#Mitsumi Problem
41 messages in this thread
I have a problem,,,,I own a Mitsumi quad and my friend has a writable CD ROM.
He can burn stuff for me, but the problem is that I can not read the 74minute
CD's on my Mitsumi, and the 63minute ones cost more…Does anyone know of a
driver or something that allows you to read them on Mitsumi's?
I have Pinnacle CD-R and two MS-DOS machines with Mitsumi Quad speed CD_ROM
drives and they can read my 74 minute CD-Rs. The drivers for the Mitusmi
drives are the ones provided by Gateway with the drives. In fact we
specifically upgraded from NEC drives (because they couldn't read our
multisession CD-Rs) to the Mitsumis because we tested them and they worked. I
would guess you have a problem with the CD-Rs your friend is writing. Are they
cyanine (green) disks or pthalocyanine (gold) disks and what CD writer is he
using?
..Carl "It is so much easier to live placidly and complacently. Of course,
to live placidly and complacently is not to live at all…."
Ok….Thanx for what you've told me so far…I'm pretty sure that he has the
Philips CDD522…and the CD's he uses are ones that are gold on top and green
on the bottom. Now the gateway driver…does that come with the writer or the
Mitsumi. The CD's that he has are Recoh 74 minutes and they are chameleon
discs…orange book,red book, or whatever.
The side where you see the green is the side with the dye. Green means cyanine
dye, goldish means pthalocyanine dye. The Philips drive should have no problem
with pthalocyanine disks since Philips produces Kodaks CD writers and Kodak
only uses pthalocyanine disks.
..Carl
Carl,
I"ve been using cyanine CD-Rs successfully on my Philips drive for nearly 3
years now — both Taiyo Yuden and TDK. Both varieties of blanks from most
vendors are quite good on most recorders now according to our tests.
Kathy
The One-Off CD Shops
Kathy…
Yes I've had no problems with TDK, Sony, Ricoh, and generic brand cyanine
disks but have had problems with Mitsui, Kodak and generic brand pthalocyanine
disks. A firmware upgrade for the RCD1000 is supposed to take care of the
"laser over-bruning" problem that caused the problem with Pthalocyanine disks.
We prefer the pthalocyanine disks because they are supposed to be more
archival, which is the business we are in (preservation of images and data).
I am still testing the new firmware and software but so far am happy with
the results.
..Carl
Carl,
One thing our technicians noticed in the process of testing media was that it
is true that different brands/formulae seem to work better with different
recorders. It could be a matter of "tuning" the writing laser for particular
media, as some manufacturers suggest. Since the tolerances are extremely fine,
this is not terribly surprising. In fact, the more I find out about this, the
more amazed I am that it works at all <G>.
Kathy
The One-Off CD Shops
Kathy,
I too am amazed that the whole technology "works" and I love it. I am
trying real hard to be as knowledgeable on the subject as I can since it can
save innumerable hours of frustration if you avoid doing those things that just
simply cannot be done. <g>
..Carl
>> it can save innumerable hours of frustration if you avoid doing those things
that just simply cannot be done.
Gee!! Why didn't I think of that <VWG>
Kathy
Forgot to answer about the Mitsumi driver. It is the one that comes with the
Mitsumi drive.
Unfortunatly some CD players don't handle the one-off discs very well. It's
not a matter of drivers but rather a physical handicap from the way light is
reflected from gold vs the way light is reflected from alum.
There isn't a simple solution to your problem other than get a player that
supports the CD-Rs better or ask Mitsumi to reset the lasers. I've had pretty
good experience in getting companies to do this for me if I send them a sample
of the gold disc.
BTW, you also might want to make sure it's not a situation where he's burning a
multisession disc and your player doesn't support it. I doubt that's the case
since you can read 63 min. discs with it.
One last BTW, if you're paying more for 63 min. media than 74 min. media it's
time to change media suppliers. If you need a quote let me know.
Jerry Warner
CD Solutions, Inc.
We are having a very similar experience. We have a lot of Mitsumi drives and
they have a lot of troubles with CD-R disks. (Gold dye…Plasmon 4101
recorder.)
A disk will read on one drive and then not read on another. It's very erratic.
Did you find anything out about this? Does anybody have any suggestions?
We have several dozen Mitsumi drives (Came with the Dell Computers) and they
just are weird.
We are very scared since we are presently burning about 50 CD-R disks per day
and based upon checking them on the Mitsumi drives about 10% of the disks are
unreadable.
ANY HELP OR ADVICE WOULD BE MOST WELCOME!
>>We are very scared since we are presently burning about 50 CD-R disks per day
and based upon checking them on the Mitsumi drives about 10% of the disks are
unreadable.
>>ANY HELP OR ADVICE WOULD BE MOST WELCOME!
Get some better readers.
Kathy
<Get some better readers.>
Unfortunately, we want our customers to be able to read CD-R disks, and they
have these and many other types of CD-R drives. We cannot change what drives
Dell, Gateway, and everybody else happens to sell. So, we need reliable CD-R
technology. Blame the CD-R drives, but they work just fine for silver disks!
>>So, we need reliable CD-R technology. Blame the CD-R drives, but they work
just fine for silver disks!
You need reliable CD-ROM drives, too. Conversely, you could blame the CD-R
discs, but by your own account, they work just fine in other CD-ROM drives.<g>
<<You need reliable CD-ROM drives, too. Conversely, you could blame the CD-R
discs, but by your own account, they work just fine in other CD-ROM
drives.<g>>>
NO. That is not true. We have no evidence that the CD-ROM disks that we are
burning work reliably in other drives. We only know now that they don't work in
Mitsumi drives.
<<DP: You need reliable CD-ROM drives, too. Conversely, you could blame the
CD-R discs, but by your own account, they work just fine in other CD-ROM
drives.<g>>>
>>DK: NO. That is not true. We have no evidence that the CD-ROM disks that we
are burning work reliably in other drives. We only know now that they don't
work in Mitsumi drives.<<
I was referring to your earlier message:
>>We are having a very similar experience. We have a lot of Mitsumi drives and
they have a lot of troubles with CD-R disks. (Gold dye…Plasmon 4101
recorder.)
***>>A disk will read on one drive and then not read on another. It's very
erratic.***
>>We have several dozen Mitsumi drives (Came with the Dell Computers) and they
just are weird.
>>We are very scared since we are presently burning about 50 CD-R disks per day
and based upon checking them on the Mitsumi drives about 10% of the disks are
unreadable.<<
(In another message, the figure you gave was 8%.)
So 90% of the discs work on Mitsumi drives, right? If the discs work on Mitsumi
drives 90% of the time, either you've got a bad batch of media, or you've got
unreliable drives. If a disc reads on one drive and not another, it's the
drive, not the media, that is unreliable.
<<DP: You need reliable CD-ROM drives, too. Conversely, you could blame the
CD-R discs, but by your own account, they work just fine in other CD-ROM
drives.<g>>>
You are twisting words. We don't seem to know what or where things are working.
As for 25% or 8%, even this is unclear–even after testing many hundreds of
disks. Sometimes a disk will work and a moment later it will not work. So, does
it count as a working disk or not?
The degree of technicality that you bring to this discussion clearly
demonstrate your ability to test people for driving licenses. As to helping
solve a fery difficult, costly, and frustrating problem I have no evidence to
indicate that you have much qualification.
Not to be too snippy, but this is a serious problem. You are playing
chicken-shit.
We really need help.
>>The degree of technicality that you bring to this discussion clearly
demonstrate your ability to test people for driving licenses. As to helping
solve a fery difficult, costly, and frustrating problem I have no evidence to
indicate that you have much qualification.
You have been informed by not only me, but by three other members of this
forum, whose qualifications you do not question, that your Mitsumi drives are
the most likely culprits for your problem.
Since you ask, my technical experience includes over six years of working with
CD-ROM and CD-R technology — as in assembling and testing thousands of drives
and CD-ROM systems, a position as Senior Technical Support Engineer for
Meridian Data (creators of both the first CD-ROM publishing systems and
CD-Recordable systems); and writing about CD-ROM and CD-R technology — as in
Contributing Editor and Standards Column Editor for CD-ROM Professional
magazine, and co-authoring three books: New Riders' Guide to CD-ROM, CD-ROM
Fundamentals, and CD-ROM Professional's CD-Recordable Handbook. I have also
been commissioned to write White Papers for OSTA's (Optical Storage Technology
Association) CD-R Logical Interchange, Promotions, and Physical Compatibility
subcommittees.
If you have any doubt as to my technical qualifications, I suggest that you ask
the other members of this forum. If I'm not qualified to help you, my dear sir,
you are beyond help. In any case, you have pretty well exhausted any desire I
may have had to help you.
>>You are playing chicken-shit.
Your "gracious appreciation" is duly noted.
<<You have been informed by not only me, but by three other members of this
forum, whose qualifications you do not question, that your Mitsumi drives are
the most likely culprits for your problem.>>
And, we are following up on this with great haste. It neither settles the
problem of how all of those people out there with Mitsumi drives will be able
to read CD-R disks nor does it really settle this. It is but one theory about
what is happening. We have done some testing on Panasonic and Sony drives and
the initial findings aren't all that much more encouraging.
<<Since you ask, my technical experience includes over six years of working
with CD-ROM and CD-R technology — as in assembling and testing thousands of
drives and CD-ROM systems, a position as Senior Technical Support Engineer for
Meridian Data (creators of both the first CD-ROM publishing systems and
CD-Recordable systems); and writing about CD-ROM and CD-R technology — as in
Contributing Editor and Standards Column Editor for CD-ROM Professional
magazine, and co-authoring three books: New Riders' Guide to CD-ROM, CD-ROM
Fundamentals, and CD-ROM Professional's CD-Recordable Handbook. I have also
been commissioned to write White Papers for OSTA's (Optical Storage Technology
Association) CD-R Logical Interchange, Promotions, and Physical Compatibility
subcommittees. >>
I am impressed, It is far more experience that I would have expected from a
driving license examiner:-}
Nevertheless, we are looking to better understand this problem. Right now, we
are still experiencing a large number of unreadable disks. The problems are
intermittant irregular, and unpredictable.
<<If you have any doubt as to my technical qualifications, I suggest that you
ask the other members of this forum. If I'm not qualified to help you, my dear
sir, you are beyond help. In any case, you have pretty well exhausted any
desire I may have had to help you.>>
You are probably qualified. Your previous message, the one that I previously
responded to was no help. It was THAT message that I was replying to. Again,
this isn't a simple matter. It has our company greatly concerned. How far are
the incompatibilities? Why does one of our two CD-R drives have a 50% higher
inability to have its disks read than the other? Why can the disks be read from
the NT operating system on a Mitsumi drive with almost a tenfold increase in
success?
You see, I think that there is more to this than a slam-Mitsui pat answer.
>>You are playing chicken-shit.
<Your "gracious appreciation" is duly noted.>
I call it like I see it. I am actually very greatful for those who share their
knowledge. I try to spend a lot of time helping others with my knowledge. You
are probably a wonderful person who is very experienced. But, your message just
wasn't any help and offered nothing new to the picture, as you yourself have
suggested.
You seem to have a very serious problem. The folks on this forum are
usually willing to help and have solved problems for many others. However, your
response to Ms. Parker makes it unlikely that others will try to help you lest
they be subject to the same rude attitude. My advice is twofold: calm down and
listen to those trying to help. The fact that the discs work under NT and not
otherwise indicate a potential driver problem. If you disagree or find this
advice "chicken shit", please don't bother to respond. It sounds almost as if
you made the purchasing decision on this one.
David,
>>I call it like I see it.
Perhaps you need new glasses. Your response to Dana's helpful suggestions
(which were repetitious only because you didn't seem to catch the drift of the
information you were give by her and others) was insulting and uncalled for.
You owe Dana and everyone else who has helped you here an apology. By
displaying your lack of regard for others' feelings as well as your obvious
ignorance of the field, you have offended a lot of people.
Katherine
The One-Off CD Shops
Dear David,
_Which_ Sony and Panasonic drives did you test on, and what software are you
using to verify? My database contains trouble reports on Sony 33As and 55Es,
and on an unspecified model of Panasonic. Again, try to borrow a proven
reliable drive from someone and test on that. If your discs look okay there, we
know it's not the CD recorder or the software that's screwing up.
Best,
Deirdre'
David,
<<Not to be too snippy, but this is a serious problem. You are playing
chicken-shit.
We really need help>>
First I personally find your language offensive and uncalled for. I expect it
on the Internet but not on CIS where I pay good money.
Second, I find your total lack of respect for someone who _was_ trying to help
you to be very annoying. You may need help as you say but you sure have a
funny way of trying to get people to help you.
I could tell you about Dana's qualifications to help but I doubt you'd listen
or care and I'm certainly not motivated to jump in and offer any advice to
someone who clearly doesn't appreciate the efforts I've gone thru to aquire
such knowledge so…. my advice to you is to hire a consultant to find your
solution for you. Pay them enough that you can abuse them all day long if you
like. I suggest advanced payments.
Jerry Warner
CD Solutions, Inc.
<<First I personally find your language offensive and uncalled for. I expect
it on the Internet but not on CIS where I pay good money.>>
We all pay good money. I follow the rules. Sorry if I cannot guess what you
like and dont.
<<Second, I find your total lack of respect for someone who _was_ trying to
help you to be very annoying. You may need help as you say but you sure have a
funny way of trying to get people to help you.>>
You are missing the big picture here. I was trying to explain that we have this
serious problem. The problem results in a number of our disks being unreadable.
Some tests indicate that the probelm is with 25% of our disks and other tests
indicate 8%.
The "Chicken Shit" answer was to not look at the problem and help determine
what might be going on. Instead, I was attacked because I once posted 8% and
another time posted 15%. The attack was direct and frontal. Worse, it formed a
tangent to what the real issue was (and is): Why are these CD-R disks so
unreliable.
I am certain that you have asked a question. Then, somebody replies with a
stupid response, or even an attack. They take a cheap pot-shot and nit pick
some totally irrelivant detail. This wastes your time and digresses the
conversation to drivel. Well, that is what happened to me. Rather than ask
questions or offer suggestions I was simply attacked because my data looked
inconsistent. It's bad style and counter-productive.
<<I could tell you about Dana's qualifications to help but I doubt you'd listen
or care and I'm certainly not motivated to jump in and offer any advice to
someone who clearly doesn't appreciate the efforts I've gone thru to aquire
such knowledge so…. my advice to you is to hire a consultant to find your
solution for you. Pay them enough that you can abuse them all day long if you
like. I suggest advanced payments.>>
Qualifications are irrelivant if they are only used to provide snow jobs. I
have seen more than a few technically knowledgable people who just use their
knowledge to ask derailing questions and find problems. As smart and
knowledgable as these people are, they are worth less than zero unless you
confine them to a testing group.
Again, if you look back, you may find that I asked a legitimate set of
questions and you may see that what I got WAS NOT HELP, but was simply a kick
in the stomache, a bop on the head, and was effectively called a liar. If
that's help, I don't need it!
As for being open minded: I listen and I try to be reasonable. I am also
forthright and direct. I know no more clear way to communicate the subtle
activity that was underway than to call it "Chicken Shit". It's a commonly used
term, everybody knows what it is, and it describes a counter-productive
nit-picking style that is difficult to explain with other language.
Dean may generally be a great person. He may offer lots of help. Perhaps I got
him at a bad moment. Who knows. I haven't enough experience with him. Time may
change, and some day I may see a problem of his and be able to help him. I will
if I can. Perhaps some day he will choose to read and help on a future message
of mine. If he chooses not to, I understand. If he does, I'll be appreciative.
Meanwhile, I'll try not to offend for the sake of being rude. I spend lots of
time on CIS helping other people (so I am unlikely not to be a "taker" in
life). I'll continue to discourage useless help. And as for money, well, we
both pay so I guess we can't stop each other from posting. Besides, you don't
pay very much because CIS is very inexpensive! (Or did I miss the point about
you, your money, and this semi-public forum?)
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
Now, if we could just figure out why these problems exist.
>>As for being open minded: I listen and I try to be reasonable.
Out of all the nonsense in your message, this leapt out at me. You "listen" and
"try to be reasonable".
If you listened – in this case, read – you would know that I am a woman and my
name is Dana, not Dean. Three different people wrote you messages referring to
me as "she", "her", "Dana" and "Ms. Parker". Three different people objected to
your uncalled-for rudeness in response to my attempts to help – and yet you
insist otherwise. Perhaps this explains why you still have a problem – you may
be failing to comprehend other information as well.
This also explains why you saw "subtle activity" and an "attack" when it was no
such thing. If you want a technical answer, you must give ALL the details, and
if the details are not consistent, then say so. It is not an attack or calling
you a liar to point out discrepancies in your reported symptoms – it is an
effort to understand what the symptoms really are. You can hardly wonder that
you are not getting the answer you want when you are not giving all the
information, and deliberately misunderstanding the responses you get. What
possible reason would I have to attack you or call you a liar? Are you a little
paranoid?
Furthermore, if this is the level of reading comprehension at which you
normally function, it is no wonder you failed to see the value of what I was
telling you, and instead saw a non-existent "attack". To compound this by
attacking in earnest, and then commending yourself for being "honest and
forthright" as well as "reasonable" is absurd.
>>I am certain that you have asked a question. Then, somebody replies with a
stupid response, or even an attack. They take a cheap pot-shot and nit pick
some totally irrelivant detail. This wastes your time and digresses the
conversation to drivel. Well, that is what happened to me. Rather than ask
questions or offer suggestions I was simply attacked because my data looked
inconsistent. It's bad style and counter-productive.
What is counter-productive is rejecting a response as "stupid" because you
don't happen to like it. The members of this forum know better than you do
whether my response was stupid to whether the deatil was irrelevant, and no one
but you thinks that you were attacked – quite the opposite. You do need new
glasses – and a fresh attitude.
David,
<<I follow the rules.>>
Not CIS rules you don't. They prohibit profanity and you clearly didn't follow
that rule.
<<You are missing the big picture here.>>
No. _YOU_ are missing the big picture here. There are professional people here
who were trying to help you and you started throwing insults around and
swearing at people then wondering why you weren't getting help. You haven't
even got a clue as to why no one wants to help you. You're amazing.
<<This wastes your time and digresses the conversation to drivel.>>
Your very responses to the people offering to help digressed from the issue and
your foul mouth reduced the conversation to drivel and now you're wasting my
time. You got one out of three right.
<<As for being open minded: I listen and I try to be reasonable.>>
That's one opinion anyway, certainly not mine.
<<Dean may generally be a great person. He may offer lots of help. Perhaps I
got him at a bad moment. Who knows.>>
Must be that great listening skill you were telling me about again. Last time
I checke _Dana_ was a great person and _she_ didn't seem to be having a bad
moment until she talked to you.
Jerry Warner
CD Solutions, Inc.
Hi, Dana (or lurkers),
We have experienced the problems described in this thread on Mitsumi and NEC
drives, too. I don't feel so alone now!
What's your opinion – would we have better luck using 63 minute discs than 74
minute ones? Or will the same problems crop up, regardless of media type?
TIA,
David Goldsmith
>> What's your opinion – would we have better luck using 63 minute discs than
74 minute ones? Or will the same problems crop up, regardless of media type?
The outer portion of the disc is the hardest to mold and the hardest to read.
I'm not sure if this matters for molding the pregroove in CD-R, but it does
hold true for the reading. Lots of drives don't reliably read discs that are at
or near capacity. Some have reported better luck with the 63-minute media. I
think Jerry Warner recommended this, and he should know.
The failure of some drives to read CD-R could be a combination of things –
less-than-complete implementation of EDC/ECC, firmware or diodes designed for
higher levels of reflectivity (Red Book specifies a 70% minimum, Orange Book
65%), or a combination of these and other factors. One thing we've noticed is
that discs that test poorly on a Clover system are still perfectly readable on
quality CD-ROM drives like Toshibas and Plextors – this points to excellent
error correction. Even more telling is the fact that some discs that test well
on a Clover system are unreadable on Mitsumi and NEC drives. (We keep one of
each for a worst-case test-bed.)
I'm afraid the answer remains the same – get the drive manufacturers to make
better drives or upgrade the ones they sold you, or buy drives that reliably
read the discs.
<<One thing we've noticed is that discs that test poorly on a Clover system are
still perfectly readable on quality CD-ROM drives like Toshibas and Plextors>
First of all, thanks for the great information in your posting!
Do you know where we can send in a disk for testing to see what is up? You
mentioned a "Clover" system that sounds like it does testing.
We'd like to settle for onece and for all whether our problem is "officially"
because of poor drives or because the disks are perhaps being burned badly. (We
use Gold Dye and I have read here that this is more difficult to calibrate on.)
>>First of all, thanks for the great information in your posting!
Yes, isn't it amazing what good information one can get when one asks with a
modicum of courtesy?
David,
I heard recently of a company that was having intermittent problems with the
CD-Rs they were making. It was driving them nuts. Turns out that their
building was near an airport and under the flight path for landing jets. When
a jet was coming in, it created enough vibration that it *could* mess up a CD-R
that was being recorded at the time. The severity of the mess up would also
vary.
Maybe there's something physical like this going on at your site. It affects
one of your CD-Rs more than the other. It messes the disks up to varying
degrees, which then manifests itself differently on different players. And
it's something so common, that for you it's "background noise" so you never
think about it. And it's hard for someone on the forum to help you with
because it's physical and we're not there.
Just an idea.
Jennifer
Wow!
What a fascinating possibility! I never considered that. I assumed that the
servo controls and mountings compensated for such potential problems.
Our computer room is quite ellaborate. It is also equipped with an expensive
stereo system. And, on the same surface as the two main CD-R burners is a 3480
(cartridge) tape drive that is very heavy, very high speed, and has a
continuous conveyer drive mechanism to feed in tapes. The operator often opens
boxes of cartridges and I know that these boxes are slammes down on the surface
because they are heavy.
How serious are you about this being the real problem happening rather than a
theoretical one? Are you being creative or is this something that you have
seen?
Just to be safe, I'll have the stereo canned for a while, and I'll see that the
tape boxes are opened on an adjacent surface. Moving the tape drive is a bigger
problem because there is no other place for it.
I anxiously await your experiences/comments. Thank you!
Jennifer may be onto something here. I remember the message she refers to, and
also a note from Tony Lavender, a servo engineer of long experience who advised
us "not to sneeze while recording."
I also look forward to hearing what Verbatim tells you.
Best,
D'
David,
Excessive vibration certainly can mess up a recording. Doesn't your writer
manual tell you that? Mine did.
Kathy
David,
The people who I heard the landing jets story from were people that we hired
to help us write an installation manager for our CD. They are CD consultants
and publishing types. They said that this was one of their clients that had
the problem and they ended up spending time at the client's site in order to
figure out what the problem was. They said that they ended up putting the CD-R
on a special surface that dampened all the vibrations and all their recording
problems went away. I have no reason to doubt their veracity.
Computers are uncertain and fickle. To me this story doesn't seem
implausible.
Good luck,
Jennifer
Hi, Dana,
>>The outer portion of the disc is the hardest to mold and the hardest to
read.
In the errors that I'm getting, they are never just from the outer tracks of
the CD-ROM, they're all over the place. Usually, they manifest as File Mangler
having trouble reading the directory structure of the CD.
I've ordered some 63 minute CD-Rs to see if the situation improves any. (We
have always used 74 min. discs up until now.)
Oh, one more thing. Lately, I haven't noticed the problem very often on my own
Mitsumi 4x drive. (I used to get it all the time.) But a few minutes ago, I
needed to reboot to Windows for Workgroups 3.11. The same CD that had been
working beautifully – under Windows '95 – started flaking out on me in WfW
3.11. Then I went back to Win 95 – no problems once more.
In thinking about it, the problems I was having reading CDs on my own PC
stopped happening about the same time I switched to Windows 95. I guess since I
had *several* other problems to cope with at the time I switched over, I didn't
notice it then. But in thinking about it, I almost never have the CD flakeout
problem under Windows 95.
This makes me wonder if this mess is a driver problem as opposed to a hardware
problem.
BTW Windows 95 has taken care of all sorts of other miscellaneous problems on
my PC. I wouldn't want to have to go back to WfW 3.11.
What do you think?
David Goldsmith
>>This makes me wonder if this mess is a driver problem as opposed to a
hardware problem.
More likely a combination. A driver can't improve the error correction
firmware. Win95 effectively rewrote all of the drivers for the most popular
drives, rather than use the drivers supplied by the manufacturers, in order to
implement Plug&Play, CDFS and AutoPlay. I find that Win95 does too many other
weird things to my system to use it all the time.
>>Unfortunately, we want our customers to be able to read CD-R disks, and they
>>have these and many other types of CD-R drives. We cannot change what drives
>>Dell, Gateway, and everybody else happens to sell. So, we need reliable CD-R
>>technology. Blame the CD-R drives, but they work just fine for silver disks!
We've run into problems with the Mitsumi drives and it's really weird. Our
problems seem to crop up when we have a specific amount of data on a disc –
generally between 590-610 Megs.
We pressed three discs Friday, which were almost identical. The first was 595
Meg and the Mitsumi drives (we have several) failed to read it. I then added
some duplicate files to pad the size up to around 630 Meg and re-pressed. This
one worked fine. I then deleted some sacrificable drives from the original
version, so the total was around 540 Meg – worked fine. BTW, all three discs
work perfectly well on all the Sony and NEC drives we have. All are burned on
74 Minute TDK media.
From now on, if we have a disc to burn that's in that range, we're going to pad
it up with some hidden files to get out of that 590-610Meg window of problems.
Dunno if that's a solution for you, but it might be worth a shot.
MBean
We have found that some disks consistently do not read on the Mitsumi drives
while other disks consistently do read. Then, there are the "maybe" disks that
sometimes read and sometimes do not read.
This is why I wonder if the problem is the media. After all, how can it be that
some disks are always bad on a Mitsumi drive if there isn't comething different
about the disk itself. No?