P3D Re: CD-R Hell

[Project3D@xxxxxxx]

I've been following the CD-R(W) postings with interest - they all sound much
too familiar!

My Philips CDD 3600 came bundled with Easy CD Creator version 3.01 and Direct
CD version 3.00.

After nearly a box of coasters I change the unit for another, which made
absolutely no difference. 

The drive (SCSI interface) came with a fairly thick manual containing lots of
wonderful information about how CD-Rs work, and virtually nothing about how to
use the drive! Purely by luck, I noticed a help line number on one of the
little leaflets and got through to someone who seemed to know what he was
talking about!

It transpired that I had to reconfigure my SCSI interface to make it work.
This information was easily forthcoming, and clearly he had a crib sheet to
refer to. Perhaps they should pack this with the drive?

Anyway, after setting the perameters as required (slowest transfer rate, etc)
the system was at last stable - it had been freezing all the time whenever the
drive was connected - but I still got coasters.

Another call to the helpdesk (whose line, co-incidentally had failed at this
time!) eventually gave the information that Direct CD is ONLY for re-writable
CDs - which is not what is suggested by the software, but makes sense - and
Easy CD Creator was up to version 3.5b. This last I had discovered for myself
from the Adaptec web site - I had even downloaded the upgrade - but I still
let him send it on CD.

Since installing it, and ONLY using Easy CD Creator 3.5b, I haven't had one
coaster, and I have even reclaimed a couple of the earlier coasters (some
space was lost in the first session, but they are still storing 400 Meg or
so).

In fact, I am actually putting the miraculous recovery of my CD-RW drive to
the fact that at the height of my misery I went out and bought a Mitsumi 4x
writer (not a re-writer) with the IDE interface, and this worked right out of
the box. Of course, I did have the Easy CD creator 3.5b by then... (Still,
it's useful to have the re-writable functions of the Philips and the 4x write
speed of the Mitsumi!) The Mitsumi (which was bought as a bare drive a couple
of weeks ago) cost £140 (=$230)

Occasionally, I have found that my CDs are not readable on an old SCSI CD-ROM,
but they have ALWAYS been readable on both writers...

Bob Aldridge


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