I've done a lot of research about CD burners the past couple days after hearing that my friend's CD burned in 2 minutes and mine.. well ad a zero to hers. 20 minutessss is ridiculous. So I started my research. I have a memorex external CD burner (I'm very novice, sorry) and I burn at 52x. Than I realized I could burn at 32x and it was still burning at the same time! I went to go see if DMA was on for my burner and it wasnt even an option. DMA wasnt there. I have windows 98 se which.. might have something to do with it? Please help Im so sick of burning CDs so slowww.

don't forget that the max burning spped of spme CDs can be 4x, 10x, 12x ...especially cd-rw discs.
i know zero re: 98 SE, but you might try some of the below tips if applicable

1. go through the 10 points listed @ http://www.mrbass.org/dvdnewbie/ [ you may not be a newbie, but the trouble is, and might be related to one or more of the listed items ]. note: very important to keep the transfer mode on IDE channels in DMA mode. check them every now and then as the transfer mode can change without you being notified. see this MS article http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...e/IDE-DMA.mspx

2. a) know your drive's capabilities. use nero info tool or dvdinfopro to discover them. also go to the drive maker's website and find out what media types and brands, and at what speeds to those media types, the drive supports. [ eg., my pioneers 107d & 108a can burn to dvd-rw @ 4x without trouble, but my optorite 401 can only burn @ 2x to dvd-rw even though Optorite, Nero and other burning programs will allow the drive to burn @ 4x and will produce a "successfull" disc @ 4x...but the result is a coaster ]. and that's one reason why i always recommend you use a burning program that allows you to change the burn speed just prior to clicking the BURN button, unlike, say, sonic recordnow!, because it has the burn speed options ONLY in the main options' setup. b) update the firmware of the drive. check for updates @ http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_all.php

3. a) try another brand of CD/DvD disc. b) try burning at lower speed. eg., don't burn at 24x to 16x media even if you are allowed to choose 24x; burn according to MEDIA speed limits, don't try to burn at the cd/dvd drive's max speed until you are certain that you can do so without negative consequences.

4. a) disable and/or uninstall any virtual drives. b) install an aspi layer. you may never need it. but it can't hurt. my preferred aspi is v460. get it @ http://www.snapfiles.com/get/aspilayer.html

5. a) update the burning program you are using to the latest release. b) uninstall any recently installed software. c) do a virus scan, and a scan with spybot s & d [ get it @ http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html ]

6. for XP or Win2K users, optimise your operating system Services for best system performance. for info go to http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/service411.htm#Alerter and http://www.freeware-alternative.uni....roller-xp.html

7. before burning, open taskmanager and shutdown ALL unneeded processes that are running. DON'T commence a virus scan or a defrag before or during a burn - sadly, i have seen it happen !

8. a) try another burning software and see if you get a better result. deepburner standard is free. get it @ http://www.deepburner.com/ so is ht fireman @ http://www.honestech-e.com/us/freedown.asp b) for users of alcohol 120%, update to the latest drives support DLL [ look for topic "Alcohol 120% Device Support Patch Released" @ http://forum.alcohol-soft.com/index.php?showforum=10 ] c) if you have multiple burning softwares installed, uninstall them all, then install one. test it. install another if needed. test it, and so on...

9. a) make sure mainboard chipset drivers and BIOS firmware are up to date. make sure all cables and jumpers connected to drives are correctly configured with regard to master/slave setup. b) remove junk files from your hard drive/s. also remove useless entries from the registry. try hdcleaner @ http://home.tiscali.de/zdata/hdcleaner_e.htm
mru-blaster @ http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/mrublaster.html
regseeker @ http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm c) know what programs & services are schedulded to run at startup; you should eliminate ALL the uneeded ones using Startup Control Panel @ http://www.snapfiles.com/get/startupcpl.html + services.msc [as mentioned above] you can also try the disk clean batch file i use @ http://rapidshare.de/files-en/423821...tches.exe.html

10. enter your BIOS and disable anything you don't use. eg. i disable COM ports, serial ports, game ports etc. also the parallel port because i use a USB printer. note that if it's an external USB drive that is giving you grief, some BIOS options include a USB voltage setting. set it to HIGH and see if this helps. set memory speeds to default. set cpu speed to default. if you overclock, DON'T [ until you are certain that overclocking is not the cause of the trouble ].

11. if you still cannot fix the problem, try the drive, or the CD/DvD disc you are having problems with, in another PC that has no burning issues [ if possible ]

12. Disable autorun...unless you really need it for some purpose. for XP users go to start/run/type REGEDIT.EXE then click OK
press Ctrl+F, type NoDriveTypeAutoRun in the box/find next
doubleclick the highlighted key and replace the HEX value with b5
repeat for each NoDriveTypeAutoRun key found. reboot.

13. Two other settings to consider changing, but ONLY if you never use Windows' in-built CD
burning function [ie. you only ever use nero, roxio, intervideo etc. to burn cd/dvd]. Rightclick on your cd/dvd drive icons in My Computer/properties/recording and clear the Enable CD recording on this drive box. Note that this WILL NOT cause your 3rd party burning programs to malfunction - it only disables Windows' in-built cd burning capabilities. now go to start/run type services.msc and hit ENTER, scroll to IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service, doubleclick it, disable it, apply/ok.




14.it's also a good idea to try an arrange the device IRQ assignment so that each device on your system has it's own IRQ. this is not always possible or user-configurable. however, on a modern PC running Windows XP Pro you can try the following.

a. enter your BIOS and look for a setting/option similar to "plug and play operating system" . you need to set this option to No or Disable. this allows the BIOS to assign IRQs to devices instead of Windows. there might also be an option like "allow BIOS to assign IRQ". Enable it.

b. restart. open device manager/view/resources by type/interrupt request

note that in the above image all my devices have thier own IRQ ? this was not always the case; my NVIDIA GeForce and my Realtek NIC were both sharing IRQ 16 and my Realtek Sound device and a couple of USB controllers were sharing IRQ 18. so what i did was disable the USB controllers [ see below ] as i never need them. i also put my Realtek NIC into another PCI slot.


Anyway, see what you can do. maybe you'll only be able to reduce the devices sharing an IRQ from 3 to 2. Better than nothing . Trial and error will get you through. if you disable your mouse or keyboard etc. just renable it.

thanks for the advice ive tried some of it.. the things that get me are:

1) Why doesnt DMA show up anywhere when I go to device manager for my cd burner?

and 2) I was reading up on my cd burner and it says stuff about USB 1.1 and 2.0

1.1: Up to 12 Mbits / sec and operates with windows 98 se/me/2000/XP
2.0: Up to 480 Mits/ sec and operates with windows Me/2000/xp

USB 1.1 will not transfer data fast enough and will imit the drive's overal writing speed to 4x.


am i well enough to assume that I have a 1.1 and that Im hopeless?

am i well enough to assume that I have a 1.1 and that Im hopeless?
smart cookie. there's your answer

usb 2.0 controllers are a cheap and effective solution to this problem. hope you have a free pci slot

ahah thanks guys! I think i'm going to have to go out and buy one.

-much thanks