CD Burner Burnout

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 4:53 pm

I've heard of people ruining CD burners in a short period of time by just normally using them. Here are my questions:

1. If I burned at 1X all the time, would my CD burner last a LONG time?
2. If the CD burner is burnt out, is it still useful as a CD-ROM drive?
3. Will avoiding CD-RW's help
4. Any other tips on making your CD-Burner last longer?

Post by **wardrich** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 5:53 pm

don't sweat it. Everything wears out in time, and, AFAIK, once it's dead, it's dead. No read, no write.

Burners are CHEAP now. You can pick up a 52x32x52 Lite-on for around $50.

-Richard-

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:03 pm

Do ya s'pose one year is a tad bit short? The burners I heard of only lasted one measly year.

Kazer0 · Post by **Kazer0** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 11:41 pm

I SO saw that $50 burner at compucenter. If I didnt buy a wireless card for my laptop, id have a burner right now.

Post by **emmzee** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:24 pm

I saw a Toshiba DVDRW drive for $99CDN recently (that's about $75US folks). So you may want to consider getting a DVD burner instead since the price difference is closely approaching nil. I know that if I needed to buy a new drive I would definitely get a DVDRW

As far as making your CDRW last longer ... it doesn't really matter much because they're so cheap now, but one thing you can do is if you already have a CD drive in your computer, leave it in, and use your normal CD drive for things like playing games or whatever, and just use your CDRW/DVDRW for burning/ripping.

Unknown_K · Post by **Unknown_K** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 7:12 pm

Some early cdrw's had defects but newer drives will wear out sooner or later even if you burn at 1x instead of 40x. Also most media sold today is for 12x or better burning and isnt optimized for burning at lower speeds.

8x dvd+/-r drives are $100 at www.newegg.com so you might want to try those out

Post by **wardrich** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:53 pm

Be warned that the 8X speed has only been perfected in the + format. There is NO such thing as 8X - format. What's the problem with this? The main problem is that the - format is best used for video, where the + is better for data. Yes, you can add more special features and menus to a + format, but there have been many problems getting them to read in some standalone DVD players. The average time to copy a DVD at 8x speed is 30Min, and the average for a 4x is obviously going to be 1h.

-Richard-

johpower · Post by **johpower** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 10:00 am

I have a 48-24-48 CD-RW and a 45x CD-ROM. I've had the best luck recording at the speed the meets ALL of the following criteria:

1. just below the CDR disk maximum.
2. just below the drive maximum.
3. just below the reader CD-ROM max speed (if disk to disk direct).
4. if master disk is scuffy, ALWAYS copy to hard drive file.

Example: A new 52x CDR disk and a good master would record at 40x.

The difference in time is about 1-2 minute on ~600 mb of data or music. My "good" copy results have quadrupled. This saves money and annoyance.

------------------------

I've been getting drives and disks at Office Max for the last year. The 48x CDRW cost $20 + tax, after rebate. The Last stack of 100 disks cost only tax, after rebate. How do they stay in biz???