Chapter 6. CD/DVD Drive Annoyances
Multimedia has really come of age. The slow, old CD-ROM drives that played music and muddled through new software installations have long since been replaced by high-speed CD-recordable and -rewritable drives (CD-R/RW). Today’s drives can burn family photo albums, record favorite tunes, and back up your system in a surprisingly short time. DVD drives have also found a permanent home in today’s computers. Not only can you enjoy feature-length Hollywood blockbusters on your desktop, but you can also create your own feature-length movies and archive massive amounts of data with the new generation of recordable and rewritable DVD drives.
Even as optical drives play a greater role on our desktops, everyday users face ongoing problems with hardware and burning/rewriting software compatibility and performance. This chapter starts with CD/DVD configuration annoyances, and then covers a series of performance issues. It also examines a wide range of playback, recording, and rewriting problems. Finally, you’ll see some of my favorite fixes for writing/rewriting and DVD playback software headaches.
CONFIGURATION ANNOYANCES
IDENTIFYING UNKNOWN DISCS
The Annoyance:
I inherit all kinds of unidentified blank media and it drives me crazy. For example, how do I know if I have an 8X CD-RW disc or a 16X CD-R disc?
The Fix:
Download and install Erik Deppe’s Nero InfoTool 2.21 (http://www.cdspeed2000.com). This powerful utility reveals an extensive array of information about ...
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