P3D Direct CD is crap

[Gavin Stokes <gstokes@xxxxxxx>]

I haven't been following the CD-R woes until the last post, but my experience indicates that packet-writing software (Direct CD) is garbage.

I had an HP CD-RW drive that came with only one piece of software: Direct CD.  It is not just for rewritables; it's for any time you want to write to a disc incrementally.  Using only Direct CD, the only way to put files on a disc is to drag them onto the drive in Explorer.  It took TWO HOURS to make a disc this way (note that in the worst case, a disc should only take about 74 minutes).  And the resulting disc was unreadable in many a drive, despite the fact that I selected "make a disc that's readable in any drive".

It sounds like you got your problem fixed, but my recommendation to anyone is a SCSI-based CD-R with CD Creator.  Save the 4X write mode for emergencies and select 2X or 1X when you don't care about speed.  I have a Smart & Friendly 4X recorder and it comes with a generous software bundle.  It's not cheap, but it works every time.

As far as CD-RW goes, I decided it wasn't necessary when you can buy blank CD-Rs for 80 cents apiece.

Remember to keep your source hard drive (and the temp drive if they're different) defragmented.  A fragmented drive can cause buffer underruns while writing a disc.

Regards,
Gavin


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