-to-Disk component is version 6.2.0.129 and I'm running it under
XP Home with SP2. It typically runs well if I drag a file to the disk.

Where it gets in trouble occasionally is when I drag a subdirectory with
3,000 files over. Or if I run my backup software which trys to move
over a whole bunch of files.

Bill
 
My guess is you'd likely have the same problem with Nero based on how you
describe the issue. When you move that many files at once, you hog memory
and a considerable amount of space is required for the pagefile, formally
called the swapfile and while this doesn't usually make a difference, if the
pagefile is heavily fragmented, it might cause an issue as well. As to the
backup, if you are backing up directly to the DVD, I'd try backing up to the
hard drive and then copying the file to DVD to see if that resolves the
issue.

Note, if you have set a maximum for the pagefile, regardless of how much
memory you have, because of the nature of the function you are trying to
perform, that could cause crashing as well in which case, you should let the
system manage the pagefile size rather than defining maximum and minimum
sizes.
 
http://www.firestreamer.com/fsdvd/
Click to expand...

Please tell us how you use Firestreamer as mastering software. How do you
create audio or data discs? As far as I can tell it's sole function is to
enable the use of NTBackup with CD/DVD drives. The OP obviously wants a
replacement for Easy CD Creator. Firestreamer is not a replacement for
mastering software. It looks more a plug-in than a stand-alone application.
 
Michael said:
My guess is you'd likely have the same problem with Nero based on how you
describe the issue. When you move that many files at once, you hog memory
and a considerable amount of space is required for the pagefile, formally
called the swapfile and while this doesn't usually make a difference, if the
pagefile is heavily fragmented, it might cause an issue as well. As to the
backup, if you are backing up directly to the DVD, I'd try backing up to the
hard drive and then copying the file to DVD to see if that resolves the
issue.
Click to expand...

I don't like the programs that make a huge backup into one file.
Consequently I use software that copies each file and subdirectory that
I've marked over to the DVD. Just my data files though.

My backups are something like 2.5GB. They run at night with no other
applications running. I've got 768K of RAM and about 5GB of free space
on the hard drive so there's no shortage of storage space. My suspicion
has been that the software suffers from buffer over flows or fails to
check stack space or some other such basic housekeeping problem.

Note, if you have set a maximum for the pagefile, regardless of how much
memory you have, because of the nature of the function you are trying to
perform, that could cause crashing as well in which case, you should let the
system manage the pagefile size rather than defining maximum and minimum
sizes.
Click to expand...

You may be on to something here. I've never touched the pagefile
settings, but going in to look at it I see it's set for a maximum of
768MB. Yet the same screen also tells me the currently allocated paging
file size is 1148MB. A puzzle.

I'll try your suggestion of letting XP manage the page file size. Is
there any problem with setting the pagefile too large -- other than
wasting disk space?

Thanks...

Bill
 
Well, I tried CDburnerXP and it only writes out about half the data and
then fails, but at least it fails gracefully with an error message
rather than just locking up my whole computer. The message reads:

"Writing Error: (3) Error occurred writing data to disc. A NT disk I/O
operaion filed (1054). Error Sense Data: SENSE KEY: FF ASC: 0 ASCQ: 79"

I'll play around with different disks, etc.

Bill
 
I'll try your suggestion of letting XP manage the page file size. Is
there any problem with setting the pagefile too large -- other than
wasting disk space?
Click to expand...

The pagefile is apparently not the problem. The problem seems to be
that if the DVD drive hits a fault (bad disk or whatever), then Roxio
apparently goes into some sort of infinite loop waiting for something
that never happens.

At Harry's suggestion I tried CDburnerXP and it worked about half way
through then stopped with the message:

"Writing Error: (3) Error occurred writing data to disc. A NT disk I/O
operaion filed (1054). Error Sense Data: SENSE KEY: FF ASC: 0 ASCQ: 79"

Bill
 
Harry said:
Check this Bill http://www.techspot.com/vb/archive/index/t-17739.html The
post reads like you wrote it :-)
Click to expand...

Hmmm.... Sounds like termites or dry rot or some such? DVD recorders
do seem very twitchy for some reason. I've been reading about a lot of
people having mystery problems with them as opposed to some nice solid
reproducable problem. It just bugs me that when Roxio hits the problem
they lock up the machine and I end up rebooting XP all day long.

For the heck of it I'll try cleaning up extra hard drive space,
defragging and such. I'll be moderately amazed if it makes a difference
though.

Thanks.

Bill
 
From the error message it looks like you might be experiencing something
akin to buffer underruns however those are rare with burn-proof or safe disk
technology ( http://www.mrichter.com/cdr/primer/underrun.htm ) Try burning
at reduced speeds and see if that helps.

Ensure you have your device connected as Master on the secondary controller.
Use an 80 pin IDE cable. Check and make certain you have DMA enabled for the
controller that the device is on ( info here
http://www.blackmaxpc.com/Guides/Guides.htm ) or if you have an intel
motherboard you might try installing the intel accelerator if your board
supports it ( www.intel.com)

This could be hardware related and might well be the brand of disc you are
using but it could well be due to a failing laser or dirty laser lens. If
you smoke around the computer that can cause problems for burners as can
white dust humidifiers. See if cleaning the drive helps. Another problem
that sometimes occurs is with under rated power supplies. You might try
beefing your power supply up to at least 400 watts if you do much burning
and have a number of devices attached.
 
Well, it's fixed now. Maybe... At least it worked properly once in a
row using the same disk that it repeatedly failed with before.

Unfortunately I got impatient and changed three things at once so I
can't definitively say which one actually fixed it. I freed up
additional hard disk space to have 7GB free rather than 5GB. I ran
defrag for hours even though XP told me that it didn't need to be run.
And I found updated firmware on the web for my recorder itself. I tend
to believe the firmware may have helped, but who knows?

Whatever it was that made a difference, it was able to run for a few
hours last night doing a full backup (not just incremental) without
causing a write fault so Roxio didn't feel compelled to freeze up.

Thanks for the assistance!

Bill
 
I'd think it might have been firmware but then again the defrag may have
helped a lot too. The SENSE DATA ERROR would point to trouble getting data
to the laser in a timely fashion.

Oh well if it works that's what matters :-)
 
Please tell us how you use Firestreamer as mastering software.
The OP mentioned he's doing backups by dragging files to DVD.
 
The OP mentioned he's doing backups by dragging files to DVD.
Click to expand...

Oh now see that he made reference to drag to disk and using a backup program
in another post in the thread. It's hard to keep replies sorted when people
don't include original text in their replies.
 
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