Any chance of a bit of technical help? I'm trying to make up some soul CDs for a mate and the PCs acting the arse!

I've a Dell Dimension 4600 desktop and I've been happily copying my vinyl onto the hard drive through Cool Edit and then burning it onto CD for months. No problem. All of a sudden, when I play the CD after burning, the first half plays okay but then the tracks start to break up and then not play at all. The time on the CD player says I've 79 mins of data on the CD but only about 30 plays. I was on the Dell helpline for an hour and a half and they told me it's a software problem that there's nothing wrong with the CD drive. My question is how can it be a software problem when I've used two different packages (Sonic and Windows Media Player) to record tracks and I'm getting the same result?

I've tred to copy CDs and am getting the same result. It's driving me bananas. I've changed the write speed, uninstalled and reinstalled the CD driver, changed the buffer settings, defragmented my hard drive and ran numerous virus scans and I can't fix it. Neither can Dell btw.

Can someone please help? Is there anyone out there who's had similar problems?

Paul

Any chance of a bit of technical help? I'm trying to make up some soul CDs for a mate and the PCs acting the arse!

I've a Dell Dimension 4600 desktop and I've been happily copying my vinyl onto the hard drive through Cool Edit and then burning it onto CD for months. No problem. All of a sudden, when I play the CD after burning, the first half plays okay but then the tracks start to break up and then not play at all.

I've had this problem since installing service pack 2 for win XP, but only with CD I've burnt to low standard CD media. Win media player goes bonkers after about 6 tracks, with the begining of a track 'starting' half way through the next etc etc. Problem resolved when folking out for some decent CD blanks.

The time on the CD player says I've 79 mins of data on the CD but only about 30 plays.

Your standard CD is 74 minutes long (A Mozart syphony to blame for that) which is about 28 tracks long. You can 'over burn' it to about 80 minutes (2 more tracks) but is a false economy because a lot of playes give up the ghost towards the end and won't play the CD. Again you need decent media to achieve this. However, you may have 'over burnt' a CD and F***ed you CD writer!!!

I was on the Dell helpline for an hour and a half and they told me it's a software problem that there's nothing wrong with the CD drive. My question is how can it be a software problem when I've used two different packages (Sonic and Windows Media Player) to record tracks and I'm getting the same result?

I've tred to copy CDs and am getting the same result. It's driving me bananas. I've changed the write speed, uninstalled and reinstalled the CD driver, changed the buffer settings, defragmented my hard drive and ran numerous virus scans and I can't fix it. Neither can Dell btw.

Can someone please help? Is there anyone out there who's had similar problems?

Paul

link

I'd waste no more time on it and get another CD writer installed. My first set me back over £600. They are giving em away these days.

I'd waste no more time on it and get another CD writer installed.  My first set me back over £600. They are giving em away these days.

link

I bought a Sony CD writer for our old PC a couple of years ago, it did the job perfectly and it cost around £40 ! Cheap as chips

Thanks for the help guys. Don't think there's anything wrong with the CD drive though, it'll burn data but audio breaks up. Back to the drawing board I suppose.

Thanks for the help guys. Don't think there's anything wrong with the CD drive though, it'll burn data but audio breaks up. Back to the drawing board I suppose.

link

Do they play the in the samefasion in an hi-fi / car CD player?

Thanks for the help guys. Don't think there's anything wrong with the CD drive though, it'll burn data but audio breaks up. Back to the drawing board I suppose.

link

Try burning at the slowest writing speed, usually x4.

Thanks for the help guys. Don't think there's anything wrong with the CD drive though, it'll burn data but audio breaks up. Back to the drawing board I suppose.

link

If it will still burn data, maybe the timehonoured solution of backup followed by flatten'n'rebuild* is in order?

*format the HD and reinstall OS+needed apps

Thanks Everyone. I took Simon T's advice and bought some new CDs. I also slowed down the write speed and it's now working fine.

Paul

yay paul, if you write faster than the cd is made for it'll break up about halfway through. some programmes take into account cd speed for you (musicmatch).

Danny