BackUp MyPC: How to Slow Down the CD Burner?

I've been a long-term satisfied user of Stomp BackUp MyPC (presently at
4.85) and its predecessors, going all the way back to when it was called
Conner Backup Exec for DOS. It's been the only PC backup program I've
regularly used other than the classic Central Point Backup. However, I'm
dealing with a problem that neither I nor Stomp can seem to resolve.

My present PC is an AMD K6/300 running under Windows 95B. My present
burner is a Cendyne 48x24x48x. I've learned thru regular burning that I
cannot reliably burn a CD going faster than 16x (yes, and I'm talking
about Nero which uses BURN-proof technology and the Cendyne has Seamless
Link technology--I'm not getting buffer underrun errors).

After having repeated problems generating a reliable backup with Stomp
BUMP, I contacted Stomp to see if there was any way to regulate the speed
of the burner, as that seemed to be the problem. I was advised that the
way BUMP determines the speed to burn is from the rating of the media
inserted and the maximum speed of the burner. There is no way to manually
override this.

My options at this point seem to be a) use 4x CD-RW media so that it'll
run at 4x, b) use a 4x CD burner I have so that it'll run at 4x, c) buy a
used surplus 12x or 16x burner so it'll run at the speed I want it to, and
of course d) change backup programs.

In some previous discussions on alt.comp.periphs.cdr, I note mention of a
registry hack whereby Nero can be faked out as to what the maximum speed
of a burner is. But it was a Nero-specific hack and I couldn't really make
heads or tails of how it really worked so I could apply it to my
situation.

I'm writing (sorry for the 4-way crosspost, but I want to try to get the
answer the first time) to see if anyone knows of some kind of utility,
driver, registry hack or SOMETHING by which I can convince my burner to
run at 16x while running Stomp BackUp MyPC.

If anyone is reading this and doesn't know how to slow down the burner but
DOES know of a backup software that allows manual control of a burner's
speed, please let me know that as well.

Some of the criteria I'd look for in a new backup software (features which
I've always liked about Stomp BUMP) are; a compare feature so that I know
I've got a good backup, the ability to create Incremental and/or
Differential backups (preferably both), the ability to restore a full
backup from scratch (without reinstalling Windows and the backup program
first), and now the ability to manually regulate the speed of my burner.

Thanks for the help!

================================================== =====================
I'm Mike--James' Dad, hence "JamesDad". I use this nym in memory of my
son James Webb (1992-2000) who died fighting leukemia. He was a greater
man at 8 than some ever become. May his life, battle and story never be
forgotten! More info at http://www.themiraclekids.com/mem-james.htm.

I think the thing to fix is the root cause, namely that you can't burn above
16X. I'd check that DMA is enabled, for one thing. (I'm not sure if Win95B
had built-in support for IDE DMA, or whether you needed to install
bus-mastering drivers for the chipset..)

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/


"JamesDad" wrote in message
...
I've been a long-term satisfied user of Stomp BackUp MyPC (presently at
4.85) and its predecessors, going all the way back to when it was called
Conner Backup Exec for DOS. It's been the only PC backup program I've
regularly used other than the classic Central Point Backup. However, I'm
dealing with a problem that neither I nor Stomp can seem to resolve.

My present PC is an AMD K6/300 running under Windows 95B. My present
burner is a Cendyne 48x24x48x. I've learned thru regular burning that I
cannot reliably burn a CD going faster than 16x (yes, and I'm talking
about Nero which uses BURN-proof technology and the Cendyne has Seamless
Link technology--I'm not getting buffer underrun errors).

After having repeated problems generating a reliable backup with Stomp
BUMP, I contacted Stomp to see if there was any way to regulate the speed
of the burner, as that seemed to be the problem. I was advised that the
way BUMP determines the speed to burn is from the rating of the media
inserted and the maximum speed of the burner. There is no way to manually
override this.

My options at this point seem to be a) use 4x CD-RW media so that it'll
run at 4x, b) use a 4x CD burner I have so that it'll run at 4x, c) buy a
used surplus 12x or 16x burner so it'll run at the speed I want it to, and
of course d) change backup programs.

In some previous discussions on alt.comp.periphs.cdr, I note mention of a
registry hack whereby Nero can be faked out as to what the maximum speed
of a burner is. But it was a Nero-specific hack and I couldn't really make
heads or tails of how it really worked so I could apply it to my
situation.

I'm writing (sorry for the 4-way crosspost, but I want to try to get the
answer the first time) to see if anyone knows of some kind of utility,
driver, registry hack or SOMETHING by which I can convince my burner to
run at 16x while running Stomp BackUp MyPC.

If anyone is reading this and doesn't know how to slow down the burner but
DOES know of a backup software that allows manual control of a burner's
speed, please let me know that as well.

Some of the criteria I'd look for in a new backup software (features which
I've always liked about Stomp BUMP) are; a compare feature so that I know
I've got a good backup, the ability to create Incremental and/or
Differential backups (preferably both), the ability to restore a full
backup from scratch (without reinstalling Windows and the backup program
first), and now the ability to manually regulate the speed of my burner.

Thanks for the help!

================================================== =====================
I'm Mike--James' Dad, hence "JamesDad". I use this nym in memory of my
son James Webb (1992-2000) who died fighting leukemia. He was a greater
man at 8 than some ever become. May his life, battle and story never be
forgotten! More info at http://www.themiraclekids.com/mem-james.htm.

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 20:11:22 -0500, F.N wrote:

You fail to mention how much ram is in your system.

I've got 256MB, the max that the mobo will accept.

The K6-300 is pretty slow, and with smart-burn, you shouldn't be producing
coasters, unless you have a very fragmented HD, and it is just taking too
long to get the data to the CDR. Your also using win95? Whoa. Upgrade!!
your system for $400 or less!

BTW, I've also seen this problem on other machines of comparable speed as
well. I'm considering an upgrade to Win98SE, but haven't had a chance to
due to several factors--one of which, of course, is the difficulty
involved in making a good backup before doing the upgrade. :-)

Also, when I've done Nero burns, I use dedicated partitions which are kept
well-optimized for the source data. Though my C: drive (where the software
is) *IS* heavily fragmented, and I use the thing too much to dedicate what
could be 3 days or more to a thorough defrag. (Yes, the drives and
partitions are all pretty full.)

They are correct in that the burner & CD media combo will dictate the
maximum speed, but you said you used Nero and you produce coasters
also? If so, the media could be bad. Do you have DMA enabled on all
devices that support DMA? It could also be a flaky burner.

I've tried different media, and 16x appears to be the ceiling whether it's
Nero or something else. As long as I keep my burning settings to 16x at
max, things run just fine. DMA is enabled, so it's not that. Of course,
that's where my problem comes in--I can't set the burning speed in
Stomp-BUMP.

With NERO, you *can* control the write speed, under the burn options,
it lists write speed, and you can set it for whatever you want.
So, if you can with that program, make a backup to the HD, in 650 or
700MB chunks, then use Nero to write those to CD at the speed you
want.

I'm considering several different options if I can't control the speed of
the burner with a registry hack or something.

Hope this gives the info you or someone else needs to pass back the
feedback I hope to get.

Thanks!

--
I'm Mike--James' Dad, hence "JamesDad". I use this nym in memory of my
son James Webb (1992-2000) who died fighting leukemia. He was a greater
man at 8 than some ever become. May his life, battle and story never be
forgotten! More info at http://www.themiraclekids.com/mem-james.htm.
P.S. Remove ARROGANCE before replying.

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 01:23:42 GMT, "Robert Hancock"
wrote:

I think the thing to fix is the root cause, namely that you can't burn above
16X. I'd check that DMA is enabled, for one thing. (I'm not sure if Win95B
had built-in support for IDE DMA, or whether you needed to install
bus-mastering drivers for the chipset..)

See my response to F.N.; DMA's enabled and everything else seems to be OK.


--
I'm Mike--James' Dad, hence "JamesDad". I use this nym in memory of my
son James Webb (1992-2000) who died fighting leukemia. He was a greater
man at 8 than some ever become. May his life, battle and story never be
forgotten! More info at http://www.themiraclekids.com/mem-james.htm.
P.S. Remove ARROGANCE before replying.

He's not trying to burn above 16x..He wants 16x or below if I read his post correctly..

"Robert Hancock" wrote in message news:ys_mb.193959$pl3.174939@pd7tw3no...
I think the thing to fix is the root cause, namely that you can't burn above
16X. I'd check that DMA is enabled, for one thing. (I'm not sure if Win95B
had built-in support for IDE DMA, or whether you needed to install
bus-mastering drivers for the chipset..)

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/


"JamesDad" wrote in message
...
I've been a long-term satisfied user of Stomp BackUp MyPC (presently at
4.85) and its predecessors, going all the way back to when it was called
Conner Backup Exec for DOS. It's been the only PC backup program I've
regularly used other than the classic Central Point Backup. However, I'm
dealing with a problem that neither I nor Stomp can seem to resolve.

My present PC is an AMD K6/300 running under Windows 95B. My present
burner is a Cendyne 48x24x48x. I've learned thru regular burning that I
cannot reliably burn a CD going faster than 16x (yes, and I'm talking
about Nero which uses BURN-proof technology and the Cendyne has Seamless
Link technology--I'm not getting buffer underrun errors).

After having repeated problems generating a reliable backup with Stomp
BUMP, I contacted Stomp to see if there was any way to regulate the speed
of the burner, as that seemed to be the problem. I was advised that the
way BUMP determines the speed to burn is from the rating of the media
inserted and the maximum speed of the burner. There is no way to manually
override this.

My options at this point seem to be a) use 4x CD-RW media so that it'll
run at 4x, b) use a 4x CD burner I have so that it'll run at 4x, c) buy a
used surplus 12x or 16x burner so it'll run at the speed I want it to, and
of course d) change backup programs.

In some previous discussions on alt.comp.periphs.cdr, I note mention of a
registry hack whereby Nero can be faked out as to what the maximum speed
of a burner is. But it was a Nero-specific hack and I couldn't really make
heads or tails of how it really worked so I could apply it to my
situation.

I'm writing (sorry for the 4-way crosspost, but I want to try to get the
answer the first time) to see if anyone knows of some kind of utility,
driver, registry hack or SOMETHING by which I can convince my burner to
run at 16x while running Stomp BackUp MyPC.

If anyone is reading this and doesn't know how to slow down the burner but
DOES know of a backup software that allows manual control of a burner's
speed, please let me know that as well.

Some of the criteria I'd look for in a new backup software (features which
I've always liked about Stomp BUMP) are; a compare feature so that I know
I've got a good backup, the ability to create Incremental and/or
Differential backups (preferably both), the ability to restore a full
backup from scratch (without reinstalling Windows and the backup program
first), and now the ability to manually regulate the speed of my burner.

Thanks for the help!

================================================== =====================
I'm Mike--James' Dad, hence "JamesDad". I use this nym in memory of my
son James Webb (1992-2000) who died fighting leukemia. He was a greater
man at 8 than some ever become. May his life, battle and story never be
forgotten! More info at http://www.themiraclekids.com/mem-james.htm.

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 20:46:00 GMT, "bobbyjak" wrote:
He's not trying to burn above 16x..He wants 16x or below if I read his post correctly..

Right on the money, bobbyjak. It'd be NICE to be able to burn at 48x (my
burner's max), but repeated experiences on this PC (and at least one
other) is that I can't burn a reliable backup (or anything else) at the
higher speeds. Guess if I had a 2-3Ghz processor it probably would. So to
get the results I want I have to be able to burn at 16x or less. You can't
get 16x media anymore (grin) which would slow it down using Stomp-BUMP, so
either I have to be able to slow down the burner I have (using a registry
hack, driver or other program), buy a slower burner (swapping the dang
things out every time I want to do a backup) or buy another backup program
which will allow me to manually set the burner speed.

================================================== =====================
I'm Mike--James' Dad, hence "JamesDad". I use this nym in memory of my
son James Webb (1992-2000) who died fighting leukemia. He was a greater
man at 8 than some ever become. May his life, battle and story never be
forgotten! More info at http://www.themiraclekids.com/mem-james.htm.