CD-R media Mfg. checker freeware?

[TW]

Does anyone know of a freeware program that checks the
manufacturer/factory information coded on on the media?

Based on the recent published concerns on CD longevity, and the fact
that I recently bought a pack of office supply store branded 48X CD's
that burn at only 24X, I did some research. At
http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_quality.shtml
they have listings of the various brands, who makes them, and ratings
of the manufacturers. I bought 25 Imation cyan dye CDs yesterday
after consulting the charts, and the only others that Office Max
stocked were Memorex, no-names, Fuji Film, and Hypermedia.

The problem is, Imation media is made by both by Taiyo Yuden Company
Limited, a quality manufacturer according to the testing link, but
also by CMC Magnetics Corporation, who produces low quality CD media.

I found an old DOS program that was abandoned years ago that read out
the actual manufacturer. However, It worked only on SCSI drives.

 

[Jim Stevenson]

Does anyone know of a freeware program that checks the
manufacturer/factory information coded on on the media?

Based on the recent published concerns on CD longevity, and the fact
that I recently bought a pack of office supply store branded 48X CD's
that burn at only 24X, I did some research. At
http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_quality.shtml
they have listings of the various brands, who makes them, and ratings
of the manufacturers. I bought 25 Imation cyan dye CDs yesterday
after consulting the charts, and the only others that Office Max
stocked were Memorex, no-names, Fuji Film, and Hypermedia.

The problem is, Imation media is made by both by Taiyo Yuden Company
Limited, a quality manufacturer according to the testing link, but
also by CMC Magnetics Corporation, who produces low quality CD media.

I found an old DOS program that was abandoned years ago that read out
the actual manufacturer. However, It worked only on SCSI drives.

I don't know whether to give you this link or not

I just checked all my CD-Rs and they are all crap

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_utils_2.shtml#CDR%
20Identifier

If the link doesn't work go back to the original site and do a site
search for CDR Identifier
The first result should be: CD Media World - CD/DVD Utilities click on
the link, scroll down a little and you should find the link you need.
The zip file is about 100K

Jim

 

[George]

If the link doesn't work go back to the original site and do a site
search for CDR Identifier

It's abandonware though. There is also the free Nero InfoTool which is
not abandonware. Again: do a search.

George

 

[bambam]

Does anyone know of a freeware program that checks the
manufacturer/factory information coded on on the media?

You are probably wasting your time-

http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-33

 

[TW]

I don't know whether to give you this link or not

I just checked all my CD-Rs and they are all crap

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_utils_2.shtml#CDR%
20Identifier

If the link doesn't work go back to the original site and do a site
search for CDR Identifier
The first result should be: CD Media World - CD/DVD Utilities click on
the link, scroll down a little and you should find the link you need.
The zip file is about 100K

Jim

Thanks, but I tried both CDR Identifier and CD-R ATIP Reader from the
site. ATIP Reader tells me I have an AVX 2.1b (HA0, Target 0) SCSI
CD-ROM. CDR Identifier tells me it's looking for the same device, but
can't find one. This is after I removed the SCSI "hardware" I mention
below.

Here's the quirky part - When Windows 2000 loads, it shows an
additional CD-ROM drive, and an icon for it in Windows Explorer. This
is identified as a SCSI device in Admin Tools. Does W2K do SCSI
emulation for ATAPI devices? I can uninstall it from Remove Hardware
in Control Panel, but if I reboot, W2K installs it again. Before I
just removed it, CDR Identifier ID'd it as a DVD-R/RW.

I think I'd better take this to another forum. Thanks to your
replies, I have some better search terms for Google.

 

[Jim Stevenson]

Thanks, but I tried both CDR Identifier and CD-R ATIP Reader from the
site. ATIP Reader tells me I have an AVX 2.1b (HA0, Target 0) SCSI
CD-ROM. CDR Identifier tells me it's looking for the same device, but
can't find one. This is after I removed the SCSI "hardware" I mention
below.

Here's the quirky part - When Windows 2000 loads, it shows an
additional CD-ROM drive, and an icon for it in Windows Explorer. This
is identified as a SCSI device in Admin Tools. Does W2K do SCSI
emulation for ATAPI devices? I can uninstall it from Remove Hardware
in Control Panel, but if I reboot, W2K installs it again. Before I
just removed it, CDR Identifier ID'd it as a DVD-R/RW.

I think I'd better take this to another forum. Thanks to your
replies, I have some better search terms for Google.

Regarding your virtual CD-ROM drive, some CD recording programs create
these, Clone CD and Alcohol 120 are two that I know of.
Somewhere in that article there is a link to check if your particular CD
Writer is compatible with CDR Identifier.
When I ran the program it listed my CD-ROM, CD-RW & a virtual CD/DVD
drive as well as my 2 Hard Drives. One other thing, it would only work
with blank CD-Rs

Jim

 

[sethra]

Does anyone know of a freeware program that checks the
manufacturer/factory information coded on on the media?

I've tried a few of them, and my favorite is Liteon's Smart Burn Media
Check. It *should* work regardless of whether you have a Liteon burner or
not according to some posts I've read in the cdfreaks forums, but if it
doesn't, you can try Minfo.

Both can be found with a search on http://www.cdfreaks.com

HTH

 

[dansheen]

I don't know if this works for imation but TDK is also made by a few
companies including TY. I buy their large stacks at Costco. I've found
that looking at the location where it is manufactured helps me identify who
manufactures the disks before buying. Japan is TY; Korea a different
company. I was able to confirm this on my last computer using feurio when
it was freeware or at least nagware.

 

[TW]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 03:01:38 +0100, Jim Stevenson

--snip--
--snip--

Jim's header

Regarding your virtual CD-ROM drive, some CD recording programs create
these, Clone CD and Alcohol 120 are two that I know of.
Somewhere in that article there is a link to check if your particular CD
Writer is compatible with CDR Identifier.
When I ran the program it listed my CD-ROM, CD-RW & a virtual CD/DVD
drive as well as my 2 Hard Drives. One other thing, it would only work
with blank CD-Rs

Jim

Jim,

Alcohol was both the culprit (multiple CD drives showing up) and the
solution to a problem. I'd forgotten I even had the program loaded,
since I got Nero with my new CD-R/RW. After re-RTFMing myself, with
Alcohol 120 I was able to burn an image of a football game CD to my
hard drive, and mapped it to the "mystery" drive. Neat feature, and
glorious end to the puzzle.

I DL'd Feurio nagware based on info on the CD Media World site, and
even though it said I had 2 CD-ROM devices installed, it couldn't
detect them. What the heck is that supposed to mean. I'm Feurioing
no more.

Meanwhile, upon searching the site some more, I determined that the
Imation media I needed and bought used metallized Azo, which makes the
burning side a very distinctive dark blue. It's supposed to be as
durable as the high quality PhthaloCyanine pigment with a gold
reflection layer Media.

I'd still like to find some freeware program to check the factory,
etc. I'm just that way.

Site: http://cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_dye.shtml

 

[TW]

I've tried a few of them, and my favorite is Liteon's Smart Burn Media
Check. It *should* work regardless of whether you have a Liteon burner or
not according to some posts I've read in the cdfreaks forums, but if it
doesn't, you can try Minfo.

Both can be found with a search on http://www.cdfreaks.com

HTH

Thanks, sethra. I just tried them both on a variety of CD-R and RW
media. Smart Burn Media Check reports on more attributes (Minfo
apparently has only 2) but all I got for anthing was "Unknown"