Nero 5.5 CD burning problem with XP SP2- record buffer fluctuates wildly

[tunenut]

I was happily using a fairly old computer with XP SP1. Since Microsoft
is ceasing support for SP1, I thought I would bite the bullet.
Installed SP2.

I am using a 4-year old version of Nero 5.5- an OEM version for Yamaha.
It is CD only, not DVD. It was working perfectly. At 44X speed, it
took 3 to 3:15 to burn a CD. Almost no failures.

Now there has been a dramatic change. About 40% through the burn, the
recorder buffer starts to drop down to 5%. At the same time, processor
usage jumps to 100%. Then recorder buffer fills back up and processor
usage drops. This cycle repeats over and over. The burner is
obviously changing its speed to accomodate this flakiness in the
buffer, and the result is that the burn takes 5 minutes or more.

I thought I would different software, so I downloaded a couple of free
tools. They both did the same thing. Today I tried Deepburner and it
cycled up and down from the beginning of the burn, consequently taking
more time than Nero.

For the record, I tried a Nero burn at 4X and it worked perfectly as it
always did. Grasping at straws, I disabled DEP for nero.exe, but that
made no difference.

At this point, I feel that a newer version of Nero will be a waste of
money, 3 programs have done the same thing.

I read about a Microsoft SP2 hotfix for packet writing programs, but it
is not available without contacting them, and I'm not sure this is
applicable to me anyway.

This is a major annoyance and I don't think it is good for my burner to
keep adjusting speed. At this point, I either need to fix this,
reconcile myself to slower burn speeds or remove SP2.

I am inclined to remove SP2. However, I have installed all Microsoft
critical updates that were recommended AFTER installing SP2- so I am
really worried about just unistalling SP2.

I would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

 

[Kent_Diego]

...

Now there has been a dramatic change. About 40% through the burn, the
recorder buffer starts to drop down to 5%. At the same time, processor
usage jumps to 100%. Then recorder buffer fills back up and processor
usage drops. This cycle repeats over and over. The burner is
obviously changing its speed to accomodate this flakiness in the
buffer, and the result is that the burn takes 5 minutes or more.
....

I had a similar problem once. Try defragmenting your hard drive.

 

[Kent_Diego]

...

I had a similar problem once. Try defragmenting your hard drive.

Also, check Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers> Primary and Secondary
IDE Channel's Properties to be sure you are using DMA Mode. I bet it went
down to PIO Mode.

 

[tunenut]

Also, check Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers> Primary and Secondary
IDE Channel's Properties to be sure you are using DMA Mode. I bet it went
down to PIO Mode.

Thank you for your advice. I am defragging the disk right now. That's
a good idea.

I have already checked IDE settings but not sure how to interpret them.
Primary IDE device 1 is set to Ultra DMA. The other settings are for
primary IDE device 0 and secondary IDE device 0 and device 1. I made
sure my setting for these is DMA if available, but they all say they
are in PIO mode. So I am not sure if this is wrong, I don't know how
it was before.

 

[Malke]

I have already checked IDE settings but not sure how to interpret
them.
Primary IDE device 1 is set to Ultra DMA. The other settings are for
primary IDE device 0 and secondary IDE device 0 and device 1. I made
sure my setting for these is DMA if available, but they all say they
are in PIO mode. So I am not sure if this is wrong, I don't know how
it was before.

It is wrong for any of your drives to be in PIO mode. See MVP Hans-Georg
Michna's site for an explanation and fix:

http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

Malke

 

[tunenut]

Thank you very much...now I feel like I have this problem narrowed
down. I am quite uneasy about changing registry values so I'll try
other things first. But after a little bit of research, it is clear
that my CD burner is DMA and should not be running in PIO mode. I'm
sure this is the cause of my problem.

 

[Kent_Diego]

Thank you very much...now I feel like I have this problem narrowed

down. I am quite uneasy about changing registry values so I'll try
other things first. But after a little bit of research, it is clear
that my CD burner is DMA and should not be running in PIO mode. I'm
sure this is the cause of my problem.

...

I have had problems with my DVD burner dropping down to PIO mode. When
Window sees a lot of errors it will drop down. There is a registry fix.
Google PIO MODE WINDOWS. The real fix is to replace your 40 conductor cable
with an 80 conductor IDE cable as it will improve signal integrity. Be sure
to only use the end connectors and not the middle one.

 

[tunenut]

Thank you for your help. Unfortunately, the more I learn the worse
this all gets. It turns out that my CD burner was in DMA mode, but my
hard drive itself has been placed in PIO mode. And while I uninstalled
the secondary IDE driver and XP reinstalled, the problem is my primary
IDE driver- and I cannot uninstall that or the hard drive will
disappear. I looked back in my event log and found 6 ATAPI timeouts on
IDE0 back on Sept 8 so XP probably disabled DMA on my hard drive then.
But after rebooting, it was not restored. So I am stuck- and also
worried that my old hard drive may be failing. This could be more than
just SP2.

 

[Kent_Diego]

Thank you for your help. Unfortunately, the more I learn the worse

this all gets. It turns out that my CD burner was in DMA mode, but my
hard drive itself has been placed in PIO mode. And while I uninstalled
the secondary IDE driver and XP reinstalled, the problem is my primary
IDE driver- and I cannot uninstall that or the hard drive will
disappear. I looked back in my event log and found 6 ATAPI timeouts on
IDE0 back on Sept 8 so XP probably disabled DMA on my hard drive then.
But after rebooting, it was not restored. So I am stuck- and also
worried that my old hard drive may be failing. This could be more than
just SP2.

I have seen cables go bad. They are cheap, get a new one. Be sure it is
plugged into the end connector not middle. Be sure cable is firmly seated in
motherboard and drive. Try the registry fix at least once.
http://www.overclockers.com/articles1161/index.asp

 

[Rock]

Thank you for your help. Unfortunately, the more I learn the worse
this all gets. It turns out that my CD burner was in DMA mode, but my
hard drive itself has been placed in PIO mode. And while I uninstalled
the secondary IDE driver and XP reinstalled, the problem is my primary
IDE driver- and I cannot uninstall that or the hard drive will
disappear. I looked back in my event log and found 6 ATAPI timeouts on
IDE0 back on Sept 8 so XP probably disabled DMA on my hard drive then.
But after rebooting, it was not restored. So I am stuck- and also
worried that my old hard drive may be failing. This could be more than
just SP2.

To check the health of the drive download a drive diagnostic utility from
the drive manufacturer's web site. That will create a bootable floppy or
CD. Boot from it and run the diagnostics.

 

[tunenut]

FYI, here is what seems to be the final answer on this. I dug and dug
and found a registry value called MasterDeviceTimingModeAllowed. By
setting this to 0xffffffff, I was able to reset my hard drive quickly
and easily to Ultra DMA mode, just by toggling in the Device Manager,
no reboot necessary. I noticed an improvement in performance right
away and I was confident that this would solve my burning problem.

Unfortunately, I tried splitting a video before burning- it had some
hiccups. Event manager showed 6 atapi errors and sure enough, the mode
was set back to PIO.

So it appears the root cause is a hard drive that is failing. That is
OK, this computer is 6 1/2 years old and has had heavy use- so I will
be very lucky to get a hard drive that lasts this long again. And
I've been thinking for quite a while of a new system- so this will push
that along. Although I don't think this can be fixed, I like to know
what is happening.

 

[Jonny]

I was happily using a fairly old computer with XP SP1. Since Microsoft
is ceasing support for SP1, I thought I would bite the bullet.
Installed SP2.

I am using a 4-year old version of Nero 5.5- an OEM version for Yamaha.
It is CD only, not DVD. It was working perfectly. At 44X speed, it
took 3 to 3:15 to burn a CD. Almost no failures.

Now there has been a dramatic change. About 40% through the burn, the
recorder buffer starts to drop down to 5%. At the same time, processor
usage jumps to 100%. Then recorder buffer fills back up and processor
usage drops. This cycle repeats over and over. The burner is
obviously changing its speed to accomodate this flakiness in the
buffer, and the result is that the burn takes 5 minutes or more.

I thought I would different software, so I downloaded a couple of free
tools. They both did the same thing. Today I tried Deepburner and it
cycled up and down from the beginning of the burn, consequently taking
more time than Nero.

For the record, I tried a Nero burn at 4X and it worked perfectly as it
always did. Grasping at straws, I disabled DEP for nero.exe, but that
made no difference.

At this point, I feel that a newer version of Nero will be a waste of
money, 3 programs have done the same thing.

I read about a Microsoft SP2 hotfix for packet writing programs, but it
is not available without contacting them, and I'm not sure this is
applicable to me anyway.

This is a major annoyance and I don't think it is good for my burner to
keep adjusting speed. At this point, I either need to fix this,
reconcile myself to slower burn speeds or remove SP2.

I am inclined to remove SP2. However, I have installed all Microsoft
critical updates that were recommended AFTER installing SP2- so I am
really worried about just unistalling SP2.

I would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

FYI - Nero 5.5 has updates and purchasable add-ons, or did, that allowed DVD
burning among other things. I've kept Nero 5.5 in a 98SE environment as XP
was not mature at its introduction. Didn't seem prudent to me. The only
thing it won't do, and popup indicating so, is to copy copyrighted DVDs if
modified with updates and add-ons available at the time.

 

[frodo]

two cents:

update your nero w/ latest 5.5 version updates from Ahead - these changes
were made specifically to work w/ sp2. If you don't use the InCD utility
then don't install it (or remove it now) - InCD has been known to cause
users headaches; most never use it or even know it's there.

confirm that the cable is an 80-wire cable - without that the higher dma
rates won't work right, and will revert to pio. [Yes, it's a 40-pin cable,
but the good ones use 80-wires].

If possible, put your main HD and the CD Burner on different IDE
interfaces, and not as master and slave on same interface. Note that
making this sort of change on an existing system can be a real hassel, as
drive letters may change. sometimes you can change them back (you can't
change the \windows drive's letter), otherwise you have to hand edit the
reg. So, do this as a last resort only. [You said it used to work real
well, so it really should be fine now too; I'd guess a sp2 issue more than
anything else].

 

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[Jonny]

Another 2 cents regarding INCD. If you're sharing data between two PCs, be
sure they both have the same version of INCD. The last two versions of INCD
provided by Nero don't seem to have the flakiness, readability, and
intermittent writability, and failure to write (format again) I've
experienced in the past.

 

[Plato]

I was happily using a fairly old computer with XP SP1. Since Microsoft
is ceasing support for SP1, I thought I would bite the bullet.
Installed SP2.

I am using a 4-year old version of Nero 5.5- an OEM version for Yamaha.
It is CD only, not DVD. It was working perfectly. At 44X speed, it
took 3 to 3:15 to burn a CD. Almost no failures.

Running out of hard drive space?
Have you cleaned out all your temp/tmp folders in the last 5 years.

 

[Nada Tapu]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

It is wrong for any of your drives to be in PIO mode. See MVP Hans-Georg
Michna's site for an explanation and fix:

http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

Malke

I had a similar situation and my DVD-RW drive was giving all sorts of
problems. Sure enough, it had reverted to PIO. I followed the
instructions on the web site to edit the registry and it completely
fixed all of the problems. The drive is back into UDMA Mode 2 now.

Thanks so much for the link!!

NT

 

[Nada Tapu]

confirm that the cable is an 80-wire cable - without that the higher dma
rates won't work right, and will revert to pio. [Yes, it's a 40-pin cable,
but the good ones use 80-wires].

I changed out my DVD-RW 40-wire cable with an 80-wire cable, and the
mode changed from UDMA Mode 2 to UDMA Mode 4.

Thanks for the tip!

NT