It's also possible that you simply have a bad batch of media. Try a different type and brand of disc.
Some distributors (e.g. dataDisc) will exchange media that's provably defective.
Be careful with Advanced Power Management functions on some PCs. If the keyboard and IDE
devices are completely idle, the system may decide that nothing is going on and switch to a low-
power mode. Ditto for screen savers that kick in after the system has been idle for a certain period.
6. Why did my CD-R eject between the "test" and "write" passes?
CD rewriter needs to clear their memory between the "test" pass and the "write" pass. For CD
rewriter, the only command that does this is "eject". If the recorder has a tray it just goes out and
back in, but if it uses a caddy manual intervention is needed.
7. Why CD-ROM drive doesn't like *any* CD-R discs
A very simple test is to take a CD that DOES work, copy it, and try both (this ensures that your
problems aren't being caused by, for example, a drive that doesn't support multi-session CDs).
Sometimes the firmware can be at issue.
If it fails with different kinds of media, the CD-ROM drive either doesn't like discs written with your
recorder, or doesn't like CD-R media at all.
In one case, returning the CD-ROM for an identical unit resolved the
problems.
8. I keep getting timeout errors
Basically, check your cabling, turn off features you don't need,
and make sure Auto Insert Notification is off.
9. Getting errors reading the first (data) track on mixed-mode CD
There's a 150-sector postgap at the end of the data track. Some programs deal with this
automatically, some don't. If you're getting errors, try subtracting 150 from the total number of
sectors to read for that track. (How to do that?)
10. My CD-R ejects blank discs immediately
There are a few of possibilities, some software and some hardware.
It may be that the system is looking at the disc, not finding a TOC (table of contents), and ejecting it
as useless. One way to tell the difference between the operating system rejecting the CD and the
drive rejecting the CD is to unplug the IDE cable from the back of the CD recorder before inserting
the disc.
If the problem is the operating system, you probably need to disable
certain features. Under Win95, disable auto insertion for all CD-ROM
devices. One user found that reinstalling Win95 helped.
If that doesn't work, make sure the CD-R drive is perfectly level.
Apparently some units are sensitive to being tilted at an angle. Some users have had trouble when a
CD-R has been on for a while and has overheated, so if you only have trouble when the machine has
been powered on for a while, try putting a small fan above the unit to blow air over it.
11. I can't see all the files on the CD-R
There's a couple of possibilities: either they aren't there, or they're there but you can't see them.
Looking at the disc from different machines should give you some idea.
Out-of-date versions of MSCDEX have been known to "forget" certain files when browsing a disc. If
you're using DOS or are using the "real mode" drivers from within Win95, make sure you're using
the most recent version of MSCDEX.
12. My multi-session disc only has data from the last session
A common mistake when burning a multisession CD is to forget to link the files from the previous
session into the current one. This results in a CD where you can see the new files but none of the
old, unless you have a program that lets you choose which session you look at.
If you're using Easy-CD Pro for Win31, CD Creator, or Adaptec Easy CD
Creator 3, you can load the contents of all the previous sessions, and burn a new session that has
all the files you want. This feature isn't available in Easy-CD Pro 95, which only allows you to link to
one previous session.
The files themselves aren't lost forever though: most packages will allow you to extract a track as an
ISO-9660 image, and you can use WinImage to pull individual files out of it. If all else fails, CD-R
Diagnostic claims to be able to recover data from "lost" sessions.
One caution: without something like Adaptec's Session Selector, you may not see the last session
on the disc anyway. Some CD-ROM drives stop looking for sessions after a certain point.
