Experiences with new Lite-ON 52327S

[SPaulovic]

Today I received my Lite-ON 52327S . After having unpacked my
drive I have noticed that only Nero Express was bundled with my drive
Besides the software there was a short manual, a 16 - 24 Verbatim CD-RW
and one Multispeed CD sponsored by Lite-ON. On the drive itself
there was no hint about the firmware.

I installed the drive as Secondary Master, but unfortunately I cut my
80-pin IDE cable on a sharp edge of my case , therefore I had
to use a 40-pin IDE cable.

Is it necessary to use a 80-pin IDE cable or does the bandwith of a 40-pin
cable limit the drives transfer rate?

Well, after having installed the drive I enabled UDMA 2 in my bios.
Windows 98 recognized the drive with a firmware QS03, as my drive
was manufactured in May 2003. I upgraded immediately to QS06.

To check the digital audio I threw Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark
(Enhanced CD) in my new drive. The audio worked but unfortunately
the drive spinned up and rapidly spinned down, then I could hear the first
track. But the drive made very strange pulsing vibrations while reading
the first track. Then I changed another cd and there were no vibrations.
I hope that these vibrations were caused by the spinning up and down
to read the two sessions that are on the cd.

Instead of installing Nero Express I installed Nero 6 demo and burnt
some 600 MB on the Lite-ON sponsored multi-speed CD. But after
checking the CD with CD Speed 2.02 I noticed that some sectors were
unreadable (red) and the disc had about 72000 c2 errors at the end.

Is this typical for a new drive?

Then to be sure if the drive worked, I burnt more CDs, some on-the-fly
and some with a Nero-image and I noticed that there were less damaged
sectors on the cds that were burnt with a Nero-Image.

Does quality suffer from burning on the fly?
Nevertheless I personnaly think that creating images is still the better option.

To come to an end, I can really say that I am fascinated by the drives'
speed, as my previous drive has been a Traxdata 4x4x24 .

I would be very happy if someone would be so kind to answer some
of my questions, because I'm not very familiar with these fast drives!

[dhc014]

An 80 conductor (40 pin) cable is not necessary for current optical drives.

If Smart-Burn ever had to kick in during the on-the-fly burning, then you may expect to find abnormal errors.

[dhc014]

My appologies for the double post

[cfitz]

Instead of installing Nero Express I installed Nero 6 demo and burnt some 600 MB on the Lite-ON sponsored multi-speed CD. But after checking the CD with CD Speed 2.02 I noticed that some sectors were unreadable (red) and the disc had about 72000 c2 errors at the end.

Was this a CD-R or CD-RW?

cfitz

[SPaulovic]

It was a Multispeed CDR 700MB. But I don't know the company which
made it. Sorry.

[rdgrimes]

don't know the company which made it.

Disc Type = CDR (A+)
Lead In = 97:26:66
Lead Out = 79:59:71
Nominal = 702.82MB (79m 59s 71f/LBA:359846)
Manufacturer = CMC Magnetics Corporation
Cur. Speed = Wrt(52X),Rd(52X)

[aviationwiz]

Don't worry. The C2 Error Count in CD Speed in always unreliable, it reports C2 errors when there really aren't any, and at a real high number. I would recomend testing the disk in KProbe.

[rdgrimes]

The C2 Error Count in CD Speed in always unreliable,

This is news to me, can you please post some evidence of this?

[dolphinius_rex]

I gotta agree with Aviationwiz on this one. I've had Nero CD Speed report errors when there weren't any, although I have found it to be fairly rare.

[rdgrimes]

I've had Nero CD Speed report errors when there weren't any

If they're reported, then they occurred. The utility does not have the capacity to create errors, it simply measures what the drive reports. CDSpeed uses a completely different method of managing the drive's reading stretegy, so results will often differ from other utilities. I have never seen a scanner report errors on a "good" disc, but often on a marginal disc you will see varying results. My experience is that CDSpeed is far more likely to under-report errors. I would welcome any evidence to the contrary. CDSpeed also has the capacity to report unreadable sectors, which none of the other tools can do.
Lets face it, when any scanner is reporting C2 errors, your looking at a disc that has pretty questionable quality, and scans will vary quite a bit. CDSpeed still remains the only tool that approximates "real-word" reading conditions.

[TheJack]

Well, my Toshiba SD-M1612 often reports C2 errors in CDSpeed, which disappear, when I re-read the disc. There are no slow-downs, and all other readers show no errors at all. Typically (actually always, when I think about it...) Toshiba finds 24 C2 errors in one place (position), and they normally always disappear in the second read.

[dodecahedron]

well, that sounds like a problem/issue with the drive, not the CDSpeed program.

[TheJack]

Maybe, but these errors aside, Toshiba works fine.

I don't know, where the problem is (drive or CD Speed). If you ask me, it's not even a problem. My experience is, that if cd is really bad, the errors won't go away, no matter how many times you test the cd, and they will always be at the same place (position); there are usually more of them (not just 24), and the read speed drops at that position.

[rdgrimes]

When you see errors that come and go, it's because you're testing a marginal disc. The errors do not reside on the disc, they are the result of the interaction between the drive and disc. CDSpeed does not make them up. It's very common to see this with discs that have a marginal quality burn, or with a drive that has marginal error reporting and/or is just not a great reader. In other words, don't blame the messenger.

[TheJack]

If I am testing a marginal disc, than most of the discs I've tested and burnt, are marginal. Because I've seen TDK (Taiyo Yuden) and plextor (burnt at 16x) media with these kind of errors on Toshiba. All these media have no errors in other drives.

It is quite possible, that Toshiba is more sensitive to errors than other drives (errors occur, as you said, when reading, they do not physically reside on the disc), and reports errors where other drives don't see anything wrong.
And on the other hand - if I would test the discs in let's say, Teac 532E, every single disc would be flawless - even those, on which Toshiba reports 300 000 C2 errors. Believe me, I tried. So the messenger may theoretically be right - but in these cases the message is useless.

In short - Toshiba eventually (if not on the first read, then on the second or third) finds ''errors'' on most discs I test. It doesn't matter if it was burt by my writer (Teac CD-W548E) or by the latest Plextor. Whether the cd is Taiyo Yuden or smartbuy.

When it comes to quality burning and disc handling, I am really the most careful guy I know, and I haven't yet lost a single byte of data I burnt (and what's even more important, I get really nervous, when someone even hints, that my data might be in danger) Most of the discs I get from others are barely readable and full of errors. People don't care, as long as disc is readable.
A whole new world opens when I browse through CDRLabs and CDFreaks forums. Here people use use test-tools, I haven't even heard for, and (apparently) throw away discs, with a single C2 error. And back in the real world, three discs out of ten I borrow, have CRC errors (or so it seems :D )

Sorry for the long post.

[rdgrimes]

I wouldn't say I throw away a disc because it has a C2, but I don't trust it either. It's just that many folks want to have the best burn and most reliable discs possible. A "good reader" drive doesn't report as many errors, but sometimes a less good reader will uncover a disc that's not as good as it could be.