** Burning Audio CD **

[Bill Lane]

Hi All:

I hope I'm in the right place to post this.

This is the first time I've tried to burn an Audio CD.

I have an Acer CDRW 12x8x32, I didn't install the Adaptec software that came with it because I thought WinXP Pro was already set up with software to burn Audio or files.

Anyway, I selected the music that I wanted to burn ( it's in wav format ).

WMP 10 converts all the music okay, I click Burn, it starts the burn, the red writing led on the CDRW comes on, then off, then the Burn List says Closing Disk.

I'm using Memorex CD-R Recordable 52x 700MB, 80Min media.

Can someone point me in the right direction to get this set up to work?

Thanks ahead of time, your help has always been appreciated !!!

Bill Lane

[glc]

Check the properties of your IDE controllers for DMA. If the drive is running PIO, that's going to cause problems.

[xMedai21]

Try Using Nero

[Bill Lane]

Hi glc:

Not sure what I'm looking for, but in Device Manager, IDE ATA / ATAPI Controllers I found the following ...

Primary = Ultra DMA Mode 5

Secondary = Multi-Word DMA Mode 2

I didn't see anything showing PIO under any of the Tabs.

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

Are you sure that it did in fact burn the disk.... Did you try to explore the burned disk to see what was on it after the burn..?

The sequence of lights maybe normal for that burner...? post back

[Bill Lane]

Hi xMedai21 & MaxRat:

I don't have Nero, do you mean buy it? Don't WinXP have the ability to write to the disk without installing the software that came with the drive ( Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.02e ).

Yes I checked the disk and there was nothing on it.

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

yes xp does and it's very basic....do a yahoo or google search for Free burners... You can try to see if nero still offers a trial version...

I know that burn4free is a free burner and so is burnatonce....but they don't detect all drives....I would try this to see if your not having a software problem....

I have used media player 10 to burn a cd and it did just fine.... I ripped all the cd's I had into the library and then made a favorite playlist and then burned that back to the cd....in cd format....without a hitch...

EDIT: sorry I didn't see you had software....Install it and try it...

[doctorgonzo]

CD Burner XP Pro (http://www.cdburnerxp.se/) is another freeware CD burner.

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

It won't install, I get an error message telling me to go to Roxio, but I don't see an upgrade there, they want me to spend $70.

I would just like to use WMP if possible.

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

do you have the latest version of media player...10...?

If not try to update it...either windows update or do a yahoo search for it...

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

I just upgraded To Media Player version 10.00.00.3646 yesterday.

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

Okay....

how many disk have you tried and what brand are they... are you sure your not getting some bad disk...M/P10 should have no problem comunicating with your burner...?

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

I'm using Memorex CD-R Recordable 52x 700MB, 80Min media, I've tried two brand new disks, and in fact while I was waiting for a response from you, I again downloaded Media Player 10, but I get the same results.

Bill Lane

P.S. I tried a new disk ( third disk ), but I still end up with it saying "Closing Disk" before it finishes burning the first track.

[MaxRat]

May try another brand or try to slow down the burning speed...this can be done in the burners properties....(my computer)

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

I set it to 1x write, put in a new disk, still won't work.

What brand of disks do you reommend?

I downloaded the CD Burner XP Pro That doctorgonzo recommended, so I'll give it a try.

I'll let you know what happens,

Bill Lane

[Bill Lane]

Well the CD Burner XP Pro didn't work for me either.

Here's a picture of the error I received while trying to burn an audio CD...
http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/cd-write-error-01.jpg

Here's a picture of the error I received while trying to burn a data CD ...
http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/cd-write-error-02.jpg

The only disk I had for the data write is a Smart and Friendly CDRW ReWritable 74 Minutes, 650MB.

On all of my Memorex disks when you hold them up at an angle to the light, the leading edge looks discolored / flawed, at least it's not the even look the the rest of the disk area has.

Bill Lane

[glc]

That's a pretty old and slow burner - why don't you just buy a new one? DVD burners are down to $40 now, and they come with software that *works* with XP.

[Bill Lane]

Hi glc:

That sounds like a good idea!

I'll let you know how it turns out when I get one and get it installed.

Thanks,

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

I have only had trouble with memorex disk myself...With your second error measage I would be more inclined to say the burner itself maybe bad....

I prefer verbatim disk myself...But I have used Ridata with no problems....I have even used those cheapo staples disk from the local staples....you may try another know brand just to see if it isn't a problem...?

But glc is right that looks to be a pretty old burner... Do you have access to another pc you can pop it in temporarily to check it...?

When you run into trouble the first thing I do is: make sure the drive is the only drive on that channel (to make sure it's not conflicting with another drive) check with different jumper setting...Master/Cable select with a 80wire cable...some older drives just don't play well with others...

On one instance to get the drives to work correctly I had to un-install the IDE controller in the device manager and re-install the "windows standard dual-channel" IDE controller...this fixed it for me...some older drives just have the wrong codecs and just won't work right....

If you figure your time and then put a price on that time....you'll be cheaper just buying a new drive and not messing with it...but if you like you can try all those things I listed and see if it fixes itself....

For a new drive I highly recomend the Nec 3550a it's a dvd/rw burner and they are 38.00 at newegg...

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

Well I ordered a new unit and disks before you posted, so I hope the following stuff will work ....

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/lite-on-info.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/memorex.jpg


If not, we'll figure something else out :-}

Thanks, I'll let you know sometime next week when my order gets here.

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

Bill... Those will work just fine....

Please post back with results....

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

I would like to keep things as simple as possible, so can I try WMP without installing Nero when my new DVD burner arrives, or do you recommend using the Nero software?

Thanks again,

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

if you are just fooling with mixing music..media player will work just fine....I have had no issues using it for that....

At my shop I have 200cd's all loaded into the pc and I use media Player10 for that....I can edit the play list and burn a "greatest hits" cd with ease...

The only thing I realy use Nero for is for copying cd's on the fly....make an exact copy of another cd...OR using it to make a ISO back-up or to make a bootable cd....

Hope that helps...

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

That's all I was planing to do "mixing music", but now I see where I'm going to need Nero too because I do want to be able to copy a CD.

If Nero is installed, will WMP still work for "music mixing"? I'm pretty sure your answer will be yes, but thought I'd better ask.

Thanks again,

Bill Lane

P.S. My order was shipped today.

[MaxRat]

yes they will play well together...Just update Nero to the latest version via there web site...

Just open nero after you install it and find the update part...when it opens the web page to the updates....close nero and proceed...

[h2s04]

I've had pretty good results with DeepBurner....another freebie....

[Bill Lane]

Hi All:

I installed my new Lite-On DVD+RW IDE drive set to Master, and my CD-Rom set to Slave on the Secondary IDE of the motherboard.

I put in a new blank disk, selected the tracks that I wanted to burn, it converted them, burned them, Closed the disk, and ejected the disk.

I took the disk and put it in my CD-Rom, WMP opened and started playing, but some of the tracks have blank spots and played choppy.

The music in the computer is in both wav and mp3 format, and they play great with WMP.

I put the disk in my AIWA CX-MMA545 stereo and it seemed to play a little better, but it still had the blank spots.

I put a second new disk in the new burner, again it converted the tracks, burned the tracks, closed the disk and ejected the disk, but it's blank, no tracks, no music, no nothing. I put it back in the DVD Burner and it was blank, nothing on it.

Any ideas what I should be looking for now?

I haven't installed the Nero software yet, I wanted to get this working first.

My regular store bought CD's work just fine in the CD-Rom and the new DVD Burner. They both open the WMP and play just fine.

Anyway, I hope someone has some thoughts on this problem.

Thanks,

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

Bill...

when you go into the device manager do you see any conflicts...? can you also check to make sure the drive ir running in DMA mode...

try disconnecting the cd-rom...and running just the dvd/rw by itself on the ide connection...

can you list your complete system specs...and everything you have plugged into the pc and how....?

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

I don't know if I'm giving you what you ask for, but here's what I have.

Don't see any conflicts in Device Manager.

Here's the DVDRW http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/dvdrw.jpg

Here's the DVD http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/cd-rom.jpg

Here's the Sys. Info http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/sys-info.jpg

Here's what's running http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/hijackthis.log

I haven't disconnected the DVD player yet, or tried to make a third burn.

I used Hijack This to try and get what's running, if I'm in the wrong place, let me know how to find out what's running and system specs.

Bill Lane

[Bill Lane]

Well I disconnected the DVD player, and burned a new disk, after it ejected the disk I closed it and it opened the WMP and started playing track 7, when it finished that track I clicked track 1, it started to play real choppy, and hung up, I had to use ctrl-alt-del to get out. I tried it again with track 2, nothing, zero, but the progression bar moved across to the end and stopped, it wouldn't go to the next track.

I put the disk in my stereo and the first track played okay (track 1 ), but tracks 2, 3, 4, and 5, nothing played, 6 through 16 played okay.

I have no idea what's wrong. is it the WMP, maybe I received a bad burner?

Sure hope someone can help me get this thing to work right.

Thanks,

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

have you tried a different brand of media in the burner...

Man that sounds weird...I'd hate to think you got a bad burner..but it does happen.... I'd try to trouble shoot it some more....try doing a data back up of a whole disk of files and see if it burns all of them and they are all read able..?

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

I'll try it now,

Bill Lane

[Bill Lane]

Hi Again MaxRat:

I copied 130MB of text files and jpg, bmp, and gif's to the disk. some jpg files open an explorer like page titled "No Page to Display", then you try again and it opens. The same with text files, some get an error "A Hardware I/O Error Was Reported While Accessing K:\ATX-cases.bmp", but a second try it opened.

Any file you try to open takes about 2 min. to open / respond.

I tried to fill the disk with files, but it said I had too many files, so I deleted a few and retried, I had to do this a few times till it started coping, then when it was finished I saw that I had only copied 130mb.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

When I was using Adaptec Direct CD, I could access files as fast as accessing my hard drive.

Also coping the files to this disk was very slow.

Bill Lane

P.S. I don't have any other media, but if you think it's worth a try, I'll get some.

[MaxRat]

try going to www.pcpitstop.com and run the full test....see what it comes up with....I suspect some how windows is boogered or the drive is defective....If you have a full version of nero it has a drive tester...may try that or dowmload a drive tester

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

Here's the full test from pcpitstop.com ...

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/pit-stop.jpg

I didn't let them correct anything, nor did I,

Bill Lane

P.S. I'm going to install Nero and upgrade it, then look to see if it has the drive tester.

[Bill Lane]

Okay, I upgraded to Nero 6.6.0.18

I looked for a drive tester, here's what I found ...

Nero CD-DVD Speed with four tabs ...
Benchmark, Disk Info, Disk Quality, and Scan Disk

But I don't really know what I'm looking for, I did put in a new blank disk before running this Nero CD-DVD Speed.

I tried to run Defrag for C:\, but it wouldn't run, it told me to run CHKDSK or CSANDISK, I couldn't find SCANDISK so I ran CHKDSK, a Dos type window opened and started scanning, but when it finished, it dissappeared so I have no record of what it may have found or fixed.

Defrag has always fine before.

Disk Health shows all hard drives to be healthy.

Anyway, I hope you can spot something with what I've posted so far,

Bill Lane

[Bill Lane]

Okay, I found out how to run CHKDSK and ran it, I had checked the box Auto Fix Errors, while it was running I wasn't watching and when I looked up it must have finished because windows was starting, so I don't know if it found any errors or fixed anything.

I was then able to run Defrag.

I'm going to burn another disk to see how it turns out.

Bill Lane

[Bill Lane]

Okay, I burned my first disk using Nero, blank spots and choppy.

I burned my second disk using WMP, blank spots and choppy.

When I tried to play it back in Nero I received the following message ...

I included the error message with the log file.

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/my-log.jpg

One thing that I think shows some kind of a problem is when I click on the DVD icon in Explorer, if there is no disk in it, it tells you to put in a disk.

But when I click on the DVDRW icon with no disk in the drive, it hangs with the hourglass and I have to hit ctrl-alt-del to get out.

Does this tell you anything?

Also it took 14 min. to burn a disk using Nero, that seems like a long time compaired to WMP.

Bill Lane

[glc]

Turn off the Microsoft Antispyware active protection when you are burning.

[MaxRat]

Okay,

One thing that I think shows some kind of a problem is when I click on the DVD icon in Explorer, if there is no disk in it, it tells you to put in a disk.

But when I click on the DVDRW icon with no disk in the drive, it hangs with the hourglass and I have to hit ctrl-alt-del to get out.

Does this tell you anything?



Bill Lane

Yes.... that tells me something is conflicting in windows....

Try this....just to check....try rolling back the IDE controller to the windows generic... I've had to do this to correct conflicts....Usually with nVidia chipsets though....Not on an Intel but maybe worth a shot...

14 minutes is a long time to burn a cd...

scandisk is in the H/D properties....(my computer/ right click H/D...click properties)

roll driver back....control panel/system/device manager/ ide controller....

if the driver wont roll back...you can un-install and re-install the windows standard dual-channel controller...


or you may try to update all the chipset drivers after that....it sounds like a driver issue to me now...still not ruling out you may have gotten a bad drive....I doubt it but...not ruling it out...

Try as glc...metioned 1st...

I looked at the pcpitstop report....everything looks good...

for future reference...block out your IP addresses so they cant be seen... you wouldn't want some one using them...for safety sake...

[Bill Lane]

Hi glc & MaxRat:

I couldn't roll back the Intel IDE Controller so I removed it and installed the standard controller.

I turned off Microsoft Antispyware active protection.

I burned a new disk ( 16 tracks ), with WMP, the conversion and burn process was faster this time.

After it ejected, I closed the drawer, but it wouldn't detect the disk, in the past it would open WMP and start playing.

I had to open WMP manually and then open the files in the DVD drive, it loaded the tracks but wouldn't play, then a message popped up saying ...

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/wmp-message.jpg

Then it played, but choppy, I put the disk in my stereo and it played great !!!, never heard better !!!

It wouldn' play at all with the Nero player, I received an error message, but can't remember what it said, I should have copied it.

Also when the disk is in the DVD drive, I can click the icon in Explorer and it shows all the tracks, but if I put the disk in the DVDRW drive, and click the icon in Explorer it don't show anything, but at least it don't hang up now.

Bill Lane

[Bill Lane]

Hi Again:

I tried to play the disk in the Nero player to get the message that I couldn't remember, but this time it wouldn't do anything.

Also now when I put the disk in the DVDRW drive and click on the icon in Explorer it shows the tracks, but when I click on a track nothing happens except the hourglass shows up, I can right click and select WMP and it opens but won't play now.

I turned off Microsoft Antispyware active protection, but that didn't help this time.

It seems like the problems don't stay the same.

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

well try to change the cd format to analog....

least we know it could be a driver problem....boy I think this is getting to be alot of work for you....

You may try updating to the latest chipset drivers...(going totally the other direction) but you need to know what they are....

worst case scenerio....would be a fresh install on XP to be sure it aint boogered

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

Yes I'm getting a little flustered :-)

I was just about to reinstall WinXP Pro, I saved all my e-mails, and your notification came in, so here I am.

How do I change the CD format?

Bill Lane

[MaxRat]

Bill ....

I just checked....
you can either go into the device manager and do it OR

My computer..right click the drive...properties...hardware tab...select your device...click the properties next to trouble shoot...then on the properties tab of the drive ....uncheck...enable digital...

you may try a repair of window.... or a full wipe and re-install....one way or another we'll figure it out..... I like a good challenge....but boy....argh

[Bill Lane]

Okay, I unchecked that box, and the WMP snaps open faster, loads and plays the tracks, but no sound now.

[MaxRat]

yes because the sound goes thru the IDE cable when digital...when analog...you need to hook up the sound wire... forgot about that....Do you have any spare IDE cables to test to see if you have a bad one hooked to the drive.... even another one out of another pc...to test temp...

if you have another cable to test...re enable digital 1st...

[Bill Lane]

I Don't have another cable, but I'll change it from the DVDRW to the DVD

[Bill Lane]

Okay, I got sound now, but real choppy music.

I forgot to tell you, I disabled everything I could find that was running, uninstalled Nero, and a few other programs that I wasn't using.

[MaxRat]

are the dvd and rw on the same cable...?

kinda hard on where to go without a cable to test... a bad cable will do this... so will windows if it's boogered... and so will a bad drive.... I boogere IDE cannel will also do this.... which is where we are... Know anyone you could borrow and IDE cable from.... or near a pc store or staples

[Bill Lane]

Yes, both on the same cable, the DVDRW is at the end, and the DVD is in the middle.

The cable is a new round one, but I have another one still in the package.

I'll give that a try.

[MaxRat]

I Don't have another cable,



The cable is a new round one, but I have another one still in the package.

now your confusing me....;)

EDIT:... may try putting the rw as a slave on the same cable as the hard drive to test it again...?

EDIT: just for giggles.... put a NON-burned cd in the drive and test for sound choppyness by playing thru MP..

[Bill Lane]

The cable that I said I didn't have was the audio cable, I unplugged it from the DVDRW and plugged it in the DVD.

I changed the IDE cable to a new one, but the DVDRW is still connected to the end and the DVD to the middle, do you want me to switch them?

The DVDRW is the Master, DVD the Slave

Do you mean by non burned a blank CD or a store bought CD with music on it?

[Bill Lane]

I put a store bought music CD in the DVD and it opened WMP and played right away, no crackle, no choppyness.

Like all my regular music CD's played in this mechine, it sounded great !!!

[MaxRat]

you can try to switch the drives around.... or just test using just the one drive....may try jumpering them cable select...

Do you have trouble playing any tracks once there ripped to the library...?

you should be able to switch between tracks pretty quickly.... It may be the new drive may be defective....?

[Bill Lane]

I set both drives to Cable Select, put the DVD player on the end of the IDE cable and the DVDRW on the middle connector.

I had ripped two tracks from a store bought CD using WMP before switching the cables, they both played back great then and now.

When I put the CD that I burned in the DVD player the led just blinks for a while then stops.

When I put the CD that I burned in the DVDRW player it opens the WMP, but it don't play, no tracks are showing, but the led just keeps blinking, never stops.

Both drives open and play a store bought audio music CD, and you can switch between tracks with no problem.

Again, the CD that I burnned plays great in my AIWA stereo just like any other store bought music CD that I have in there, you can switch between tracks with no problem.

Same results running one drive by it's self.

I don't understand how the new DVDRW could be defective if it plays so great in my stereo.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to have my wife play the burnned disk in her Nissan factory CD player and see what happens.

[pogo]

look may not be any help, but last spring I faced the problem of taking old cassette rehearsal and recital tapes and converting them to CD. tested the MScrapware, burned through Real and then Nero--tried all of them and was really frustrated.

go to SourceForge, get Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

you'll save yourself heaps of frustration later. Audacity makes a universal file which you can convert to .wav or.mp3

after I had files loaded through audacity, was easy to burn Nero audio. For high quality, I burned really slow and used Bell Labs vinyls Emegeton Blue vinyl or gold audio vinyl. Real cheap, but no rattle. Audacity gives you multi-track options and broad editing tools.

I tried many different cd's--but few can handle soprano-piano because they rattle or hiss or sound metallic, so choice of cd is dependent on needs. Sony Cds rattled and higher range of soprano-piano undesirable. really brittle sharp sound that no soprano needs. Emgeton vinyls are really good for concerthall reproduction sound--for accoustic warmth.

MS made me nuts. I also object to Real stamping all my personal files. Ought to be illegal to brand files without creator's permission.

spent about 110hours working with different approaches, methods for tape transfer to cd and at least five different types of cds-- Emgeton audio cd is bout 25% cost of Sony Audio-- cheap.

[MaxRat]

welcome to PcMech Pogo....

That is some nice info....thank you..

Bill....

I don't think the new drive is defective...at least I'm not convinced....But I would hate for you to spend the time wipping and re-installing the OS and still have the same problem...It still may be the drives do not like the media your are burning on....?

Knowing that the cd's play perfect in everything else without skipping or chopping and playing near perfect leads me to either in compatable media or a software conflict...?

[Bill Lane]

Hi MaxRat:

Well it don't play perfect in everything else, this morning I put the burned disk in my backup computer (Win98), NEC Player, it had scratchey/static lightly in the background, and blank spots. Don't know why I didn't think of doing this before :-(

I had my wife play it in her Nissan Factory CD Player it didn't have any blank spots, but she could hear the scratchy / static in the background.

My main hard drive is partitioned into four equal partitions, if you think it's worth a try, I can wipe the C:\ drive, format and reinstall.

I just want to get it working right. Let me know what you think our next move should be.

Do you think I should try a different brand of media, and if so, what brand? And do they have them at Office Max, Office Depot, or Radio Shack?

I downloaded Audacity 2.2.4b.exe just in case we need it or want to try it.

Thanks Pogo.

[MaxRat]

yes try some different media.... office max or depot.... after that...reformat...

[Bill Lane]

What Brand?

[MaxRat]

Any... I prefer...verbatim, sony, hp....but for a test any brand other than what you have will work....

stay away from cheap brands....I have had the worst luck with Teon and memorex...and some maxell

[glc]

My Lite-On DVD burner is very happy with Verbatim 16X DVD+R's and TDK 48X CDR's.

[MaxRat]

glc....

do you see anything I may have missed in helping Bill...? This thread seams to be not getting very far... as he still has the problem albeit different but still a problem....

[Bill Lane]

Hi glc & MaxRat:

I bought Verbatim CD-R 1X-52X 80 MIN / 700 MB/Mo, looking at what glc uses, did I get the wrong media?

This time after burning, and ejecting the disk, when I closed the drawer it opened WMP and started playing. And that worked in both the DVD & the DVDRW players.

Also in Explorer the tracks now show when the disk is in either drive.

But, I still have a problem :-(, the first 11 tracks played great, 12 through 19 was jerky, blank spots or didn't play at all.

I could switch between the good tracks without a problem, but if I switched to a bad track it would lock up most of the time.

Well, what's our net move? Sure hate to reinstall, but if that's what it's going to take, I'll get on it.

One thing that still has me puzzled, in Explorer when there is no disk in the DVD drive, and I click that drive, it tells me "Please insert a disk into drive K:.", but when there is no disk in the DVDRW, and I click that drive, nothing, no message at all, but at least it don't hang with the hourglass anymore.

[Bill Lane]

Hi Again glc & MaxRat:

I don't know if this could be part of my problem, or all of it, but this has happened to me a few times. When it happened tonight I copied the page, What happens is I'm on the internet, and when I go to change to another page, my computer reboots, then I get the Microsoft Send Error Report, I sent it and here's the info I received, it's at this link ...

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/ms-on-line-crash.jpg

I tried to download the test file/program, but couldn't get it to work, and couldn't figure out how to use it.

Anyway, it looks like it's telling me that I have a memory problem.

It might not happen again for a month or two.

[needhelp]

Install and burn with Nero, you should have no problems.

[Bill Lane]

Hi needhelp:

I did, and had the same problem.

[needhelp]

I have been reading through the posts here and see you have a back up computer, I know this is a bit of a hassle but have you tried the new burner in this computer.

[glc]

You need to test your ram.

http://www.memtest.org/download/1.65/memtest86+-1.65.floppy.zip

There is a readme file in the zip that tells you how to make the boot floppy.

[MaxRat]

I agree with the testing....You run it from dos...let it run for as long as possible...I'd say 8 hours....

but a minimum of 4hrs

[Bill Lane]

Hi glc & MaxRat:

Boy!!, why couldn't Microsoft offer this Memtest86 test simplified like this. It was a piece of cake getting it set up and running.

For the 8 hour run, you won't hear from me till after 6 PM PST this evening.

Thanks guys,

[MaxRat]

what do you mean "simplified"..?

to set up XP you just boot from the cd and it's easy as pie....
For memtest..you have to download it...unzip it...load it to a bootable floppy or create a bootable ISO cd...whew thats work....;)

For future reference...download the ultimate boot cd...and make one for your pc tool kit.... it has memtest on it with various other tools you may need...gl..

[Bill Lane]

Hi glc and MaxRat:

Here's the results of the test, looks good to me ...

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane271/mem-test.jpg

MaxRat, I didn't have to creat a bootable ISO CD, it was simple :-)

Anyway, what do you think our next step should be?

[glc]

This thread is getting huge - if this was asked before, please excuse me. What speed are you burning these audio CD's at? Try slowing them down.

[Bill Lane]

Hi glc:

I had set it to 1x, but I just checked it and it's back to fastest, I guess I should have checked it each time I burned a disk. I didn't think it would change back.

[Bill Lane]

Hi Again:

I just burned a new disk and it's perfect!, I think that I may have forgot to recheck the speed after installing the new DVDRW.

I set it to burn at 1x, turned everything that was running off.

My settings in this computer don't always stay where I set them, I have an issue on that with write pad.

Anyway, I want to thank everyone that guided me though this, and I'm sure happy that I didn't have to reinstall to get it to work.

Thanks again!!!