Burning errors with Nero 6 Express

[chmac]

I downloaded the Knoppix CD ISO as I've been waiting about 3 days for the torrent to download and my impatience got the better of me. I burned a CD (without reading the instructions, at 32x) and booted to it. Problems, there appear to be corruptions on the CD.

So I read up on md5 checking, checked the file, it's good, read the instructions on burning CDs, reburned at 8x. I got an error from Nero about "Disc at once overwriting failed". Disabled "Disk at once overwrite", moved the data from my USB HD to my internal HD (it's a tablet), md5 checked it, and burned again at 8x. Burn went fine, no problems, then it started verifying the data. The first 85% was fine, then it ran into so many errors I cancelled it after an hour and a half.

Could it be the media that's at fault? I'm using a brand new Samsung SE-W164 USB2 DVD rewriter. I haven't burned anything else on it, so I guess it could be a drive problem (seems unlikely though).

I'll try picking up some better media today, and burn the DVD iso when it finishes downloading. It's not available on any mirrors is it? I could only find it by torrent download. In the mean time, can anyone suggest anything else I could try?

Many thanks, a linux and knoppix newbie,


Callum.

[Harry Kuhman]

The Knoppix CD ISO should fit on a (new and empty) 700 meg CD blank without overburning. It will not fit on a 650 meg CD blank even with overburning (I think that is mentioned in the FAQ). Are you using a 700 meg blank? You should be able to confirm that the size of the media is 700 meg before burning (actually it will very likely report that it is 703 meg, all modern 700 meg media that I have seen report at that size, unlike older 650 meg that could vary somewhat). Is 8x as slow as Nero will let you go? (With some drives it is, with others you can go slower, if you can then I urge you to do so).

[chmac]

Hi Harry,

It's a 700Mb PRINCO disk. Never heard of them myself, but it's rated from 2x - 56x. 8x is the slowest Nero will let me burn onto that disk. I tried setting the speed as 4x before inserting the disk, but it changed to 8x once I put in the cd.

Disk at once overwriting was enabled by default, as it seemed to be causing errors I disabled it, I hadn't intended to overburn.

Might it be worth installing the ISO burner for Windows XP? It might let me burn at a slower speed, I've never used it.

Cheers - Callum.

[Harry Kuhman]

mght it be worth installing the ISO burner for Windows XP? It might let me burn at a slower speed, I've never used it.

I had not heard of the brand either. I doubt if the ISO burner for XP will help. Yea, it might let you burn slower (I'm unclear on why Nero 6 insists on burning at the speeds it sometimes does), but the error isn't, as far as I understand it, a read error during the verification pass, which is how a burn error would most likely manifest itself. I wonder if there isn't something very strange about those CDs. I really don't like Nero express and can't tell you if it has this feature or not, but regular Nero will confirm the disk size for users (the Disk Info item under Recorder in the menu). If you can't get this info from Nero express then there are other utilities that will tell you this and more (one is called CRDIdentifier.exe). Obviously if you have any other brand of 700 meg CDR or CD-RW media, I would suggest trying that first before using other software. And just to be sure that we are on the same page here, you did read the downloading FAQ and are following the instructions in it including to not unpack the ISO and to burn the ISO as an image, and not do anything extra to make the CD bootable, right? If so I can't imagine any reason that you would get that error from Nero except a media size issue.

[chmac]

The error I'm getting is a read error on the verification pass. The verification pass is fine to about 85% then it starts having real problems. However, it's done that on all 4 disks, which is why I'm so puzzled by it. It could be the media, but it seems unlikely given that I've tried 4 disks.

I just burned the ISO, no unpacking, etc, just a clean burn.

I haven't actually checked the size of the disks, and I don't have another one to hand. However, the burn pass went fine, I'm assuming if there wasn't space on the disk it would have failed during the burn pass. The same option exists in Nero Express, accessed by clicking More > Disk Info. When I get (steal from my neighbour!) another disk I'll double check that just in case.

It's a mystery... Callum.

[Harry Kuhman]

I haven't actually checked the size of the disks, and I don't have another one to hand. However, the burn pass went fine, I'm assuming if there wasn't space on the disk it would have failed during the burn pass.

Actually, without overburn enabled it should refuse to even burn at all if it is a media size issue. Yes, it is a mystery. My guesses as to what it will end up being, in order of most to least likely, are

• 1 Media related
  2 A burner issue, such as a dirty lense (or just a bad unit, since you say it is new).
  3 Something nasty that has infected your Windows system
  4 As a last desperate guess I would say something USB2 related. I don't really believe that, but I don't think USB should be used for burning media either. And you say it is a USB2 drive - you do have it on a USE2 interface and not an old USB 1.1 interface, right?

I'm really at a loss to understand the overwriting failed error message; I've burnt lots of CDs and DVDs with Nero 6, have made more than my fair share of coasters and had read errors during the verification pass many times, but I've never seen a overwriting failed error.

[chmac]

• 1 Media related
  2 A burner issue, such as a dirty lense (or just a bad unit, since you say it is new).
  3 Something nasty that has infected your Windows system

I agree, I think it'll be 1 or 2. I think 3 is unlikely, my machine is pretty stable (oooh, I'm setting myself up for a fall, time to backup... )

• 4 As a last desperate guess I would say something USB2 related. I don't really believe that, but I don't think USB should be used for burning media either. And you say it is a USB2 drive - you do have it on a USE2 interface and not an old USB 1.1 interface, right?

It is a USB2 port. I agree, I wouldn't burn it over USB if possible, but I have a tablet with no media drive (oh what a joy I tell you!) and so it's my only option. I'll try burning it from someone else's PC with an in-built writer.

I'm really at a loss to understand the overwriting failed error message; I've burnt lots of CDs and DVDs with Nero 6, have made more than my fair share of coasters and had read errors during the verification pass many times, but I've never seen a overwriting failed error.

It's a mystery to me also. I disabled it as I wasn't sure what it was on about, seems to have fixed the burning error but not the verification error.

And so it goes on...

Thanks for all your input Harry - Callum.

[chmac]

TDK branded media, 8x, bang, first burn, no problems, verified the data cleanly, booted without hiccup. Fantastic, I could barely contain the excitement, I had to have a beer to calm down. It was worth it, three days of fighting later, I have a booting Linux CD!

Thanks for all your help guys, for anyone else out there having trouble with dubious media, try a branded disk. I'm assuming that because the file system is compressed, it's fussier about the burn quality, hence the low speed.

Now I'm off to try and resolve my problems with the DVD download...


Callum.

[Harry Kuhman]

Thanks for all your help guys, for anyone else out there having trouble with dubious media, try a branded disk. I'm assuming that because the file system is compressed, it's fussier about the burn quality, hence the low speed.

All of the media available is made in a relatively few factories. There is a media code on the disc (readable by a utility like CDRIdentifier) that will tell you who actually made the disk; this is considered far more important information that the "brand name" on the disc. Actually, the worst disks I have ever used (and a brand that I will forever stay away from) are Sony. I bought Sony CDR a few times, even getting very different top side art-work on them. But after turning out many Sony coasters one day I looked closely at the media side and saw that the discs had obvious flaws in them, some even looking like frost on a window. I opened several new shrink wrapped CDRs and saw the same thing on other new Sony blanks. I then went back and looked at the Sony blanks that I had already saved files to and they were showing signs of this type of damage too. I recovered what files that I could to another brand of media, but I will never use another Sony disc again. And the Sony "warranty" is a joke, they insist that you mail them the bad CD, which will cost more than just buying a new CD, and then if you do they replace it with another Sony CD. And the warranty is void if you wrote to the disc!!! If you want to see a jpg of these discs that shows what I'm talking about send me an e-mail address by the board's "Private Message" feature (don't post an e-mail address in these forums or the spammers will harvest it).

I have a friend who also bought Sony media and he has seen the same problem. And I even have a few still shrink wrapped and never opened CDR media that I would gladly bet money on that thay also will show this same problem when and if opened.

DVD media seems even more critical. I have some "no label" media that is pretty bad (about half my burns are coasters), but other off-brand media that was even less expensive that works flawlessly for me. My advice is just to shop for a mdeia that you like and pay attention to those media codes, but don't place too much faith on "Brand name".

A bit is a bit, no matter if the file that it is in represents compressed data or not. The simple truth is that when I read a disk I want all of my data back, not just most of the bits. This is not just a compressed file issue, although I suspect that it might be related to the error recovery logic available at Linux boot time. But I've learned the hard way that it is extremely important to always do low speed burns for all data. I don't like that at all; I think if a major optical drive maker sells a product that he says can burn a CD or DVD at high speed and you use quality media then you should indeed be able to make a reliable disc at high speed, but the ugly truth is that you can not. Often there is enough error recovery information embedded in the disc data structure to hide this from you and the disc seems to read OK when burnt at high speed, but not always. And I much prefer to only depend on that recovery data later, if there are marginal differences between drives, the disc suffers a light scratch or some other event causes it to be needed. Burning at high speed is only setting yourself up for problems later. As I say, I don't like it at all, but it's just a fact I've been convinced of over and over again.

I still wonder about those PRINCO discs. I sure would like to see what CDRIdentifier has to say about one, both the media code and the real size. And exactly how you obtained these from your friend isn't clear; I'm wondering if they, like me, have a spindel of already used coasters that they gave you disks from or that you helped yourself to. This just seems too strange a result with too cryptic of an error message for there to not be something that you are missing here. Oh, one other strange thing is that the PRINCO website mentions 650 meg CDR media but never talks about 700 meg media!

[chmac]

I still wonder about those PRINCO discs. I sure would like to see what CDRIdentifier has to say about one, both the media code and the real size. And exactly how you obtained these from your friend isn't clear; I'm wondering if they, like me, have a spindel of already used coasters that they gave you disks from or that you helped yourself to. This just seems too strange a result with too cryptic of an error message for there to not be something that you are missing here. Oh, one other strange thing is that the PRINCO website mentions 650 meg CDR media but never talks about 700 meg media!

I'll grab another one and check it with CDRIdentifier and get back to you. I got them from a buddy who lives next door, he gave me 4 but said they were just cheap ones. Princo is a pretty big brand here in Thailand, but it doesn't surprise me that they're poor quality, they're dirt cheap!

Callum.