Need help with buffer underun errors

[enviroman51]

I'm tired of making coasters! I have built a new machine with Win98SE, 1.2 ghz Duron and 192 meg ram with a 48x cdrom and a Phillips cdrw8432 burner. When I try to copy a music cd I get buffer underun errors and waste another cd. I first copy the cd to the hd and then try to burn it with NO luck. I have turned everything off that runs in the background with no luck. Can someone give me some assistance?:|

 

[minendo]

What IDE channel is each device plugged into?

 

[enviroman51]

I have my hd's on primary ide and the cd's on the secondary with the cdrom as master and the cd burner as the slave

 

[Wallysaurus]

You didn't say which Burning application you were using. If you are using Nero, click on File>Preferences and then choose the "Ultrabuffer" tab. In the drop down menu, choose "Manual Configuration", and set the Buffer size to say.....70 MB.

I don't know whether this will solve your problem or not. The CDs you are trying to copy might have some kind of Copy Protection on them. Good luck.

 

[musixian]

First, as a safety net, make sure your Buffer Underrun protection is on in the burning software (I'm SURE you have it).

But, you shouldn't need it with that system. You need to make sure all of your drives/IDE channels are set to DMA mode, otherwise your CPU is trying to handle all of the information being passed from drive to drive - bad idea. DMA is more of a hardware to hardware transfer.

To check in Win98SE:
1. Go to Device Manager (Win key + Pause/Break, click on Device Manager tab)
2. Click the plus sign next to CD-ROM
3. Double-Click on one of the CD-Roms (if there's more than one)
4. In the properties window that comes up, select the "Settings" tab
5. Make sure the check box by "DMA" is checked. If not, click there and check it - that's your problem.
6. Repeat this for all of the CD-Rom drives listed

If any of your CD-Rom drives are not set to DMA, then that one will lag the whole job any time it's involved. Sooooo, if your burner isn't set to DMA, then EVERY job will lag.

 

[enviroman51]

Thanks Musixian! I knew if I posted here I would get the help I needed. I enabled the DMA on both my HD and the CD's and I works like a champ. Thanks again.

 

[musixian]

Glad I could help. I've been through that same frustration and had to stumble on to the answer myself. So anytime I see those symptoms, it definitely rings a bell.