I’m eagerly awaiting the delivery of a new PC that includes, among other goodies, a CDRW drive. The drive can supposedly manage a 12x rewrite speed. However, on a recent browse through Best Buy, I noticed that almost all of the CDRW media for sale boasted of being able to support speeds up to 4x. If I used such disks, would they:
Hmm, I had the opposite problem. My CDRW drive maxes out at 4X and I bought discs that could handle 12X.
They wouldn’t work.
Unlike me, I would suggest reading the box’s specs closely as well as your computer’s specs.
Then you won’t have to stand in line to return them. Or you could summon up the courage to ask someone at the store who would know the answer.
Unlike me.
If you burn at 12x on a 4x-rated disc, you will have problems. The burn will most likely complete, and appear successful, but you will have problems reading the data accurately. I’m not sure what smash opal is but “don’t do it” is about as fair advice as I can offer.
Weird.
The active layer in a re-writable disc undergoes a state change when exposed to the write laser. This state change is not instantaneous and if the laser is not left burning it long enough it will be incomplete and the disc will probably be unreadable.
Your cd burning software will most likely offer you a range of burning speeds - choose the one which matches your media.
And if the software is worth spitting on, it won’t let you burn the CDRW any faster than it is rated. There is a data set on the disk thta contains all kinds of nifty info - the real manufacturer (who is usually not the same as on the box!) the type of media, the highest burn speed, the laser strength needed, etc. Good software will read this data and adjust themselves accordingly. Really good software will let you view the info yourself.
Thanks to all for the excellent advice.
And chriszarate, “OG Smash Opal” is a combination of two old, tired SDMB jokes. Search for “Hi Opal!” and “OG Smash” if you’re truly curious.