Need some PC help

[ajmall]

Hey all,

My CD/DVD combo drive has been playing up lately - I've been able to burn CDs but not DVDs. It can play and read DVDs just not burn them - gets to around 10% then just stops in some cases and in others I get error messages saying the disc is dirty when it's brand new. Even if the lens is dirty, it seems strange that it can burn CDs? I will try cleaning the lens with a cleaning disc but if anyone has experienced similar problems and/or knows a resolution other than cleaning I would much appreciate it.

Secondly, does it take longer to copy data from a disc to an external hard drive via usb 2.0 than it would straight on to the built in hard drive? I'm currently copying a 4x disc as I type and I estimate it is going to take around an hour for 1.5GB of data... snorrre

Thanks in advance for your help.

I'm using a Dell Insipron 6000 with Windows XP Home and a built in CD/DVD+- RW drive.

Drew

 

[EOS_JD]

You sure it's not faulty disks? I got a batch of 100 DVD-Rs that don't work right. CDs and other DVDs write no problem but this one batch was crap. I got them cheap on ebay - wrong move!! I get the same problem as you on these crap discs.

Buy better named brands. They are worth that wee bit extra.

It should not really take any longer to copy to a USB drive. The data speeds of hard drives and USB2 cables is much faster than the small amount of data transferred at 4x. Shouldn't take an hour though? If you only have a 4x drive, you can buy new 16x drives for about £25!!

 

[The_Traveler]

Hey all,

Secondly, does it take longer to copy data from a disc to an external hard drive via usb 2.0 than it would straight on to the built in hard drive? I'm currently copying a 4x disc as I type and I estimate it is going to take around an hour for 1.5GB of data... snorrre
Drew

There are a couple of choke points here: How fast your system handles the give and take of copying and checking and how fast your external hard drive is.

In the past I have copied from internal HD to external HD (7200) on Firewire at about .75 GB/minute -supposedly USB 2 will match that.

I have had more luck copying to internal from CD and then copying to external.