> > > I have a 4x4x16 CDRW. I burned a whole bunch of Mandrake
> > > 7.02 CDs and gave 'em out. Now I'm starting to get reports
> > > back that they don't work. I used XCDRoast to burn 'em and
> > > I verified most of 'em, and there were no errors reported
> > > when burning or when checking.
don't use Xcdroast on data cdroms, this program is broken somehow
(at least it has never worked for me without hitches since some
error messages are suppressed and several options are not correct)
we use plain mkisofs/cdrecord here and it has been working just great
for *years* now
> > > Any ideas? I burned at full 4x speed, and some people have
> > > told me they typically burn at half the maximum speed.
> > > Would that help, do you think?
> >
> > Don't work in what way? Can't boot from CD? Can't boot from floppy? Can't
> > read CD in Linux or MS Windows?
Yes, we need more accurate information on the problem since there may
be many causes - ASCII ftp transfer may cause the image to get corrupted,
then the image itself may have been damaged by some unknown cause like
NFS failure (I'm still wondering if the NFS chksum works now with knfsd)
and there may have been wrong options to cdrecord from xcdroad.
Also, you may have used a broken CD-R-drive where the laser is dejustified
(don't laugh, this really happens) and produces CDs that cannot be read
by other CDROM drives.
Also, some CD-R (dark blue and shiny green) should be avoided for data
duplication under all circumstances. Especially these CD-R will not work
well with Linux ISO images (this is from experience with about 5000 produced
CD-R, so please don't flame me on this):
Kodak with black coating (yes, these really exist !)
any green CD-R (especially ARITA or Red Label, "audio")
dark blue CD-R (especially Verbatim or unlabelled)
The following CD-R work GREAT on any Linux ISO image:
Kodak or Mitsui GOLD/GOLD (only 6x speed)
unlabelled SILVER/SILVER (be sure to buy 8x speed CDs)
PRINCO SILVER/BLUE (this is light blue ...)
Intenso SILVER/BLUE (this is also light blue,
we did not test the new dark blue Intenso 700 MB yet)
> and yes burning at 1x does help some older hardware..
this is mostly true for audio CDs
for data CD-R, you should burn at 8x (minimum 4x) - this will work
with most CD-Rs - the faster you write to the CD-R, the more
accurate the dot pitch of the burned holes will be - so 8x CD-R should
be better than 4x CD-R and 12x CD-R (untested) theoretically should
be better than 8x. I have never understood what the problem with these
audio tracks is, but 4x does not work in most cases since it's too fast.
for data CD-R, the opposite is true. maybe there is some D/A conversion
in between that causes the problems, something like realtime problems when
faxing on ISDN lines.
we are burning several 100 CD-R a week at 8x and we did have only
2 known failures (a customers' drive was incapable to read an otherwise
perfect CD-R) in about 3-4 months now.
if you don't believe me, you can order some sample CD-R from us and have
a look at them ;-)
Bernd
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ixsoft Softwareentwicklung | <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |
| und -vertrieb Bernd Hentig | <http://www.ixsoft.de> |
| Unter den Buchen 22E | Fon: ++49 333 63 46 100 |
| D-16244 Altenhof, Germany | FAX: ++49 333 63 46 109 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
