computer components & hardware - Measure error rate? [Was: CD recorder burn quality issues

Measure error rate? [Was: CD recorder burn quality issues - help]

In article , wrote:
Trades wrote:

My question relates to which internal CD recorders have the highest
quality burns.

Burn quality depends slightly on the drive but much more substantially
on the match of drive, speed and medium. Decay of a disc in 20 months
(or in 50, for that matter) is either due to a poorly written disc in
the first place or improper handling (poor label adhesive, leaching ink
or solvent with a marker) or both.

Best bet: take a preferred blank at a preferred speed and measure the
error rate. If it's not acceptable (for me, that means zero errors), try

Mike, what program would you recommend for this sort of diagnostic
check on media you've used or are planning to use?

other speeds or other media until you find an acceptable fit that you're
prepared to pay for. ("Pay" in time as well as money.) Waiting for the
mastering program to tell you that the write failed is like waiting for
your car to stop to tell you that the radiator is dry.

Tell me about it. I'm getting 25 to 33% bad writes on ISO CD-Rs. :-(
(But no trouble with CD-RWs or UDF formatted CD-Rs. :)

I particularly notice the problem with CD-Rs when backing up those mag
disks. (Don't ask why I bother! 8-) As a couple of mags usually turn
up together (i.e. 4 CDs) I try to back them all up at one sitting.
But almost invariably I get a failure of the 3rd or 4th one and have
to give up until "tomorrow".

Mind you, I'm also aware of a "treacle" problem with Windows Explorer,
which might be related -- after "accessing" a large number of files
(e.g. simply scrolling through directories) the process slows to the
equivalent of swimming through molasses. Sort of reminiscent of the
hold ups years ago with "garbage collection" in BASIC systems.

[ This with a Dell Dimension 4100 P3 1.1GHz 128MB RAM, Windows ME. ]

Cheers, Phred.

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LID