(I don’t know if GQ or MPSIMS is the proper place for fix-my-computer type questions. I apologize if I got it wrong.)
A brief history:
Got my Sony Spressa CRX140E/CH last July. Installed it in my Gateway PII/300 running Windows 98. Ran swimmingly until about six months ago.
When I run Sony CD Extreme, it will record part of a CD (both data and music), and then just stop. The recording session will hang up; I usually have to “end task” to get the program to close. The drive light remains on until I re-boot the machine.
I have had similar difficulties using EAC (Exact Audio Copy), although I haven’t tried that in a while.
I have tried all manner of connections. Currently I have only the CD-R on on EIDE port and my hard drive on the other.
I can’t find the warranty card, so Sony Customer Service has been no help whatsoever.
First, GQ is the perfect place for this question. Now, to the answer. Have you tried using other software (Nero, Easy CD Creator, etc.) to burn a CD? Also, make sure you defragment your hard drive before burning, and close all other open programs (including virus scanners). Those would be my first steps in correcting the problem. If that doesn’t work, reply back and we’ll try again.
Write the files to the hard disk first as an image file. Use the record from image file option for the CDR. It’s easy to get a buffer under run the a PII 300 system. Shut down virus checkers and other programs. Writing an image file to the hard drive first, will greatly increase the chances of a proper burn.
I have WinMe, Pentium III 45O Mhz. I had this problem when I tried to record audio on the 8X setting of my CDRW drive. The higher setting works great for data, but not for audio. Recording at 4x solved my problem.
I worked in customer support for philips cd-rw most of last year. Most brands of cd-rw are just yamaha’s in a diffrent case. The common problems could be solved by a fairly simple downtuning of the writer. This is done as follows:
make sure the HD is on the primary master ide port, the CD-RW has to be on the Secondary slave ide port. Check this, it’s often not the factory setting.
Make sure you have the latest hardware version (update is possible by eeprom flash). You can download these from the manufacturer website.
now for the actual downtuning
Go to setting\control pannel\system\hardware
Check the hard disk controller. It should say something like intelxxxxxx busmaster. (its a default busmaster driver) Supliers sometimes install their own busmaster drivers. For some reason these mess up the writer/cause buffer underruns etc.
In hardware go to cd-rom\your-sony-writer. make sure auto insert notification is switched off and make sure DMA is off.
restart your computer.
I don’t know exactly why this works, but it does. Also solves most software crash problems.
If it doesn’t work, try using the writer on a different machine. If it still crashes, call customer support again.
They can usually tell by the serial number what the production date is. If the date is less than one year ago, card or no card, it’s in warenty. Don’t let these guys bluff you. Also, make sure they take your details. Once they’ve registered a defect they have to fix it if it’s within warenty. Even if you lost the reciept and only find it after the warenty expired.
