Hi

I have looked through the posts - and the useful information etc. - on the
boards, which you kind people have maintained and I have some questions.

ECDC version 4.02e (310) is installed on an older machine running ME, with
a Matshita CD-ROM + Sony CD-RW - both of which are recognised by ECDC,
and I have no problems other than the nuisance of a buffer under-run error
when recording directly from a CD in the CD-ROM (all is OK if I record from
an image burned first to the Hard Drive).

I have read somewhere that checking the DMA box (in Device Manager) for
the drives fixes this, but when I tried it a Windows warning pops up saying
not to do this - so I backed out of the change. Is it perfectly OK to do this,
and will that fix the under-run error I receive? I checked the specs for both
drives and they both support something called 'Ultra DMA' - is this any
different to just checking the DMA box?

BTW, I tried lowering the write speed on the Sony, but this didn't solve it.

Secondly, I saw on these boards a link to an an update for this version of
ECDC to bring it up to 4.03, but further on it says the link will bring it up
to 4.05... if the links are still valid, is it worth doing an update? And can
anyone tell me what the advantages/fixes are after updating?

Hope to hear from someone with some useful answers.

thanks, B.

Hi Bingo,
Writing a disc at the same time that you're reading it is called burning 'on the fly'. It's not recommended because it's particularly prone to causing buffer underrun errors. One scratch or speck of dirt requiring a re-read, and you're gone. Making an image and burning from that is the recommended way. It's 'iffy' enough with a data disc, but with an audio disc you also have to contend with the 'audio extraction speed' of the drive, which can be quite slow.



I avoided Windows ME, so I've never received such a warning message. What does it say?

I've always set it to 'DMA if available' to avoid PIO mode, and the drives seem to negotiate the speed themselves, automatically. My hard drives run at UDMA 5, and my opticals run at UDMA 2 or 4. [UDMA is faster than the original DMA]



The updates were mainly adding support for new recorders, but you don't seem to need that as yours are already recognized. They may not be available now, as Sonic has to pay the hosting company when you download them and this software is from last century.

Regards,
Brendon

Hi Brendon

Thanks for your swift response - regarding the ME warning, it reads:

Unsupported Hardware Alert!
DMA might not be compatible with your Controller, Hard Drive or CD-ROM. Contact manufacturer or check their web-site
to see if DMA is supported.

Probably being a little paranoid here, but given this is Micro$oft just thought it would pay to check... :-)
Also - should I only check the DMA for the source optical drive, or for all drives?

Reading the first part of your response about the disadvantage of 'on the fly' recording - is checking DMA worth doing?
I was under the impression this was a possible fix for my under-run errors, but apparently not?


thanks again,
Bingo

Hello Bingo,

If both the optical drives support DMA modes I'd check the box for both drives. I don't know if ME routinely gives that warning when you select DMA, but the worst that would happen is that DMA won't be "available" and the drive will stay in PIO mode.

I think selecting DMA would be worth trying, but don't be disappointed if you get no improvement.

If you're dealing with audio discs I think the largest limiting factor will be the audio extraction speed you manage to get from your ROM. I don't have ECDC 4 running here at the moment, but I think it had the same tests as my ECDC 5 has. Have a look at Tools > System Test and you should see a screen which will allow you to test the drive with an audio disc and a data disc to see how it performs on audio extraction and data transfer.

Hi Brendon

Thanks again for your response.

And for the reassurance re "DMA" - I'll go ahead and see if it works, and if there is any change -
noting your comment regarding the possibility of no improvement! :-)

I will also do the drive test you mentioned and post again re the outcome - which may not be
until the week-end.

cheers,
Bingo

I just reinstalled 4.x and the System Test is there.

Go well,
Brendon