Number 251 - April 2004

A Novice's Struggle with CD-RW Drives
By Merrill Friend, Tampa PC Users Group
Some time ago I purchased a Buslink Ultra-high speed CD-RW external drive for a laptop which had only a CD Rom drive. The Ultra High Speed unit has a maximum write speed of 52X, which is plenty fast. Then I got some Ultra high speed CD-RW Memorex discs and I was in business. After installing the drive, which connected using a 2.0 USB port, all worked fine. I could easily record, erase and record again on those fabulous Memorex discs. I could select various record speeds, and all I tried seemed to work effortlessly. I also got some Sony high speed CD-R 700MB discs, which also worked fine and were considerably cheaper. This external drive was supported by Nero software. I was happy.    Later I purchased a new Gateway laptop computer with a built in CD-RW drive with Roxio software installed. Since everything had worked so well with the Buslink external drive I expected that I would have the same wonderful and smooth experiences with the Gateway drive. I should never have been so naive.    I tried my Memorex ultra high speed CD-RW discs in the Gateway computer and got a message from Roxio that I had not installed proper media in the drive and should immediately place a blank CD-RW disc in the drive. I tried one Memorex after the other in the drive and got the same message on all of them. I then tried the Sony CD-R discs which the drive did recognize and I was allowed to burn a CD-R disc.    Next, I went to Roxio's home page at Roxio.com. The first thing I needed there was the identification of the specific version of Roxio Software I was using and the serial number of the product. I was told that I could get that information by opening the Roxio program and then clicking on "HELP" where I could see the software version as well as the serial number. Well, I got the software version but no serial number. I was to learn later that this was because the Roxio software came installed on my computer, and I didn't have a separate Roxio disc with a serial number. Without a serial number I couldn't get technical support from Roxio. I had learned the software version was 5.3.5.10. I then called Gateway and they said it was Roxio's problem. Now why wasn't I surprised to hear that?    I ended up joining the Roxio online discussion group where a serial number is not needed. I soon learned I did need one more bit of information. I needed specific details on the type of CD-RW drive that was installed in my machine. I went to "My Computer", clicked on the CD-RW drive and selected properties and learned that I had a QSI CDRW/DVD 242U drive. Armed with all this data I was able to fully delineate my problem to the discussion group. Within a few hours I had one very good and helpful response.    The respondent indicated that he had researched my drive somewhere and learned that the RW rating for that drive is 10X Maximum. Thus it would be unable to read my Ultra High Speed Memorex discs. He then advised me that there are three speed groups for RW drives. Per this person, the speed categories are as follows:          Low Speed, which is from 1x to 4x          High Speed, which is from 4x to 12x          Ultra High Speed, which is from 12x to 24x	He also added that Memorex discs are the most problematical for use with various machines and software, although they had worked perfectly with the external Buslink Ultra High Speed drive previously. I was advised by the writer that he had also had difficulties with Memorex discs of the correct speed range and had changed to Verbatim discs of 650MB size suggesting that the 700MB size of the Memorex may have also been a factor. He stated that the Verbatim drives worked fine.    I began shopping around for different brands of CD-RW discs. I didn't find any Verbatim discs, but I did locate some "High Speed" Maxell discs at Office Depot so I bought a small package of them. These discs were recognized by my laptop, but my machine indicated it would only read and write to this disc at a 4x speed No other speeds were available on my machine. I tried writing to them and they worked satisfactorily although slower than I had anticipated. I was also able to erase material satisfactorily. So now I at least had a working CD-RW drive, albeit a slow one.    After all this difficulty, I began to wonder just why CD-RW drives are needed? Why not just a CD-R? Wouldn't that do just as well? All the new machines seem to be coming out with CD-RW drives, so naturally I wanted to have the latest most modern drive but what exactly can I do with it? I looked through the stock of CompUSA and had difficulty locating any CD-RW discs except for those Memorex discs mentioned earlier. Yet there were literally tons of CD-R discs of various manufacturers. That should have told me something. The CD-R's were also much less expensive and available in large packages at a discount.    For my purposes I felt the CD-RW would be helpful in making up discs to save and organize material which I might reorganize or make minor changes to from time to time until the project was finalized. Then when I had the material in its final state, I could put it all on one CD-R disc as a permanent record. Now I am beginning to feel that the cost of the CD-RW discs plus these slower speeds may not be worth the effort. Also, I may end up owning five different brands of CD-RW discs in order to find one or two that will work well with my equipment.    Perhaps I might just as well make a CD-R disc and redo it as needed in its entirety and throw the previous ones in the trash as the new ones are made. Perhaps that will work just as well.    I may have one other option. That would be to install the Buslink externa CD-RW Ultra High Speed drive to this laptop and use it for all my serious CD-RW work. The question I am struggling with is will this cause a conflict with my Roxio software for the factory installed CD-RW drive.    I suspect it should not since the Nero software for the Buslink external drive is designed to work only with that external drive (per instructions on the box). The Roxio software would continue to be used for the originally installed drive. If anyone has any other thoughts on that please let me hear from you.
Number 251 - April 2004