MakeCD Problems

[pan1k]

Hey guys, I'm trying to use MakeCD to backup my downloaded applications. I've tried burning directly to CD-R and also making an ISO image and burning that. They both fail. It seems I can burn small things, like my Digital Universe distro or Bars and Pipes.. but i'm trying to burn about 350MB worth of software. Any ideas where to start? I bought the CD-R brand new, it's attached to my FastATA in PIO 4 mode. Should it be in the same mode as my hard drive? (PIO 3)?

[Rabbi]

MakeCD surely can handle 350 MBs of data.  I did the same thing - I burned a whole bunch of s/w that I d/led, though I wish I understood how to do it in multisession first, which I do now.  I burned it directly without a buffer, but my CD burner is a Plextor PlexWriter 12/4/32 on my SCSI chain.  I would venture to guess that either your HD and/or CD is not correctly set up on your IDE.  BTW, I would leave your CD drive at PIO 4, as fast as it can go.  I myself have the A1200 FastATA MK III from Elbox & this device definitely cuts down the amount of time it takes to burn CDs when the data is on one of the HDs connected to it.  That's one of the big reasons I got it.  I've got 2 2.5" HDs connected to it.  The master drive is a Toshiba MK4006AV 4GB drive that I've had for years & is now the "Master", while I just added a 160GB (149GB usable) Seagate ST9160821A HD as the "Slave" drive in the chain.  They're both capable of PIO5, although it appears that with the Elbox s/w-h/w combination, the fastest speed is currently PIO4.  And this is all inside a standard A1200 casing.

I would first ask yourself if you yourself notice that your HD access is quicker on the whole.  If not, check to see if it's set up correctly.  If this is not the problem, then it must be the way your CD is set up.  Did you also install the Allegro CDFS?

[X-ray]

Also check your media.
I had problems like that on MakeCD + A4000T + SCSI CD-writer (8/4/24) + Ridata CDs.
Changed brands and I was cool.

[pan1k]

Thanks for the replies. I'm using brand-name media (i.e. maxell, jvc, HP, etc) what it appears to be doing is filling up the buffer twice, and then the  buffer empties and it just sits there. The ISO is created fine. One thing that bothers me is that the CD-R drive can do PIO 4 but my HD can only do PIO-3. Weird huh? I'm only getting around 2.7MB/S with the drivespeed test. Are you guys using a scratch drive that is 700MB to do all of your burning?

[X-ray]

Maxell is usually good.
Yes, I was using a 700mb partition just to temporarily hold data to burn to CD. This was also because I added to the partition little by little and burned the data when the partition was full.

It seems your transfer problems are going to be unrelated to the media. It's a shame you don't have a rewritable, because then you could experiment at will (choose different drive options in MakeCD).

[Rabbi]

Got me thinking:

1) Are you using a registered copy of MakeCD or the demo?

2) Have you ever burnt a copy of a music CD before?

3) Maybe your MakeCD prefs are incorrect?

[pan1k]

Its registered, i'll try to make a copy of an audio cd tonight and report back. Thanks again!

[zyphoid]

lite-ondrives work exremely well plus they have buffer underrun protection

[Rabbi]

pan1k wrote:
Its registered, i'll try to make a copy of an audio cd tonight and report back. Thanks again!

I take it that you haven't burnt many CDs using MakeCD?  Is this correct.  BTW don't forget to choose the other icon, CopyCD, instead of MakeCD whenever you want to make a copy of an audio CD.  It would be nice to get a screen grab of your prefs inside MakeCD because CopyCD uses less configurable prefs & has a bit of different panels than MakeCD does.

I was thinking that if you aren't able to copy an audio CD, that would point to a problem with your hardware; whereas if you are able to successfully make a copy of an audio CD, that would point to your preferences in MakeCD are incorrect.

BTW, I make copies of all my audio CDs and use the copies in the car.  That way, if they ever warp or get scratched, I can always make another copy.

[pan1k]

Here's an update to my problem.. and the begining of the part where I feel stupid...

I took everyone's advice and tried to duplicate an audio cd, and MakeCD insisted that I have two CDROM drives, got ticked off and was getting mad at my Amiga. I made another attempt to burn all the crap that I downloaded, made an image, etc. I noticed something that I always see when I burn a CD, the gui locks up and the screensaver goes really slow. I remember one of the documentation files that came with my PowerFlyer ZIV, that it takes up a lot of CPU time when copying large amount of files, a light went off in my head and I just let it go..

It burned the CD just fine. I just figured before if the gui was locked up and the clock stopped ticking that it was frozen...I forget how underpowered my 040 can be

Thanks again guys! :-D

[Rabbi]

Well, I'm glad that you were finally able to burn CDs successfully.  That's what counts & what we were all trying to help you do.  You might want to do what X-Ray did - make a partition of 700MB & when you fill it up, burn a CD, or you can burn smaller amounts of files choosing the multisession way to completely fill up the CD.

[MozzerFan]

Hi,

About the GUI locking up: I found this at the FAQ section of the MakeCD website

--- begin quote----
I use an IDE writer and MakeCD's GUI freezes while writing. Why?
Some IDE controllers consume all available CPU time while transfering data, so that the MakeCD GUI cannot be redrawn. Paul Qureshi suggests:
To work around this problem, it is necessary to alter the priorities of the tasks involved. Tasky is a useful tool for this. Once it is loaded, look for tasks with the same name as the device you are using the IDE writer on, or with the same name as the controller. It's priority will be above 0 (often it's 10), so reduce it to 0 or -1. Alternativly, you can try increasing MakeCD's task priority to something like 10 or 15, or maybe even higher. Be sure to use test mode to see if the new settings work reliably. Alternativly, Executive provides better task scheduling and will ensure that the MakeCD GUI does not lock up. Executive is shareware.
Gian Maria Calzolari is using these executives prefs and also runs AntiBlanker while buring CDs. Elbox recommends to add the following tooltypes to MakeCD: MAKECD_PRI_WRITE=0, MAKECD_PRI_READ=1, MAKECD_PRI_CONV=2.
---end quote-----

I guess you can try to add the tooltypes and see if the locking of the GUI occurs no more.

Regards,
Lloyd