Am I asking too much (just an ordinary reliable CD backup) ?

[stevegalante]

Mac G3/300 beige - 384M RAM - 1x Cheetah 4G - 3x Cheetah 10k 9G - add. video card ATI Nexus 128 - ATTO Dual Channel UWSCSI (UL2D) - Lacie 19" - Nec LCD 15" - 2x Gefen 150s - OS 9.04 - ProTools 5.1 - Mix Plus w/3x MixFarms - ProControl + FaderPack - 1x Apogee AD8000 - 2x 888/16 - 1x 1622

I'm just trying to have an ordinary, reliable backup of PT data on CD. I'm using a Plextor 12x4x32x with the latest drivers with Discribe 4.0. Of the two SCSI channel one is used for the Cheetah 4G and the Plextor, the other for the 3 Cheetahs 9G that I use for ProTools. The software obviously resides on the system drive (4G).
My problems:
- I can't write data at 12x, often even 8x results in many failed discs, obviously
I tried all kind of brands (TDK, Fuji, Sony, Nacarmedia which are certified for 16x and
used by many computer test laboratories, etc.), so I use a 12x writer but if I want to
be quite safe I have to burn at 4x. This problem is less serious if I write with audio cds.
- When I read the discs with the G3 internal CD ROM often the reading is very very slow,
even 30 minutes for 5-600 Mb, if I tried to use the Plextor as a reader I have to use
the Astarte CD Copy to 'see' it to begin with. Then the reading is often faster but
when I play the files from ProTools I hear many digital 'cracks'.
- I tried Toast but the problems are even worst.
My question is : do I have a safe way to burn a data CD at least at 8x (why not 12x ???)
in a few minutes and read it back with no problems in the same few minutes ???
Am I asking too much ? Can my SCSI chain be the cause of these problems or maybe the
Mac CD ROM could be dirty ?

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www.downinhollywood.com

[Rollerex]

Take the Plextor CD Burner off of the Atto card and hook it up to the G3's internal SCSI.
I had the same trouble and that's what cured it

[MarkP]

Same here. You might not be able to burn at 12x but I do 8x with no problems at all.

[stevegalante]

Thanks for the idea; I don't know if you can further help me, but I'll try... inside my G3 there's the ATTO UL2D card on one of the PCI buses. On one of the two external SCSI connectors of this card (channel 1) I have the 3x Cheetahs chain. Internally in the G3 I have a flat SCSI cable going from an internal SCSI connector on the ATTO card (labeled 'channel 2') to the Cheetah 4G and from this to the system drive (Quantum 4,5G). So my question is how to connect the Plextor to a non-ATTO channel if everything seems under this controller ? Will my Mac's external db25 SCSI port work ?

[Rollerex]

Yes use the mac's external scsi connector and get the Plextor off of the atto card.
You might need the proper cable but it will work

[stevegalante]

rollerex I did what you suggest but the problems are exactly the same. I think what is going wrong is the way disks are written, not in reading. But I cannot imagine what can be the reason. Many disks fail to be written (8x, sometimes even 4x) and when I try to read the ones that I manage to write some of the files cannot be read or they are read very very slowly. A nightmare. I'll try to switch to DVDRAM

[BDWillis]

Hey Steve - Is the Plextor a Narrow (8 bit) device? If so, are you using a step-down terminator before the Plextor drive, and an active terminator at the end of the chain? Also, I believe the software should be on the boot (startup) drive… sorry if it is & I misunderstood your post).

Warmest Regards,
Brian

[stevegalante]

Brian, it's a SCSI 3 (UltraSCSI 20Mb/sec) device and the software is on the boot disk but thank you anyway.
Snoopy, thank to you too. The first of your suggestions is maybe the only thing I haven't tried. I'm waiting next week to try the new version of Toast to see if this helps. Maybe some cabling problem ? Well, maybe.
Some people told me to try to make a disc image first before actually writing the CD. What you all think ?

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www.downinhollywood.com

[snoopy]

I dunno if this is any help or not. But I have the same plextor. I run mine off of the ATTO card and on the same chain as the audio drives (the cd is never used at the same time, so it's not an issue (the are all in a seperate bay so I didn't want to run two cables). I have no problems writing anything at any speed.

However, I once did have a problem burning CDs. However it turned out the problem wasnt really the burning, it was the reading, and when it would go to verify the cd (read), it would say the burn failed. Took me a while to realize this. I ended up updating my toast cd reader (the extension) and that solved my problem.

This may not be the same problem you are having, but maybe it will help. It could also be in the cabling or method of going from 68pin to 50 pin, or something of that nature.