Re: Please help with CD writer questions
> Hi, I wanted to get one of these drives for data archival and I had afew
> questions, i'de be glad for any advice:
>
> 2. What is the deal with the buffer underflow thing? I read (on Computers.co
> m) that you should have a fast SCSI interface, because if you cant feed the
> writer data fast enough, the write will die. - Does this mean that all IDE
> CD-Writers are useless? And what if you do get a SCSI Writer, but are using an
> IDE hard disk? Wont you still be stuck?
As I understand it, once the CD starts to write, it must write
continuously. If the buffer isn't filled fast enough, then the you get
blank spots on the CD and you have yourself another coaster. However,
since most CDs write as 2X speed, it is not that difficult to keep bits in
the buffer.
I use and EIDE CD writer, and it works fine with my dual PPro
150. The howtos recommend that you shut everything down when you write a
CD, so as not to hog CPU recources and end up with an empty buffer. I
don't do that, and so far, I haven't had a problem, but I do make sure that
I'm not doing anything cpu/disk intensive at the same time, ie no starting
netscape or web browsing, playing mpgs, etc.
I have an EIDE writer on hdc. If I try to supply the CD from hdd, I
end up with skips. As long as I use hda or hdb, so that reads come from
one EIDE controller and writes to the the other EIDE controller, I haven't
had problems.
>
> 3. (this might be stupid) Can you use EIDE drives on IDE interfaces?
Yes. With older bioses and dos, they only see the first 512K. With
Linux, you can see all of the drive, but if you are booting the kernel
from it, you have to make sure the kernel is in the first 512K. The
best way to do that is to make sure that the kernel is in a partition
that does not extend past the 512K boundary.
>
> 4. Which one should I get? The main requirements being linux compatability and
> price. (Since i'm a poor student. :)).
At the time that I got mine, the Memorex CRW-1622 was about $100 cheaper
than any other CDRW. For convenience sake, get a scsi. To rip audio
CD's I have to boot it as and ATAPI/EIDE drive. To write CDs I have to
boot it as scsi (via emulation). I've read that in future kernels,
EIDE writers will fully supported natively, but that will be in the 3.0
kernels. To save $, go with an EIDE. The HPs seem to be the most
popular. As of yet, I don't think the RW part is supported, at least
not on EIDE.
>
> 5. I have a SCSI card of sorts: One of the Adaptec things that comes with
> iomega zip drives. Could I plug a CDR into this, or does it suck?
Best as I recall, the zip card is a crippled card, and is not good for
much other than running the zip drive.
Mark
Blunier@concentric.net
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