CD Burning CD "Compatibility" Question

[Ben Alias]

I have a Dell Pentium 4 running WinME that I bought in 2001,
with a CD burner.

I also have two P1's (new ca. 1994 and 1997 respectively) running Win
95, and a P2 laptop (ca. 1996) running Win98. All three of these
older machines have CD-rom drives.

My problem is that data CDs burned on my P4 are not fully readable by
any of the earlier machines. By not "fully" readable, I mean that
while I can usually read what's on the CD using Explorer on the old
machines, if I try to use the files or copy them from the CD to the
hard drive of one of the older machines, I usually just get an error
message.

What is the cause of this incompatibility? And, more to the point of
this newsgroup, is there any CD burning freeware that can burn the CDs
so they would be fully readable by these older machines? In other
words, do any of the freeware programs have settings to burn the CDs
to "stricter" tolerances (or whatever) to make them compatible with
other/older cd-rom drives?

C'ya.

Ben

 

[Jim]

My problem is that data CDs burned on my P4 are not fully readable by
any of the earlier machines. By not "fully" readable, I mean that
while I can usually read what's on the CD using Explorer on the old
machines, if I try to use the files or copy them from the CD to the
hard drive of one of the older machines, I usually just get an error
message.

What is the cause of this incompatibility?

Most likely the CD's session hasn't been closed. Older drives may not be
able to handle the open session on the CD. Most CD burning programs have an
option to close the session after the burn, and you should still be able to
do that with those CDs you're having problems with.

 

[Terry]

Most likely the CD's session hasn't been closed. Older drives may not be
able to handle the open session on the CD. Most CD burning programs have an
option to close the session after the burn, and you should still be able to
do that with those CDs you're having problems with.

I think it's much more likely to be a media issue. The dyes and
materials used in newer CD-R blanks (which can be written faster) are
different than the dyes and materials used in older blanks. This is a
very common problem with older audio CD equipment, they typically can
read and play older CD-Rs, but not newer ones.

Your old computers are quite old in computer-years. The newest is 7
years old. These sorts of compatibilty problems are quite common with
CD-R equipment that old.

Whether a CD is readable or not depends on three things, the CD media
itself, the writer, and the reader.

The first thing to try is to write at slower speeds. There should be
an option in whatever software you are using for burning, to set the
writing speed (turn it down to 8X or 4X to start).

If that doesn't work, you'll have to experiment with different media.
This is a problem because newer drives often have a hard time writing
old (slow) media, and older drives have a hard time reading and
writing new (fast) media. I have had success using older media, marked
4X, but those are almost impossible to find nowadays.

If that doesn't work, you could try a new CD writer.

Unfortunately, it's trial and error. If you google, you can find
reports of what's compatible with what, but I don't know of any
reliable study, and equipment changes over the production lifetime.
And the disks change over time (even with the same packaging).

This link http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq07.html#S7-2 talks about some of
these issues.

Terry

 

[AAH]

Yes it should work that way. I have a
cd drive from the beginning of Win95 days
which reads the cds if are session/cd finalised without any problems.

My problem is that data CDs burned on my P4 are not fully readable by
any of the earlier machines. By not "fully" readable, I mean that
while I can usually read what's on the CD using Explorer on the old
machines, if I try to use the files or copy them from the CD to the
hard drive of one of the older machines, I usually just get an error
message.

What is the cause of this incompatibility?

Most likely the CD's session hasn't been closed. Older drives may not be
able to handle the open session on the CD. Most CD burning programs have an
option to close the session after the burn, and you should still be able to
do that with those CDs you're having problems with.

 

[Ben Alias]

Thanks, everyone, for the tips. It *might* relate to closing/not
closing sessions, but I believe I almost always close them. The
software I use is Adaptec's Direct CD (came with Easy CD Creator 4)
and it has a control setting for closing the session, which it calls
"Enable standard CD-ROM compatibility" and "Organize the disc so that
it can be read in most standard CD-ROM drives. . ." It also has a
"Wizard" that pops up when you try to eject a disk without making a
defininite decision about closing or not closing the session.

In future, I will not only close the session but mark it as closed on
the cd label.

I think it's much more likely to be a media issue. The dyes and
materials used in newer CD-R blanks (which can be written faster) are
different than the dyes and materials used in older blanks. This is a
very common problem with older audio CD equipment, they typically can
read and play older CD-Rs, but not newer ones.

That's interesting, and I had never heard that before.

Ironically, I have had no problem with audio CDs that I have burned.
They play fine on my CD player that is vintage 1986. But I do burn
audio CDs at 4x speed.

Your old computers are quite old in computer-years. The newest is 7
years old. These sorts of compatibilty problems are quite common with
CD-R equipment that old.

I wasn't totally clear on why that might be so, before reading your
post.

BTW, my 2001 P4 also has a DVD-Rom/CD-Rom drive,
in addition to the "burner" drive. This DVD/CD drive also sometimes
has some difficulty reading CDs burned by my burner, even though both
pieces of equipment were bought as part of a then-new Dell system, and
thus are the same age. So these (mysterious to me) issues of
compatability are of great interest to me for a number of reasons.

Whether a CD is readable or not depends on three things, the CD media
itself, the writer, and the reader.

The first thing to try is to write at slower speeds. There should be
an option in whatever software you are using for burning, to set the
writing speed (turn it down to 8X or 4X to start).

Now that is interesting, and I did not know that. I had been using
the Easy CD Creator 4 to burn audio CDs, and I have that set on 4x.
I was using the (related but separate) Direct CD software to burn data
CDs. I did not pay attention to the writing speed before reading your
post, but now I see that the default was set at 12x. I will set it
down to a lower speed.

If that doesn't work, you'll have to experiment with different media.
This is a problem because newer drives often have a hard time writing
old (slow) media, and older drives have a hard time reading and
writing new (fast) media. I have had success using older media, marked
4X, but those are almost impossible to find nowadays.

Hmmn, interesting. Again, I just was not aware of this, nor did I
have a crystal ball during the last 4 years, to see what kind of blank
CD-Rs were being sold, restocked or not restocked.

I started burning CDs with Verbatim 1x-16x CD-Rs. Had I known, I
would have bought several "spindles" of these.

I looked in CompUSA yesterday, and all the CD-Rs were marked
"48x" or "52x" and such.

If that doesn't work, you could try a new CD writer.

Yes, I might just do that. I picked up an external CD writer on
sale, but haven't tried it out yet. I bought it in part because CD
writers were/are vanishing from the store shelves, being replaced by
DVD burners, which also write CDs, but are more expensive.

Unfortunately, it's trial and error. If you google, you can find
reports of what's compatible with what, but I don't know of any
reliable study, and equipment changes over the production lifetime.
And the disks change over time (even with the same packaging).

This link http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq07.html#S7-2 talks about some of
these issues.

Terry

Thanks for all the tips!

C'ya.

Ben

P.S. This thread started with an inquiry about whether any of the
freeware CD burner software had any features that would be helpful in
dealing with any of these problems.

It appears not, but I am still interested in any relevant freeware.

 

[Terry]

The
software I use is Adaptec's Direct CD (came with Easy CD Creator 4)
and it has a control setting for closing the session, which it calls
"Enable standard CD-ROM compatibility" and "Organize the disc so that
it can be read in most standard CD-ROM drives. . ." It also has a
"Wizard" that pops up when you try to eject a disk without making a
defininite decision about closing or not closing the session.

DirectCD is yet another can of worms. DirectCD is "packet writing"
software, that lets you treat the CD drive as if it were a disk drive.
Packet writing often produces less-compatible disks, I don't really
understand why. For maximum compatibility with your older drives,
don't use DirectCD, use Easy CD Creator instead. It may not be as
convenient, but it's more reliable.

You say you burn audio CD's at 4x with Easy CD Creator, and they work
fine in your old audio equipment. Can they be read by your older PCs?
If so, you've probably solved your problem -- use Easy CD Creator, at
4X, on the same media, and your data disks will most likely be
readable as well.

Terry

 

[Ben Alias]

DirectCD is yet another can of worms. DirectCD is "packet writing"
software, that lets you treat the CD drive as if it were a disk drive.
Packet writing often produces less-compatible disks, I don't really
understand why. For maximum compatibility with your older drives,
don't use DirectCD, use Easy CD Creator instead. It may not be as
convenient, but it's more reliable.

Thanks, Terry. Easy CD Creator has its own "Data" writing feature,
as well as being hooked in with DirectCD. In fact, when you turn it
on, you get a panel of buttons. If you click on the "Data" button,
you get a second panel of buttons: one for DirectCD and one for "Data
CD." In other words, they seem to be presented as about equal.There's
no explanation as to why one would choose one method over the other,
or what the differences might be.

You say you burn audio CD's at 4x with Easy CD Creator, and they work
fine in your old audio equipment. Can they be read by your older PCs?

Yes, I believe so. I've not had the problems with (home-burned)
audio CDs that I've had with (home-burned) data CDs.

If so, you've probably solved your problem -- use Easy CD Creator, at
4X, on the same media, and your data disks will most likely be
readable as well.

Terry

Thanks you for taking the time to put together these posts. What can
I say except I was just ignorant and unaware that all these various
choices mattered. Thanks for cluing me in.

C'ya.

Ben