Hewlett Packard SureStore 4020i CD-Writer FAQ
Summarized from Usenet groups alt.cd-rom
comp.publish.cdrom.hardware
comp.publish.cdrom.multimedia
comp.publish.cdrom.software
Version 2.3 (8/1/97)
Sections:
01: Introduction, disclaimer, contributors, how to contribute
to the FAQ.
02: Hardware issues that can have an impact on CD recording
03: Firmware issues to consider regarding the 4020i CD-R
drive.
04: SCSI issues to consider regarding the 4020i CD-R drive.
05: Software Q&A.
06: Miscellaneous issues related to the 4020i CD-R drive and
CD Recording/Reading in general.
07: History of this FAQ.
01.00 INTRODUCTION
01.01Q: What is this document?
A: I have owned an HP SureStore 4020i CD-R drive since December
of 1995. During that time, I've monitored, and sometimes
participated in several Usenet discussion groups that deal
with topics regarding burning CDs. For several months after
the introduction of the 4020i drive questions regarding this
CD Recorder were plentiful, and correct answers, some simple,
others quite complex were rare. Thus on 5/31/96 I began to
assemble the most commonly sought after information about
this piece of hardware into this document.
01.02Q: How is this document made available?
A: I will try to post this FAQ monthly, or more often when I
feel that sufficient information has been added to warrant
redistribution. Katherine Cochrane <katherine@cd-info.com> was
kind enough to convert this FAQ to HTML and put it on the CD
Information Center Web site at
http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/HP-FAQ.html.
If you are looking for a straight ASCII copy (what is posted
to Usenet) go to http://www.umr.edu/~gvolk/hp4020i_faq.txt.
01.03Q: Who maintains this document?
A: This list is currently maintained by Greg Volk. My preferred
mail address is gvolk@macross.umsl.edu edu, and it would be
appreciated if you could use a subject line that starts with
4020i FAQ when mailing me regarding this document.
01.04Q Where does all this information come from?
A: The questions and answers are mostly summarized from the
Usenet Newsgroups comp.hardware.publish.cdrom,
comp.publish.cdrom.software, and comp.publish.cdrom.multimedia.
Specifically the following people have contributed to this FAQ.
Their knowledge and experience is gratefully acknowledged.
Jeff Arnold <jarnold@mainstream.net>
Rick Adams <happypcs@oro.net>
David Best <dtbest@espweb.com>
Richard Cheng <le@brokersys.com>
Jose A. Cid <jac14@po.CWRU.Edu>
Alex Corwin <adc8@cornell.edu>
Eddie Dunckley <eddie@ohmaster.rau.ac.za>
Tim Goldstein
Tom Hayes <handle@adnc.com>
Darin Johnson <nvisions@worldnet.att.net>
Norbert E. Kremer <norbert@mail.htp.com>
Toni Lindroos <tonilind@sip.fi>
Andy McFadden <fadden@netcom.com>
Mark Natis <u3710126@au1.au.ac.th>
Bob Niland <rjn@csn.net>
Bertel Schmitt <bschmitt@panix.com>
J. Robert Sims III
Deirdre' Straughan <74431.2004@compuserve.com>
Russell Thamm <russell.thamm@dsto.defence.gov.au>
Jim Watson <watson@kiss.de>
Greg Volk <gvolk@umr.edu>
All contributions by Deirdre' Straughan are copyright 1996 by
Adaptec, Inc. All rights reserved.
Special thanks to Norbert Kremer and J. Robert Sims who submitted
much needed corrections to the existing contents of the FAQ.
Formatting for this FAQ was borrowed from the
comp.dcom.lans.ethernet FAQ.
(Note: If you have contributed something to this FAQ, but do
not see your name listed, please mail the current FAQ
maintainer with your name, email address, and which
question(s) you contributed to.)
01.05Q: How can I submit new contributions or corrections to the FAQ?
A: New contributions, suggestions and corrections should be
mailed to the current FAQ maintainer, who is listed in
Q&A 01.03 above. However, you should note that if you are
submitting a correction you must provide both the old and
suggested new text -- messages to the effect of "this is wrong,
fix it" will be ignored.
01.06Q: Are there any restrictions on the distribution of this FAQ?
A: You may freely distribute this document for
non-commercial purposes as long as the contents remain
unchanged (including credits) and you do not gain any
direct profits from the distribution.
01.07Q: Where's the disclaimer?
A: Right here! I, Greg Volk, am not an expert in the field of
compact disc technology. Because of this, some or all of the
information in this document may be incorrect. Furthermore
I will not be held responsible for the use/misuse of the
information contained in this document. I do not work for,
or are in any way associated with Hewlett Packard other than
as a customer.
02.00 HARDWARE ISSUES:
02.01Q: What do I need to be able to reliably burn CDs with the 4020i?
A: The quick and easy answer is "not much." Despite the horror
stories you may have heard regarding errors such as buffer
underruns etc, the main fact is that to burn a CD at 2x, your
system need only be able to sustain a 300 kilobyte per second data
stream to the SCSI host adapter that the CDR drive is connected
to. However, difficulties may/will arise when you begin to throw
variables into the equation such as many small files on the souce
device, and multitasking operating systems (UNIX, Win95/NT, OS/2)
just to name a few. Back in 12/95, when I purchased my 4020i,
Windows 3.1 was still the dominant operating system, while Win95
had just begun to appear, there was extremely poor hardware/software
support for this drive under it. Thus, I began burning CDs under
Windows 3.1 initially.
My machine configuration back then was as follows:
WD31600A Hard drive. (16ms avg. seek, 2.5 MB/sec sustained)
16 MB RAM
486-66
Windows v3.11
Easy CD for Windows 3.11.
While this setup worked quite well for 99% of what I burned,
I did run into one particular underrun problem when I attempted
to burn a 630MB CD that was spread over 11,000+ on my hard
drive. For the simple reason that the hard drive could not
locate and send the data quickly enough to the ISA bus this
particular burn underran. To remedy this, I dropped down to
single speed burning, for this one disc, and it worked just fine.
The point I'm trying to make, is that good, fast IDE drives
(such as the WD31600A) are good to burn from unless you have a
truly massive amount of small files. I still burn stuff at 2x,
however when I have more than 7,000 files to burn onto one CD,
I drop down to single speed just to be safe.
There are two possible solutions that can be invoked to fix this
problem. The first is to purchase a faster hard drive as the
data source. The second is to build an ISO9660 image of the data
before it is burnt. This second solution would require twice as
much storage space, but is the more failsafe approach of the two.
These days (8/97) buffer underrun problems are rarely the fault
of hardware that is too slow, and more commonly a problem that
was caused by something in the operating system. An example of
this is auto insert notification in Win95. The CD drives on the
system are continually polled to see if a disc has been inserted.
This polling can be a severe detriment to a successful burn
because it can occupy resoures that the burning software needs
in order to keep the data flowing at 300 kilobytes per second.
02.02Q: What is an A/V drive? What is Thermal Recalibration? Why do
some say that I should be burning from a SCSI hard drive?
What is A/V tuning?
A: The answer to these questions, and more regarding hard drives
for high performance demand audio/visual/data use can be found
in the following article by Bertel Schmitt <bschmitt@panix.com>.
Facts and Myths of AV Tuning
Drive Your Hard drive Harder
By Bertel Schmitt <bschmitt@panix.com>
Hard drives have been blamed for just about any ill in
the digital audio & video editing world. If frames drop or
audio flakes out, the stock answer of any harried tech
support person is "it must be your hard drive."
Users on the other hand cant understand why they have
just shelled out $$$ for a super fast HD that supposedly
shovels 7 MB/sec, and all they can capture is 1.8 Mb/sec
(if they are wearing striped socks and the moon-phase is
a zero crossing).
The correct answer is a long one. It involves looking at
all phases of the capture chain, at bus & CPU saturation,
at PCI chipset designs, at bursting, at system stalls,
even at memory access. Audio and video is a steady stream,
but PCs are not configured to handle streams well. If
anything goes wrong at any point of the capture chain, a
data stall occurs and frames drop.
Instead of looking at the big picture, blaming the poor
hard drive became en vogue. The biggest bugaboo and
whipping post is the dreaded thermal recalibration,
tcal for short. If someone goes online and says "I captured
for 10 seconds and my frames drop," you can be sure that
someone answers: "You are the victim of the heinous thermal
recalibration. Go out and buy yourself an AV disk."
Some drive manufacturers quickly capitalized on this. "AV
Drives" became the gold plated MonsterCables of the digital
world. People happily pay $100 more for the same drive,
as long as it has "AV" attached to the part number. In a
world of eroding margins, "AV" and "thermal recalibration"
became a god-sent to struggling drive manufacturers and
system integrators. But do AV Drives really perform wonders
as advertised? Have they slain the dreaded tcal? To cite
Kris Kristofferson: "Its a walking contradiction, partly
truth and partly fiction."
First, off, some theory.
What is thermal recalibration and why do people say such
awful things about it? Run your hard drive for a while and
touch it. Its hot. A change in temperature leads to
expansion or contraction, in a hard drive, it changes the
geometry of the platters. Modern hard drives reserve one
dedicated servo surface. On startup, the drive reads the
servo tracks. After extended usage or after an error
condition, the drive recalibrates. Recalibration takes
approximately 40ms per surface, depending on the size of
your drive and the number of surfaces, a complete
recalibration can take somewhere between 0.2 and 1 second.
The bigger the drive, the longer the tcal. During the tcal,
nothing is being read or written, so unless other
precautions are being taken, the data stream is being
interrupted. Until recently, improving the performance
and capacity of the drive involved adding more platters
and raising the rotational speed. Sadly, adding platters
or raising the rotational speed means more heat. The main
heat generator in a drive is friction between the platters
and the air that surrounds them. More platters, more speed,
more heat. That, for instance, was the reason why one
never saw 9 Gig Seagate Elite or Micropolis 1991 - - for
years the mainstay in AV editing circles - - with 7.200
rpm. They rotate at 5.400 rpm, because, as one engineer
told me, "if they would spin any faster, they'd probably
melt away."
By the same token, the best way to keep your hard drive
healthy, wealthy, wise and reasonable free of tcals is to
blow a lot of air over it. I have a stack of five
Barracuda 4s, one as the system drive, four as a striped
set. Uncooled, you could cook with them. A 4" inch fan in
front and back keeps them at a moderate temperature. The
fans also lengthen their lifespan.
The no tcal-drive.
A common myth is that current technology AV drives do
not recalibrate. That's baloney, unless you are one of the
lucky few who could lay their hands on a drive with
embedded servo tracks and magnetoresistive (MR) read heads
(MRH). This technology, pioneered by IBM in 1991 (who, as
usual, didn't exploit it enough - have you heard much
about AV drives by IBM?) is now going mainstream. In the
second half of the year, [1995] Seagate, Fujitsu, HP et al will
ship embedded servo MR drives in quantities, instantly
obsoleting this article. MR drives will also increase the
data density and hence the data thruput by 60% to 80%. At
the same rotational speed of 7.200 rpm, one of these drives
will deliver approximately 12 MB/sec instead of the current 6.8
MB/sec.
That's why these drives will ship as wide or ultra SCSI
drives. More on the matter in the WWW under
http://www.seagate.com/new/newtop.shtml.
Micropolis claims that their "hybrid servo system
combines the best features of both dedicated and embedded
servo system designs and completely eliminates the
requirement for periodic T-Cal operations." More by pointing
your web browser to http://www.microp.com/AVG.html.
Micropolis has implemented this technology in their "Gold"
series. Note that they are saying: "completely eliminates
the requirement for periodic T-Cal operations." They don't
say that they have ditched tcal altogether. In a pure
embedded servo design, no recalibration is necessary at all.
All tracks contain servo information and each head will be
brought automatically to the correct position without any
interruptions.
The AV drive.
As we have seen, current technology AV drives do have to
tcal eventually. They just do it differently than regular
drives. A regular drive does periodic maintenance, or it
goes into tcal when it sees any (usually correctable) error
requiring a re-read. AV-drives try to hide the
recalibration. They perform maintenance while the drive
is idle, they interrupt maintenance when the drive gets
busy, or they do what's called a "posted tcal:" If a
recalibration is scheduled and the drive is busy, the drive
logic delays (or posts) the recalibration until an idle
period is reached. This is the most important feature of
AV drives. Its a feature that's shared by most modern high
performance SCSI drives, AV or not. A stock ST15150, a.k.a.
Seagate Barracuda 4, does posted tcal as a factory default,
just like its more expensive brethren with the "AV" suffix.
AV tuning.
The grizzled backyard mechanic is used to tuning a car.
A hard drive can be tuned within limits. Just like a car can
(or, until computers took over, could) be tuned for power
or economy. Don't expect too much from tuning (10% on a
good day). And as with the car, power carries a price.
First, a little background. SCSI drives are better and
more powerful than their IDE brethren, because they have a
little computer and some memory on the drive itself. The
controller card writes data into the memory, issues a command
to the on-drive computer and then goes about the rest of
its business. The computer on the drive does the rest. The
computer on the drive is programmable and it can be directed
to change its attitude towards data. That's done by setting
variables or flags, which are stored in so-called "Mode Pages."
One of the best known mode page setting is the Write Cache
Flag. Most SCSI drives have an on-board cache which ranges
from 256K up to 1 Meg and more. On some drives, this cache
is strictly for reading data, on most newer drives, the cache
can buffer reads and writes. Obviously, in a capture
situation, a cached write is better, because the computer
simply writes into the cache and doesn't have to wait for the
drive to complete the write operation. Most drives are
shipped with the write cache disabled. That's because in
normal life, more than 90% of all drive operations are reads
and therefore the whole cache is dedicated to reads. Some
drive manufacturers will also claim that disabling the
write cache is safer in case of a power failure, but that's
a Red Herring. A power failure during a file write is a
ticket to disaster, itty-bitty write cache or not.
There are several utilities floating around that allow the
enabling of the write cache. One of the best and painless
is the SCSI Explorer by Adaptec, which is part of their
EZ-SCSI package. Free with their controllers.
The rest of the AV tuning has been done by the hard drive
manufacturers themselves or by "Speed Shops", a.k.a. hard drive
integrators.
Their basic strategies are:
+ Turn off error correction. Error correction takes time.
+ Don't let the drive remap bad blocks. Remapping takes time.
+ Don't let the drive retry reads or writes. If it doesn't
get it the first time around, don't try again. Its just
wasting time.
+ Setup the drive with one large cache segment instead of
several.
+ Adjust the prefetch values, so that the drive prefetches
as much as possible. Most AV data are contiguous and a
prefetch will most likely succeed.
+ Optimize the buffer full and buffer empty ratios.
As you can see, half of the "secret tuning recipe"
sacrifices speed for data integrity. The theory behind it
is that a flipped bit in a video stream will have much
less impact on your well-being than a flipped bit in
accounting data. That's why "hot" AV drives should only be
used for AV, not as a system drive. But even as an AV drive,
fiddling with error correction can be an invitation to
disaster. If a bit is flipped in video or audio data, you
will hardly hear or see it. But if its flipped in a file
pointer, the whole file could be burnt toast.
Do-It-Yourself AV Tuning
The tuning of AV drives used to be a specialized chore for
professionals. With reason, because one wrong setting in a
mode page can send the whole drive to the scrap pile.
Peripheral Test Instruments in Lakewood, CO, has put out
Dr. SCSI, a fairly safe application (unless you perform
unguided brain surgery in your drives mode pages - which you
can), that performs AV tuning with a mouse click. The
program is available for DOS, Windows and NT and it costs
less than the premium of one AV drive alone. Information can
be obtained via 303-763-7488 info@scsitools.com or
http://scsitools.com .
The manual comes complete with in-depth SCSI theory and
ample warnings for the unwashed. Highly recommended.
02.03Q: How do I test the speed of my hard drive to see if it is fast
enough to support 2x or 1x burning?
A: A write emulation test is the best method. When the writing light
on the 4020i blinks as it reads all of the files that will be
burnt. Unfortunately the version of Easy CD for Windows 3.11 that
shipped with the 4020i does not support the write emulation test.
The only test it has is a Speed Test, which produces largely
irrelevant information, and can cost you in underruns when you
do actually begin burning. The so called Speed Test that you
can perform in the Win 3.11 software simply copies all of the
files that you wish to burn to null and then sums the total
amount of data and the total amount of time, divides one into
the other and gives you an average speed in kilobytes per second
that the files were transferred from your hard drive to a
null device. For the most part, this is a worthless number.
I say this because while the average transfer rate of your hard
drive may be well above the 300k/sec rate required by 2x
burning, what about the lowest rate? It is with the lowest
transfer rate that we run into difficulty. Who cares about the
average? If the speed test would tell us what the lowest rate
was, then we could decide whether or not to burn at 2x, 1x, or
not at all.
02.04Q: My computer gets pretty hot on the inside. Could this be a source
of failed CD burns?
A: Rick Adams <happypcs@oro.net> contributed the following regarding
drive temperature.
Besides the fan built into the computer's power supply
inside the case, I've got a fan inside that moves more air
through the case. My case provided a place to mount this,
so I just mounted one.
The Fujitsu hard drive M2934QAU I have gets hot and the fan
I've added helps this.
Note that the fan on the CPU chip doesn't cool the case.
It just keeps the CPU chip cooler by moving the heat away
from the CPU, avoiding a hot spot on the chip.
In HP's specs listed in the 4020 installation guide for
the CD-writer drive, the maximum operating temperature is
shown as 35 degrees C, which is 95 degrees F. This means
that if the internal temperature inside your computer's
case goes above 95 degrees F, proper operation of the 4020i
is not guaranteed. It doesn't mean it will always just
stop working. It simply means that HP doesn't suggest
operation above that temperature.
I measured the difference in temperature between the inside
of my computer's case, and the room, with and without the
extra fan I installed turned on. With the extra fan turned
off, using just the fan built into the power supply, the
difference was 22 degrees F. With the fan on, the
difference was 8 deg F.
This means that to not exceed HP's operating temperature of
95 I had to keep the room below 73 deg F without my extra
fan, or 87 deg F with my extra fan. Quite a difference.
I haven't tried this experiment with a cooler running hard
drive, but I know that other large fast scsi's get hot too.
If you've got one of these, there's a chance your internal
case temperature is exceeding HP's maximum for the CD-writer
unless you've got a supplemental fan.
Comparing this to other equipment, it very well could be
that the 4020i's 95 degree requirement is stricter than any
other devices in your computer. I note that most ICs (like
RAM) for consumer application are rated to 40 deg C, or
104 deg F. My Plextor 8X CD reader is rated to 45 deg C or
113 deg F, for example.
Radio Shack sells a thermometer module 277-123 for about
$20, but a fan only costs $10 or $15 bucks, so you might
save the expense of measuring by just getting the auxiliary
fan which is cheaper! Make sure you've got a place to
install and connect it!
03.00 FIRMWARE ISSUES:
03.01Q: What is the deal with the firmware for the 4020i?
A: As far as I know, the 4020i was first shipped with version 1.14
firmware. From my experience, this original firmware, as well as
the original release software, was buggy and was quickly
replaced with version 1.20. I downloaded the 1.20 flash upgrade,
and attempted to run it. According to the dialog boxes, it
claimed to have completed successfully. However when I tried to
burn CDs with the drive, I encountered several error messages,
and when CDs did burn, they usually wouldn't close correctly.
I called HP about this, and they sent me a new drive, with 1.20
firmware on it.
Version 1.20 firmware seems to be quite solid. I have burnt
over 100 CDs with 4020i drives using this firmware and haven't
had any problems. Thus when the 1.25 flash upgrade appeared, I
was rather reluctant to upgrade. However I'm told that version
1.20 does not do CD-XA discs correctly, and that 1.25 was the
answer to this. Hence my reason to upgrade. I ran the flash
upgrade, and it claimed to have flashed just fine. Unfortunately
when I would try to execute a CD-Info command on the drive,
error strings in error dialog boxes would appear. Per HP's tech
support instructions I re-downloaded the 1.25 flash upgrade,
and flashed the drive again. Once again, it completed
successfully. This time however I was able to use the drive.
The CD-Info command worked as it should and everything seemed
to be ok. When I tried to burn a CD, errors once again became
abundant. CDs would not close correctly, usually soft
locking Windows 3.11. I called HP once again, and the support
rep told me to download the 1.20 firmware and flash back to it.
I did this, and was able to write several CDs successfully
after doing so. However, about five CDs later I began getting the
error "Calibration Area Full" from the drive, just before it
would begin writing. I called HP about this, and after
questioning me about what brand of CDs I was using (this error
occurred on every blank I tried, HP, Kodak, MEI, Verbatim)
the tech decided to send me a new drive. Oddly enough, the
new drive has version 1.20 firmware on it, not 1.25.
To summarize:
1.14 - Buggy release firmware.
1.20 - Stable, no CD-XA ability.
1.25 - Flash may not work correctly, supposedly
CD-XA able. The jury is still out
regarding this firmware.
1.26 - Not available as a flash upgrade.
Not sure what it does.
1.27 - Available as a flash upgrade.
Read on to see what version 1.25 and
1.27 do.
Jim Watson <watson@kiss.de> asked HP what version 1.25 changed,
and received the following reply:
Firmware 1.25 improves overall compatibility and
enhances performance. It also allows disc at once
recording and improves access to video CDs and CD+
discs.
Any problems with the drive that were advertised by
users like Jeff Arnold have been fixed with 1.25.
Toni Lindroos <tonilind@sip.fi> asked HP what version 1.27 changed,
and recieved the following reply:
Firmware 1.27 improves overall compatability (even in
Windows NT) and enhances performance. It also allows disc
at once recording and improves access to video CDs and
CD+ discs.
Please note that you MUST upgrade 1.14 drives to 1.20
before writing 1.27, and you MUST use our SCSI controller
in Windows 3.x or 95 to do the upgrade.
03.02Q: I'm having trouble getting flash upgrades to run. What
could be the problem?
A: Jose A. Cid <jac14@po.CWRU.Edu> had the following to say
about his difficulty with running flash upgrades:
I would recommend everyone use an active terminator.
I could not flash a ROM upgrade until I changed the
termination per advice from an HP tech support rep.
03.03Q: Do you have any information on using the 4020i with a Macintosh
computer?
A: Yes, very little. Not being a Mac user, I (gvolk) know very little
about Macs. Tom Hayes <handle@adnc.com> wrote in with the
following about using a 4020i on his Mac:
I have a HP 4020i (firmware 1.20) and I am using it on a
Macintosh. You need the program Toast 3.0 or up, and it
can be mounted as a normal cdrom drive by using the Toast
CD Mounter Extension. I have burnt 3 discs so far and have
had no problems. I made two backups and one bootable disk.
I am using a PowerMac 9500/132, and mounted the cd-r in
place of my cdrom drive and it works very well.
As of 4/19/97, Tom Hayes added:
I have since taken the drive to a friends house with a PC
and upgraded the FIRMWARE to 1.27. It now offers
disc-at-once mode. I have burnt over 20 disc now (both
DATA and AUDIO) and they all have been successful.
This drive works great with Toast, Toast CD-Copy Toast
CD-DA and Toast Audio Extractor.
04.00 SCSI ISSUES:
04.01Q: When I try to burn images with Jeff Arnold's FILE2CD program,
why does the error "Target Abort" occur?
A: It has been my experience that Target Abort errors are generated
by the Advansys SCSI card that the 4020i ships with. To
successfully use jarnold's FILE2CD software, use a different
controller. After getting my first Target Abort error, I decided
to attempt to use an Adaptec 1542 with the drive. This appeared to
completely remedy the problem. I have used the FILE2CD program and
1542 combination many times since then and have had nothing but
successful results.
However, Darin Johnson <nvisions@worldnet.att.net> had the
following to say about his NCR SCSI adapter, DAO (commercial
FILE2CD), and the 4020i:
I have recently purchased Mr. Arnold's DAO program and
it has worked for me except that I started getting those
-24 errors (Target Abort). So I took his advice and took
out that Advansys card, and strung the 4020i onto the PCI
NCR SCSI-2 card that also accommodates my hard drive, 2nd
CD-ROM drives, and an 88Meg Syquest drive. This seemed
to work better, however, I'm still getting Target Abort
errors.
Having read that, it is clear the Advansys card is not entirely
at fault, and that the problem only occurs with certain
combinations of the 4020i and various SCSI boards.
Furthermore, Russell Thamm <russell.thamm@dsto.defence.gov.au>
had the following to say regarding the 1542 and Target Abort
errors:
As far as I can tell, the target abort error returned
by Jeff Arnold's program could either be:
1) buffer underrun
or
2) write append error
I also had problems with EasyCD with write append errors,
so I presumed that the problem with FILE2CD were also
'write append' errors.
The point is that I had these problems using an Adaptec
AHA-1542 interface card. When I had the HP4020i replaced
AND upgrade to the 1.25 firmware, the problem has
disappeared (I hope). As far as I can tell, the fault
was caused by either a dud unit or the 1.20 firmware.
04.02Q: Can I use my 4020i with a SCSI controller other than the Advansys
controller it ships with?
A: Yes you can. I have successfully used the 4020i with an
Adaptec 1542CF controller. The only change that I had to make
was in the SCSISelect utility. Upon getting into SCSI select,
you will need to select Device Configuration. Then go to the ID
that the 4020i is on (default = 2). Where it says YES for
FAST SCSI, change it to say NO. If you attempt to burn CDs
when this is set to YES, you will run into mysterious Buffer
Underrun Errors. I don't know why this causes buffer underruns,
but it does.
As for using SCSI controllers other than the 1542CF, I'm looking
for others who have done this. If you wouldn't mind typing up
your experience with other SCSI controllers and sending them to
me, I'd be happy to add it to this document, and give credit.
Tim Goldstein sent in two things to watch for when purchasing
a host adapter for your 4020i drive:
A bus mastering SCSI host adapter is strongly recommended.
Must include drivers that support CD-R, blank media, and
multi-session discs otherwise you will only have a writer.
Rick Adams <happypcs@oro.net> had the following to say about the
2940UW and 4020i combo:
I have an Adaptec 2940 UW ultra wide, which isn't the same
as a 2940 regular. Using the 1.25 firmware I was able to
get the HP drive to read correctly when connected to the
2940UW, but I had many CD writing lockups and errors so I
now use the HP supplied controller and 1.20 until the HP
/ Adaptec ultrawide / firmware / whatever / issues are
resolved!
Rick also points out a configuration problem with the 2940
that can cause buffer underruns.
I did get a buffer underrun once, but since I always write
CD's from a freshly formatted partition on my hard drive, I
had to dig further to discover that Adaptec's default
20 MB/sec ultra wide transfer rate was pushing my Fujitsu
2934QAW drive too fast and causing SCSI bus error retries.
The SCSI bus retry procedure is slow enough to cause the
buffer to underrun. Setting the maximum synchronous transfer
rate that the 2940 uses to talk to my drive down to 10
MB/sec cured that.
It is also recommended that your Adaptec 2940 adapter be running
with no less than the version 1.16 BIOS.
04.03Q: Can I have other devices on the same SCSI chain as the 4020i,
or will it really screw things up?
A: Yes, you can have other devices on the chain, providing
you make sure that your termination is correct. I have run my
4020i off of an Adaptec 1542CF with a scanner plugged into the
external SCSI port. The scanner was terminated as well as the
4020i. This setup appeared to work just fine.
Tim Goldstein sent in the following about other devices on the
same chain as the 4020i:
You must be careful when placing the CD-Writer on a SCSI
bus with other devices. If there is a possibility that one
of the other devices will be accessed during a write, (i.e.
a hard drive) it could cause a data delay resulting in a
buffer underrun.
04.04Q: I keep getting SCSI timeout errors, what can I do about this?
A: In response to this question, Andy McFadden <fadden@netcom.com>
writes:
Possible resolutions to this problem that occurred while
using an Adaptec SCSI controller are:
- Put the writer on SCSI ID 2
- Turn off Fast SCSI, SCSI Linking, SCSI Disconnect, etc
for the writer
04.05Q: Can passive/active SCSI termination effect the 4020i?
A: Jose A. Cid <jac14@po.CWRU.Edu> had the following to say
regarding termination:
I would recommend everyone use an active terminator.
I could not flash a ROM upgrade, until I changed the
termination per advice from an HP tech support rep.
04.06Q: Are there any known problems with the packaged Advansys controller?
What do I need to know about using this controller?
A: Rick Adams <happypcs@oro.net> posted the following to Usenet
about the Advansys SCSI host adapter:
If you are using the HP supplied controller from
Advansys be advised there are at least 2 revisions of the
card. The one I first got was positively identified to
produce random read errors when reading from the HP CD.
This means that if I used the HP drive to read a CD,
I occasionally had corrupted data during reading. Didn't
matter if the disk was a silver manufactured CD or a CD
writer burnt CD. I was sometimes seeing as many as 10
bytes wrong in one whole disk read, to as few as 1 byte
wrong in 30 CD reads. Yes this is a tiny error rate, but
there should be absolutely no errors of this sort. This
was traced down to be the cause of one CD I burnt that had
two wrong bytes on it. That is, since the drive read in
some wrong bytes, that's what it wound up writing.
The solution to the read error problem was to swap out the
HP supplied controller card. The one that caused the read
errors had the following chips: two of IS61C256AH-20J, two
of ML6509CD, one of Atmel 16FE-17, one of Advansys ASC900,
one of IS93C46-3GR. This board was sent back to HP.
The easiest way to identify if you have the better board
which HP sent me is to see if it has LS245 chips on it.
If so, you're in luck. That board didn't produce the above
mentioned readback errors.
J. Robert Sims, III contributed the following:
The errors described only happen with particular boards
that improperly expect extra lines be driven by the card.
Either revision of the board with most motherboards do not
have the problem; only the specific combination of the old
board with a very small set of motherboards will show the
error.
04.07Q: What Transfer Rate should I have my host adapter set at? Does it
matter?
A: The vast majority of CDR users I have spoken with tell me that they
are set at 5 MB/sec. One user did report problems with static in
his audio CDs. He said that reducing the host adapter transfer
rate to 2 MB/sec fixed this.
05.00 SOFTWARE ISSUES:
05.01Q: What is the deal with the software that comes with the 4020i?
A: Originally the 4020i shipped with beta software of Incat
Easy CD for Windows v3.11. This original beta version
was just that, a beta. It appeared to have several bugs that
effected disc closing, and data preprocessing (what it does
with all the filenames before it begins to write).
The current version of Easy CD that can be found on HP's web site
seems to be solid. I have burnt 100+ CDs with this version,
and most have been successful. Of those CDs that did not burn
correctly, I have concluded that the source of the problem was
hardware related.
05.02Q: Why can't I make copies of Sony Play Station CDs with my 4020i?
A: Because Sony doesn't want you to. Sony has changed the format
several times in the last few months, to make it more difficult
for CDR software packages to create successful images of these
discs. Several packages will make copies of older Play Station
games, but the new PS discs have been written/stamped differently
to make this impossible without modifications to existing CDR
software packages. For more information about this, take a gander
at http://www.infinet.com/~terrax/psx.htm.
05.03Q: Why does my 4020i only show up as a 2x reader in Easy CD Pro 95
after I ran the version 1.25 firmware upgrade?
A: Deirdre' Straughan <74431.2004@compuserve.com> of Adaptec Inc.
wrote the following in response to a similar question posted to
comp.publish.cdrom.hardware.
We disabled 4x reading on the HP/Philips 2000 because
in testing we found that an "Optimum power calibration
failure" error occurs when, after reading at 4x, you
write at 1x. It seems to be a firmware problem. we have
informed the manufacturers about it.
05.04Q: I often hear about Jeff Arnold's software. Where can I get
more information about this?
A: http://www.goldenhawk.com/
05.05Q: While Easy CD is creating the virtual file data base, before
it begins writing, I have gotten something similar to the
following error:
Virtual database error 39-00-00-00
What is going on, and what can I do about it?
A: According to the Easy CD error list, available at
http://www.adaptec.com/support/cdrec/ecd95err.html this error means
that the maximum amount of data that can be put on the CD has been
exceeded. Remove a few files and try it again. The Max CD size
is not dependent on the number of files.
05.06Q: Why have I begun to get intermittent "Calibration Area Full"
errors when I attempt to burn a CD?
A: This error is possibly linked to a humming noise that the drive
makes after heavy long term usage. I called HP Tech Support
regarding this, and for a while it seemed that they were
attempting to blame the problem on the CD-R media I was using.
After getting the same results with the HP SureStore CD-R brand
media they agreed to send out a new drive. Unfortunately this
is the extent of what I know about this error message.
05.07Q: What does buffer underrun mean?
Deirdre' Straughan <74431.2004@compuserve.com> posted the following
article to Usenet explaining buffer underruns, and what can be
done about them:
About Buffer Underruns
CD writing is a real-time process which must run
constantly at the selected recording speed, without
interruptions. The CD recorder's buffer is constantly
filled with a reserve of data waiting to be written, so
that small slowdowns or interruptions in the flow of data
from the computer do not interrupt writing
A buffer underrun error means that for some reason the
flow of data from hard disk to CD recorder was interrupted
long enough for the CD recorder's buffer to be emptied,
and writing was halted. If this occurs during an actual
write operation rather than a test, your recordable disc
may be ruined
Possible Causes of Buffer Underruns
====================================
Hard Disk
* "Dumb" thermal recalibration.
* Fragmented hard drive.
* Cluster size at 32kb instead of 16kb.
* Not enough space in temporary directory.
Hardware
* Slow source devices.
* Source devices that transfer data in bursts.
* Incorrect recorder controller settings.
* Inability of the devices to sync properly.
* Overall system configuration.
* Computer unable to allow fast enough data transfer.
* Old device drivers.
Memory Resident Programs
* Any program that may activate on its own
* Anti-virus software
* Screen savers
* System agents
* Schedulers
* TSR (terminate and stay resident) software
* Networks
* System sounds
* Animated icons
Networks
* Recording across the network (usually too slow to
maintain adequate throughput speed).
* Incoming e-mail or faxes.
* Other people accessing your computer.
* Windows 95
* Modify Virtual Memory Settings (see below).
* If you have more than 16 MB of RAM, disable Auto
Insert Notification (see below).
* If you have more than 16 MB of RAM, change the hard
drive's Typical Role to Network Server (see below).
Files to Be Recorded
* Recording many small files.
* Damaged source files (data loss).
* Trying to record files in use by the system or other
applications.
Other
* Copying from a CD that is scratched, dirty, or damaged.
* Recorder malfunction.
Checks / Prevention
* Disable or remove everything in the computer EXCEPT the
operating system, the recording software, and the drivers
for your source devices.
* Defragment your hard drives at least once a week to
prevent files from scattered across the hard drive.
* Do not record across a network. Copy the desired files
to your local hard drive.
* Log out of any networks if possible, including Windows
for Workgroups and/or Microsoft Network.
* For best results use SCSI 2 source devices.
* Disc to disc copying, requires a SCSI 2, fully ASPI-
compliant CD-ROM drive. We recommend at least a 4x.
Copying audio requires a source CD-ROM drive which
supports digital audio extraction.
* Make sure your hard drive does Smart Thermal
Recalibration. (that is, that it won't recalibrate if
the CPU is being used).
* Record at a slower speed.
* Write an .ISO image to the hard disk first, if you have
enough hard drive space
* In any operating system, always using the newest drivers
from your SCSI controller card manufacturer.
* Always set audio to write at 1x.
* Keep the CDs, the recorder, and your source CD-ROM drive
free.
* Make sure your SCSI controller card is FULLY ASPI-compliant.
* Do not try to copy empty directories, zero byte files,
or files that may be in use by the system at the time.
* More than 10,000 very small files should be written to
an .ISO image first or recorded at 1x if possible.
* The temporary directory should always have space free at
least twice the size of the largest file you are
recording.
* The entire computer, from the motherboard bus to the
recorder itself, needs to be configured properly for
faster recording and highest maximum sync transfer rate.
* Change the DMA transfer rate for the card being used.
* Try increasing the bus clock speed to 8 MHz if the
motherboard allows this.
* With DOS 6.22 or below and a source hard disk 1
gigabyte or larger, partitions should be kept smaller
than one gigabyte so that hard disk sector size is 16kb
instead of 32kb.
* Try a different hard disk and /or gold recordable disc.
Windows 95 Settings
====================
Virtual Memory (if you have more than 16 MB of RAM)
1. Right click on My Computer.
2. Select the Performance tab.
3. Click on the Virtual Memory button.
If you have:
* 8-bit color, select 16MBs for both the minimum and
maximum size
* 16-bit color, select 16MBs for both the minimum and
maximum size
* 24-bit color, select 32 MBs for both the minimum and
maximum size
* 32-bit color, select 32 MBs for both the minimum and
maximum size
Hard Drive Typical Role (if you have more than 16 MB of RAM)
1. Right click on My Computer.
2. Select the Performance tab.
3. Click on the File System button.
4. Choose the Hard Disk tab.
5. Change "Typical Role of this machine" to Network
Server. This re-prioritizes the hard drive so that it
is given priority over other hardware and software
functions
Turning Off Auto Insert Notification
Note:
You should do this for every CD unit on your SCSI
bus, including the CD recorder itself!
1. Right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop.
2. Select Properties from the menu. The System
Properties dialog box opens.
3. Click the Device Manager tab.
4. Click the plus sign next to the CD-ROM icon
until you see the name of your CD drive. Select
it.
5. Click on the Properties button. The Properties
dialog box for your CD drive will open.
6. Click on the Settings tab.
7. Deselect "Auto insert notification."
8. Restart your system as prompted.
The above contribution from Deirdre Straughan is (c) 1996
Adaptec, Inc., all rights reserved.
David Best <dtbest@espweb.com> wrote in to say that after
countless buffer underruns, and many system reconfigurations,
HP agreed to send him a new drive. After installing the new
drive, the buffer underrun problem was fixed. HP mentioned to
him that some of the older drives have inherent buffer underrun
problems regardless of what system they are run on.
05.08Q: Where can I find a list of Easy CD error codes and what they
mean?
A: Take a look at
http://websvr1.adaptec.com/support/cdrec/ecd95err.html
and http://surf.adaptec.com/easycd/mostcomm.html for fixes
to common Easy CD problems.
05.09Q: Whenever I get about 70% of a CD written, the 4020i stops
and says "write append error." Also, when I try to select
"Close Disc" the drive starts writing but then stops and
reports "Internal Controller Error." What going on here?
A: Mark Natis <u3710126@au1.au.ac.th> sent this question
and the following answer which was given to him by Hewlett
Packard SureStore tech support:
Write Append and Internal Controller Errors are usually
caused by bad SCSI card settings, bad cables, and/or
memory issues.
Use a different SCSI cable if one is available. Otherwise
switch ends of the current cable so that the connectors are
hooked to the other device. Check for third-party memory
managers like QEMM or RamDoubler. These can cause problems
Windows 3.x and should not be used in Windows 95.
Rick Adams <happypcs@oro.net> mentioned the following regarding
Internal Controller errors:
Just prior to writing a CD, I power down and restart my
computer into Windows 95. Naturally I make sure screen
savers are off and my 10B2 network card is connected only
to a 50 ohm terminator. But what really seems to have
gotten rid of the "internal controller error" problem was
the procedure of first turning the computer off and on,
then not doing any other CD reading or starting any other
tasks before writing the CD. It seems something isn't
being properly reset unless the power is turned off.
Revisiting the memory issue area, one user reported that after
he reseated his SIMMs, his write append errors went away.
Despite the above information relating write append errors to
host adapters, several users have mailed me with experiences
in which thier CDR setup was working fine, and then suddenly
began to spew forth write append errors. In all of these cases,
the solution was to get the drive replaced.
Another possible source of "Internal Controller" errors is heat.
See 02.04Q for more information about max operating temperatures.
Alex Corwin <adc8@cornell.edu> wrote in with the following
adding yet another chapter to the continuing saga of write append
errors.
I have been experiencing that error with increasing
frequency. Initially, it occured only sporatically for
2x writes. Over time, performance was denegrated to
the point where it now gives me a write append error
for all 1x writes as well. I've tried switching the
dma speed (no help) as well as removing various other
cards in my system looking for conflicts (no help either).
So I finally called HP tech support. The technician,
upon hearing my "symptoms" (including an explanation of
the various attempts I had made to fix the problem)
immediatly offered to send me a replacement drive. He said
the problem was not uncommon, and gave an explanation to
the following effect (paraphrased):
The writers have heavier heads than just readers
(due to their increased functionality) and tend to
become disalligned easier. The reason the error
occurs near the end of a write is because at that
point the head is positioned at the edge of the
disc, and thus the disc moves by faster. Also,
if this error occurs once in a while, it is no
cause for concern.
<gvolk> Gee its nice to know that infrequent write append errors
are "no cause for concern." I guess CDR discs really DO grow on
trees!
05.10Q: After a buffer underrun, the disc remains unclosed (as indicated
by the diagnose program). How do I close the disc and why can
I only access the last written session but no sessions prior to
that?
A: Mark Natis <u3710126@au1.au.ac.th> sent this question
and the following answer which was given to him by Hewlett
Packard SureStore tech support:
The software will close the disc if it can. Since it hasn't
been able to so far, that indicates communication with the
CD-R might not be very good.
Use the CFGISA program to change the controller's DMA
Speed to 3. Also try changing the DMA channel and IRQ.
Frequently when a session fails, it will disappear when
you add more data to the CD later.
I (gvolk) have also found that sometimes Jeff Arnold's
freeware program FINALIZE can help in correctly closing an
erred CD.
05.11Q: Is it enough to just disable Advanced Power Management by software?
A: Mark Natis <u3710126@au1.au.ac.th> sent this question
and the following answer which was given to him by Hewlett
Packard SureStore tech support:
Some computers will attempt to shut down hardware to save
power. This action has been seen to cause delays in
writing, even when power saving features are suspended
through software. The best fix is to disable power
saving features in the computer's CMOS (BIOS) setup.
05.12Q: When I attempt to read multisession CDs with the 4020i drive,
only the most recent session shows up, but in other CD-ROM
drives all the sessions are visible.
A: J. Robert Sims III answered this one with the following:
The c4324hlp.vxd driver is not installed in the
\windows\system\iosubsys directory. Get the latest version
of the driver. The driver cdr4vsd.vxd from Adaptec is a
newer substitute for c4324hlp.vxd.
05.13Q: Where can I find information pertaining to using the 4020i
with OS/2?
Check out
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/fcassia/hpcdros2.htm
05.14Q: I want to burn CDs under Linux. What software is available for
this?
CD-WRITE 2.x has been reported to work successfully with the
4020i as well as xcdroast-0.95. I have heard particularly good
things about xcdroast, although I haven't used it myself.
A brief note regarding Linux and the 4020i, written by Jamil
Weatherbee <jamil@cdrom.com>:
You will need two tools and possibly a recompilation of
your kernel.
1. You'll need to get a program called mkisofs this will
turn a directory structure into a raw cd track image. It
can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from
ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/BETA/cdrom/
mkisofs-1.05.tar.gz
2. You will then have to get a program called cdwrite
which will write a raw data track image onto a cdr. This
can be found (via anonymous ftp) at
tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/distributions/debian/buzz/source
/misc/cdwrite-2.0-1.tar.gz
3. You will have to have scsi generic support compiled
into your kernel for cdwrite to work, you will want to
make a symlink from /dev/sg? (depending on which general
scsi device your worm drive is (the first shown in the
kernel startup messages is /dev/sga etc. [be careful with
this you don't want to accidentally spam your hard drive
trying to burn a cd])) to /dev/cdwriter { the default
device that cdwrite tries to write
to }.
05.15Q: Ever since I added a Wacom Artpad to my system, the 4020i does
not show up when CDR software is loaded. What is wrong?
Richard Cheng <le@brokersys.com> ran into this problem and sent
in the following:
Recently, I had problems getting CDR programs (Easy
CD Pro, Gear, and EZ-SCSI CD Writer) to recognize my
HP4020i. The CDR drive is attached to an Adaptec 2940
along with a SCSI CD-Rom drive and a hard disk. I was
suspecting the incompatibility of 2940 and the CDR.
After the battle with the CDR and the programs over the
past couple days, I found the problem rested on the
Wacom Artpad II driver that I have installed. The Wacom
driver requires the deletion of serenum.vxd from the
system subdirectory. This was the cause of all my
problems. After uninstalling the Wacom driver and
replacing the serenum.vxd file, my HP4020i is working
again.
06.00 MISC ISSUES:
06.01Q: About three seconds after I put a disc in my 4020i the drive
begins to make humming noises. What is going on?
A: Several users have written to me regarding this problem, and
before sending back my second drive it began happening to
me. For me, it began happening only after I had the drive
for a while, (3 months) and after I had burnt/read 100+ CDs.
As far as I know, something is obviously wearing out and you
should call Tech Support and ask them what they suggest you do.
Additionally, see the question dealing with "Calibration Area
Full" errors in the SOFTWARE ISSUES section of this document
for a possible link to an error message.
06.02Q: I want to burn a CD with a network drive as my data source.
Is this a good idea?
A: Success in burning CDs from a network drive is dependent on many
things. Most PC networks today (5/96) are 10 Megabit per second
Ethernet. This means that the maximum rate at which data will get
from the host computer to the target machine is theoretically as
high as about one megabyte per second. Of course, predicted values
and actual values are rarely the same. Thus is the case with
10 megabit per second Ethernet. With the right combination of
hardware and software, we can typically achieve transfer rates
of up to 800 kilobytes per second. This is on an Ethernet segment
that has little or no traffic, and when both the host and
destination machines are doing nothing but concentrating on the
job at hand. Network data flow interruptions can come from
various sources on an Ethernet network. Most delays are a result
of network traffic. An Ethernet network is not a good choice for
CD burning for one major reason. Ethernet is a non-deterministic
(non-real-time) "delay or drop" network. This means that when you
request data from a file server on an Ethernet network, it may
or may not get to you, and there is no way to tell when, or how
fast it will get to you. I have burnt CDs on a 10 mb/sec Ethernet
network and have had mixed results. Originally I did a music
CD (very few, very large files). This worked fine at 2x. The
host computer was a P-90 with 16 megs, running Windows 95
reading data that was stored on a 1.2 GB Western Digital hard
drive. When I tried to do a data CD that contained 600 megs
across 10,000+ files I encountered nothing but underruns.
Underruns were prevalent at both 1x and 2x. And this was on a
network that had zero traffic aside from the host PC and my PC.
Because of this, I am inclined to discourage people from burning
CDs from a network drive.
As for FAST (100 Mbit) Ethernet, once again the amount of traffic
must be taken into consideration, but aside from that my own
experience with burning CDs on a fast ethernet network have been
good.
06.03Q: What other sources of information are out there for the 4020i
drive and/or CD-Recording?
A: HP's 4020i support page can be found at:
http://hpcc998.external.hp.com/isgsupport/cdr/index.html
Drivers, software, and firmware upgrades are available from:
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/information_storage/surestore/cd-writer/
The CD-ROM FAQ can be found at:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/cdrom-faq/faq.html
More information about the bundled software (Easy CD) can be
found at the following web site:
http://surf.adaptec.com/easycd/
Information about CD-R, CD-ROM, and just about any developments
in the Compact/Optical Disc industry can be found at:
http://www.cd-info.com/
06.04Q: Should I be using my 4020i as a general purpose reader?
A: Andy McFadden <fadden@netcom.com> writes:
You can, but it's not clear that you'd want to. The seek
times tend to be slower than a standard CDROM drive
because the head assembly is heavier. There's also not
much need for rapid seeks when writing a disc, so there's
little reason for manufacturers to try to optimize this.
Some users have reported jerky video playback on a CD-R
drive.
The MTBF on CD-R units tends to be low, so it may be
wise to use a different drive for general use.
06.05Q: What does Optimum Power Calibration Error mean?
A: Deirdre' Straughan <74431.2004@compuserve.com> writes:
It means that the recorder is unable to calibrate laser
power for the disc. Try different media. If that doesn't
help, get the recorder checked.
06.06Q: Why are the left and right audio channels swapped when I
execute a disc-at-once audio burn?
A: This is a firmware problem, and has been corrected in
firmware 1.25. See Q&A 03.01 for more info regarding this
bug.
06.07Q: Why does it seem that the 4020i drive has taken such a beating
in several discussion forums. (Usenet etc) Is it a good drive
to purchase?
A: As far as I can theorize, it is because the 4020i drive was
one of the first low priced, mass marketed CD-R drives out.
The 4020i beat most of the competition to the market for
one reason: It wasn't finished. It wasn't ready to be used
by the general public. When first introduced, it had buggy
firmware, and the original units were shipped with
beta software. This is a bad combination for any device,
but is particularly bad when your dealing with a device that
uses write once media, that costs $8.00 per disc (average 12/95).
In addition to being reasonably priced, HP's good reputation
for quality computer peripherals lead many buyers to purchase
a 4020i drive.
Since the drive's original release, HP has released new
(non-beta) firmware, and Adaptec has released new (non-beta)
software. This has certainly had the effect of silencing many
of the critics of the 4020i, but many still remain. Many of
these critics are having trouble because they do not have
the necessary hardware that is required to write a CD, while
others correctly cite existing software/firmware bugs.
Having said that, I do believe that the HP SureStore 4020i
CDR drive is equally as good as other CDR drives in its
price range.
In response to this question, Deirdre' Straughan
<74431.2004@compuserve.com> makes the following point:
One reason for this is simply the numbers. Many, many
units of the HP are being sold. In my experience, a
certain percentage of users of ANY CD recorder and
software will have problems, especially in the beginning
when they're getting their systems tuned to write CDs.
That's real life with computers, folks, and I think
you're all experienced enough to know that.
Real life on the Internet is that most people come to
forums like this one to seek help and/or complain. Not
many bother to pop in to say "I just love this recorder!"
So you will always see a large number of people beating up
the HP (and other recorders) online. But please keep in
mind that they are only a percentage of the people who
are actually using the recorder -- the contented majority
is largely invisible.
06.08Q: When using the Goldenhawk Technology (jarnold) DAO CD-R software
my audio CDs end up with popping noises in them. The
source WAV/BIN/MOT files sound perfectly fine when played
off of the hard drive. What gives?
A: In response to a similar question posted on
comp.publish.cdrom.hardware, Jeff Arnold <jarnold@mainstream.net>
replied with:
Just to set the record straight... this person is using
a pirated copy of my software which is why he's getting
"crackles" in his audio tracks.
I got tired of people pirating my software, so when
the program detects that it has been hacked, it randomly
writes zeros into the data being written to the blank
disc.
The pirates (a group known as X-FORCE) that hacked the
protection on my software aren't too bright. They didn't
even bother to test the software before distributing it
around the net.
I finally got my revenge :-) :-)
06.09Q: I've made several audio compilation CDs, and plan to make more.
What can I do to speed up the process of copying the audio CD
tracks to WAV files?
A: Most of the typical CD Rom drives out there can not do digital
audio extraction at more than 1x. Attempting to extract audio
tracks at more than 1x with these drives usually causes
jittering to occur, which ends up giving you an incorrect
reproduction of the audio data in your WAV file. Jitter can be
blamed for inconsistent extracted file sizes, and popping/crackling
noises in the output WAV files.
To get around the Jitter problem, you can do one of two things.
a) Buy the Goldenhawk DAO package. It comes with a program
called CDCLIP.EXE that does some sort of Jitter Correction.
b) Buy a high end CDRom drive that does Digital Audio
Extraction at its full speed. The Plextor drives do this
as well as a few others.
If you are wanting to use your IDE/EIDE CD-ROM drive for Digital
Audio Extraction, check out the following web page:
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~psyche/pc/cdrom/CDDA.html
06.10Q: Well, this isn't really a question, just sort of list of things
that you should watch out for before you begin burning a CD.
A: Pre-Burn checklist:
The following is a list of items that you may want to run through
before burning a CD as they may have an impact on CD burning.
* Run scandisk, or an equivalent program to clean up any
errors on your hard drive.
* Run defrag, or an equivalent program to decrease delays
in locating data on your hard drive for on-the-fly burns.
* Unload any Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) programs.
* Turn off and unload any screen savers.
* Turn off backdrop images.
* Turn off any "System Agent" programs that might begin
doing "Preventative Maintenance" during a CD burn.
* Turn off "Auto Insert Notification" in Windows 95.
* Disable any Advanced Power Management (APM) options in your
computer's BIOS.
* See that the computer is at "operating temperature" that is
let it completely warm up to possibly avoid T-Cal problems.
* Shutdown (power off) and restart your computer right before
you burn.
Bob Niland <rjn@csn.net> wrote in with the following additional
suggestions:
* Before writing your first CDR, make sure your 4020i works
well as a reader. Stress test it with various data and
audio CDs. In particular, try some ~80 minute audio CDs
and ensure that it can play right to the outer edge.
* Run any SCSI utilities you have (including any in BIOS)
to ensure that the interface card and drivers think the
bus is set up properly (esp termination) and that all
devices are seen and correctly identified.
* If your SCSI card supports it (in BIOS or
DeviceManager:Properties), disable Disconnect/Reconnect,
but just for the CDR.
* Make sure you have the latest ASPI layer for your card.
* Avoid writing to the CDR from a hard disk on the same
SCSI bus. If you don't have ATA/EIDE/IDE hard drives,
consider getting a second SCSI card.
* Avoid using a compressed hard disk for the system TEMP
directory, or as the target of a CD image build, or as
the source for an on-the-fly write from filesystem to CDR.
* Do not perform any I/O to/from any other device on the
CDR's SCSI bus. Do have those devices powered up, tho.
If you have other devices present, consider cabling so
that they are all downstream from the CDR (make CDR first
device). If one of those devices is an HP ScanJet (as on
my system), make sure it is the LAST device.
* If you have been doing any [PrntScrn] screen copies (or
indeed any cut/paste or drag'n'drop of objects), run
ClipBoard or ClipBook and do an Edit:Delete to flush the
clipboard of any open objects. Having a large screen
capture object on the clipboard can cause unexpected disk
activity and a sloggy system.
* Shut down any networking. Unplug the BNC or RJ45
connector.
* Make the system "quiet". Wait for any print spooling to
complete, for example.
* If you have an HP printer connected via serial port (not
parallel), turn it off. The control character sent every
five seconds using the "Robust XON" protocol can cause
UART interrupts.
* Just before finally starting the write to the CDR, wait 5
seconds or so for Windows to flush the disk cache of any
pending writes.
* Other things to try:
- Re-partition your hard disk to get ptn sizes under 1 GB
(allocation unit size of 16KB)
- Disable "Sync Negotiation" for the CDR (BIOS or DevMgr).
- If you have any real-mode (16-bit) device drivers
loading in AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS, "REM" them out
and reboot (unless required to support basic system
functions).
- Switch your video card to simple VGA mode using the
Microsoft default VGA driver (Oak?). Some PCI cards
are bus hogs using their own branded drivers.
- Different media type. If not using HP-branded, try
another brand of "gold" disc, such as Kodak.
* If you have trouble writing large CD images, try turning
off virtual memory. Don't try this until everything
else has failed!
ControlPanel:System:Performance:[VirtualMemory]
(*) Let me specify
[x] Disable virtual memory
* Inspect the bottom of the CDR medium for dust and debris.
Use a photo blower bulb duster to remove it.
06.11Q: I'm having trouble getting my 4020i to read CDs correctly. What
is wrong? What can I do?
A: As of this version of the FAQ, I do not have any substantial
information regarding solutions to reading problems. I know that
the problems do exist, and are most likely related to shortcomings
in software (drivers), but beyond that I have little to offer in
response to the above question. If anyone out there has something
more informative, please pass it along to me. The problems involving
reading are typically described as follows:
Can not read multisession discs while other CDROM drives can.
Can not read single session discs.
Can not successfully build an ISO image of certain CDs.
Can read audio tracks, but not data.
Can only see the first session of a multisession disc.
Reliability in reading CDs appears to be dependent on OS.
Also, see 05.12Q about updated .VXD drivers.
Addition to 06.11A as of 4/19/97:
Take a look at
http://www.adaptec.com/support/cdrec/download.html
regarding drivers for various CDR drives.
07.00 FAQ HISTORY:
Version Number Date Main reason(s) for new version.
1.0 5/31/96 - Initial distribution.
Posted to comp.publish.cdrom.* 5/31/96
1.1 6/2/96 - Applied standard Internet FAQ
format. Added information regarding
AV hard disk drives, and Ethernet
as a data source.
Posted to comp.publish.cdrom.* 6/2/96
1.2 6/6/96 - Added contributions regarding firmware,
swapping of left and right audio
channels, possible solutions to
buffer underruns.
1.3 6/17/96 - Added info regarding Digital Audio
Extraction, solution to popping noises
when using the Goldenhawk DAO software,
problems related to Advanced Power
Management (APM), closing discs, and
"Internal Controller Error" message.
Added URL of Easy CD Error Codes.
1.4 7/1/96 - Added Rick Adams' contribs regarding
2940 & 4020i combo, and possible
"Internal Controller Error" remedy.
Added URL of software for DAE from
IDE/EIDE CDRom drives. Added info
about heat related problems, added
Pre-Burn checklist, corrected Easy CD
Error 39-00-00-00 answer, added URL of
"Common Easy CD Errors."
Posted to comp.publish.cdrom.* 7/1/96
1.5 9/1/96 - Revised answer to 05.07Q.
Added 05.12Q.
Added 04.07Q.
Added 06.11Q.
Added 06.12Q.
Revised answer to 09.05Q.
Posted to Usenet 9/1/96.
1.6 10/1/96 - Added Adaptec copyright notice to
contribs section.
Updated 04.06Q
Deleted 04.07Q
Updated 05.12Q
Added 05.13Q
Posted to Usenet 10/1/96.
1.7 11/1/96 - Revised 03.01 Answer.
Maintainer's (gvolk's) address has
changed to gvolk@umr.edu as the
freon.republic.k12.mo.us server has not
been reliable recently.
1.8 12/1/96 - Changed URL in 05.08 Answer regarding
location of list of EasyCD error codes.
Updated 06.12.
1.9 1/1/97 - Revised 05.09 answer.
Posted 1/8/97 Added 04.07.
2.0 2/1/97 - Added to 06.12
Posted 2/2/97 Added Bob Niland to contribs list.
Posted 3/5/97
2.1 4/1/97 - Added 03.04.
Posted 4/14/97 - Delayed posting because the umr.edu
news server was being respooled.
2.2 5/1/97 - Updated answer to 06.11.
- Updated answer to 03.04.
2.3 8/1/97 - Revised 01.01A.
Posted 8/14/97 Revised 01.03A.
Revised 02.02A.
Deleted Q&A about passworded firmware.
Revised 05.04A.