Hi folks,

Problem is this, My old Panasonic CF-41 laptop works great with
my GPS/APRS goodies, but the internal cd drive doesn't seem to
want to read CDR's. This was a common problem with older 4x and
slower drives. I suspect the internal drive is a 4 speed and working
to original specs perfectly.

Have you found any CDR's that consistantly seem to work with old
drives?

At home I hook my BackPack cd drive up to the laptop and all is well,
but on the road that is not an option.

Thanks for any leads!

Gudmundur wrote:
Hi folks,

Problem is this, My old Panasonic CF-41 laptop works great with
my GPS/APRS goodies, but the internal cd drive doesn't seem to
want to read CDR's. This was a common problem with older 4x and
slower drives. I suspect the internal drive is a 4 speed and working
to original specs perfectly.

Have you found any CDR's that consistantly seem to work with old
drives?

having dealt a bit with similar problem I think your problem may be
more with the controling software than the writing drive

XP esp is not a good choice

look for one the older cd burning programs and try bruning the at 1x
speed

At home I hook my BackPack cd drive up to the laptop and all is well,
but on the road that is not an option.

Thanks for any leads!

Gudmundur wrote:
Hi folks,

Problem is this, My old Panasonic CF-41 laptop works great with
my GPS/APRS goodies, but the internal cd drive doesn't seem to
want to read CDR's. This was a common problem with older 4x and
slower drives. I suspect the internal drive is a 4 speed and working
to original specs perfectly.

Have you found any CDR's that consistantly seem to work with old
drives?

I can't say 100%, but I've had good luck with the following techniques:

1. Use disks with a recording surface that looks yellow (aka "gold").
There are different dyes used and that seems to work the best.

2. Record at no faster than the read speed of the drive.

3. For some unexplained reason, the best luck I have had is with a DVD
burner (I've done it with 3 different ones, LG, Toshiba and NEC)
at single (CD 4x) speed.

4. Turn off any buffer overrun protection. It works by streching out the gap
between sectors and the new gap may be too big for older drives.

5. Always make sure you finalize the disk, close the sessions, fixate
(same thing different software).

6. A CD lens cleaning disk has saved many a drive for me. But I live in
the desert.

I've had great luck with TEAC blanks, they are marked 12x to 52x but they
do work at lower speeds.

Software issues:

I often burn my CDs and DVD roms using a combination of UDF and ISO
file systems. Older operating systems seem to have trouble with them,
limit them to ISO file systems. If you really get stuck, try turning off
rock-ridge and joliet extensions.

Good luck,

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
The trouble with being a futurist is that when people get around to believing
you, it's too late. We lost. Google 2,000,000:Hams 0.

In article ,  says...

Gudmundur wrote:
Hi folks,

Problem is this, My old Panasonic CF-41 laptop works great with
my GPS/APRS goodies, but the internal cd drive doesn't seem to
want to read CDR's. This was a common problem with older 4x and
slower drives. I suspect the internal drive is a 4 speed and working
to original specs perfectly.

Have you found any CDR's that consistantly seem to work with old
drives?

I can't say 100%, but I've had good luck with the following techniques:


Sorry I did not explain better my meaning. This unit does not 'burn'
cd's at all, and I wasn't looking to do that. I have burned the CDR's
on my big computer and want to read them on the laptop, and the laptop
refuses to see most CDR's. It seems to read some of my older sony cdr's
however. They are shiney silver color, and it would make sense that
those are readable. Burning at 1X on my big computer seems to help.
The CDR's made on the big computer are 'good' if you want to say that
as everyone else with 8X or faster drives can read them fine.

Just looking for a more easily 'readable' CDR that my old laptop
may find easier to deal with. The laptop reads store bought 'master'
CD's just fine, music or data, it's the less reflective CDR surface
that trip this thing up.

In article ,
Gudmundur wrote:

Just looking for a more easily 'readable' CDR that my old laptop
may find easier to deal with. The laptop reads store bought 'master'
CD's just fine, music or data, it's the less reflective CDR surface
that trip this thing up.

You might want to try to find a supply of older-chemistry blanks which
are designed to be burned at speeds no greater than 4x or so, or even
the specialized "audio CD recorder" blanks (some of these are
optimized for burning at 1x). I've heard reports that these may have
a stronger recovered-signal level than newer high-speed blanks do
(thicker dye layer in the old variety??).

I've generally had good luck with Taiyo Yuden blanks. Used to like
TDK a lot - their "metal-stabilized cyanine" media seemed to be quite
good - but they seem to have stopped making their own blanks and are
OEM'ing from companies like Ritek.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!