[P1] CD Burner And Toast Keep Giving Me Sass

[e.mkeene]

> This is all gibberish to me. I tried switching from cheap blank TDK
> CDs to more expensive Sony's, but the problem still happens. After
> two or three attempts, I'll get it to go with a fresh blank CD

I can't give you specific answers to your stated problem but I can give 
you some things that might help solve the problems even if we don't get 
a translation for the error messages.

1. What version of Toast lite are you using and what OS? Did the Toast 
come with the CD Burner? Since it is the lite version, I am assuming it 
did so the CD burner is compatible with toast in all likelihood and is 
not a problem. However, the OS and the toast may be a problem.

2. Check your menus, I think in preferences, you will find an option to 
run in simulation mode. Any time you have a problem with a cd not 
burning, always spend the extra time running in simulation to find out 
if the burn will be successful. This way you will not waste a cd. If 
the simulation does not work, you can experiment with the various 
settings until you find a combination that works in simulation. Then, a 
click or two will turn off simulation and leave the settings intact so 
the actual burn will be successful.

3. While you are in preferences, select a buffer setting as high as 
possible for the amount of RAM you have. If you have 512 or more, 
select the highest buffer setting. If less than that, select a lower 
buffer setting. You may also see a setting for buffer underrun 
protection, select that also. If your version of Toast is below 5, you 
probably won't find that option.

4. Another setting you want to find in the one for "write disk" and 
"write session".
When you select "write disk", if the burn is unsuccessful, the cd is 
toast, a coaster, or a battery clock. However, if you instead select 
"write session", and the burn is unsuccessful, only the portion of the 
cd used before the error is unusable. The rest of the cd can be used 
again. Even when I am copying a CD exactly as a backup working copy, I 
still select the write session. That way I can make an exact copy and 
then with the few MBs remaining, I can burn a 2nd session that is a 
folder containing the serial number for the application. The 2nd 
session will show up on your desktop as a second CD. I usually name it 
SN for serial number. If your original cd takes up all the space on the 
blank one, Toast will not display the write session as an option, it 
will be grayed out.

5. Make sure that you check the Roxio website for any updates to your 
version of Toast Lite.

6. Be sure that you have at least 1 GB of empty hd, preferably in one 
chunk. I usually partition my hd so I have one partition large enough 
to hold one disk worth of data based on the largest size disk that 
burner will write to. On CDRWs, the partition is between 700mb and 1gb. 
On superdrives, it is 5gb. That partition gets wiped clean before I do 
a burn. I then create a folder with the correct name and drag 
duplicates of the original data files and folders I plan to burn to 
disk to that folder on the "burn" partition. That makes sure I have all 
the original data defragged and optimized in contigous sectors in the 
burn partition and ensures the fastest, most accurate and smallest 
sized burn possible. That helps to guarantee good burns.

I learned that trick the hard way after trying to burn back up data 
disks from a severely crowded and totally fragmented hd. The largest 
contigous space I had was only about 10KB. The burner fought valiantly 
to successfully burn the cd and finally succeeded 5 hours later. 
Fortunately, it was a very slow scsi burner or it never would have 
worked because of how slow the computer and the hard drive were. After 
that, I  included a burn partition on every system.

7. If your hard drive is slow, 4200-5400 RPM or slower and your burner 
is a new fast one, select a very slow speed in Toast for the burn, ie, 
1x or a max of 2x. This will let your burner slow down and match the 
speed of the drive much closer. If the burner writes too fast for the 
hard drive and buffer size to keep up with, there are empty gaps and 
that causes the burn to fail. Selecting buffer underrun protection will 
attempt to compensate for this situation but selecting settings that 
match speeds closer will also make huge differences in your success 
rate.

8. Media makes a huge difference also. There are many tech sites that 
discuss the various aspects and combinations of dye, speeds, brands, 
lasers, etc. in an effort to help sort out how to get the best results. 
There are as many variables as there are sites, mfgs., brands, experts, 
etc. I distilled as much of the tech stuff as I could understand or 
verify with experts I respect. From that data, I concluded that the 
darkest color on the read side will give the best burn. Part of 
creating a successful burn requires the dye in the cd to absorb the 
light from the laser. This creates the pits and mountains that hold the 
data on the cd tracks.

The following statement is not strictly accurate in the most scientific 
terms but it is the best rule of thumb I could find since no mfg will 
list the particular dye used in the product. When you have a choice, 
buy the darkest colored cds you can find. (the black ones are an 
exception and this rule does not apply to them). I try to hold the 
canisters up to the light to see what color escapes between the cds. 
Usually, it will be a pale lime green, greenish blue, or silver. I get 
the greenish blue, green and silver in that order. The darker dye 
usually will absorb the laser better and create better burns.

8. Brands do seem to make a difference but there are no really 
consistent rules for which brands and which burners. Memorex seem to 
work better on PCs than Macs. Sony also seem to prefer PCs. I have had 
good results with few bad burns with Kingston, Maxell, Imation, 
Verbatim and Fuji. Verbatim makes several different quality cds and are 
priced according to quality. Any body who buys a Mac with a burner gets 
one or more blank Verbatim cds in the software pack. If you notice, 
these cds are deep royal or medium sapphire blue and are the best 
quality cd available on the market.

Most commercial cds are silver colored and seem to defy all the things 
stated above. There is a reason for that. Commercial bulk produced cds 
are usually heat molded not burned and therein lies the difference. 
These start with a mold that contains an exact negative copy of the 
data pits and mountains which contain the data. Liquid materials are 
flowed into the mold, the mylar components are added, the top of the 
mold is applied under pressure and all the components are pressed under 
heat and regulated pressure to fit the molds exactly. Then they are 
cooled and removed. As a result, they don't need to follow the dye 
rules for lasers and burners. They simply show the color of the mylar 
which is silver. BTW, the label side is the side that must be protected 
at all costs. This is the mylar side where the burns end up. If you get 
a scratch on that side, the data is literally scraped off the cd. If a 
scratch shows up on the plastic side, it may cause a read failure, but 
you can repair or buff the plastic out and restore the cd usually. For 
that reason, if you use markers to label your cds, buy the ones 
specially made for this so they do not bleed into the data and damage 
it.

Hope something in this will help you work out the problems.

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