Nero Copying/Burning Issues!

[lapetite_66]

Hi:

I'm not entirely sure if this is the right section for the question but none of the other sections seems quite right either.

I am running Nero Ultra Enhanced version 7.7.5.1. Until recently whenever I copied from an 4x/8x/16x dvd's the process would take 30 minutes tops from simulation to actual copying. Just last night for some reason both the simulation and copying process are taking 32 minutes each! I know that depending on the speed of the disc your copying from that the simulation could take up to 30 minutes but until now that didn't effect the speed of the burn process especially if the disc I'm copying to is 4x/8x/16x.

For the life of me I can't figure what's causing this problem but it really irks me that now a relatively simple and quick process will now take me forever to achieve. (See attachment) Right now as I am writing this I am copying a dvd and as you can see it took from 7:18 until 8:21 just for one copy!

My computer isn't new it's one I had built at one of those computer conventions. It's around 4 years old now with a Syntax motherboard, Intel Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz CPU, 1GB of DDR memory, I have two NEC DVD-RW drives; 2500A(8x) and 3520AW(16x). I am wondering if it could be the BIOS as I have uninstalled and reinstalled Nero and the problem still persists.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

[Soopafresh]

Your drive channel has probably switched from UltraDMA to PIO. In non geek terms, download and doubleclick on the following file, then restart your PC.


http://winhlp.com/tools/resetdma.vbs (right click to save)

[redwudz]

You might check your DMA/PIO settings and see if the drive has reverted to PIO mode:

To check DMA/PIO mode within Windows:

Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

From there, right click on one of the channels and choose 'Properties>Advanced Settings'. All drives should be DMA mode. The 'Current Transfer Mode' for Hard drives is usually DMA 4-6 and DVD burners DMA 2-4, DVD ROMs usually DMA 2. If you see any in PIO mode, that can slow things down.

Changing them back may be easy or complicated. First see if you can change them in that window. If not, I usually uninstall the channel the drive is on and let the OS reinstall it. This will usually take a reboot. This will not damage any files on the computer.


But your problem may be the burner or Nero. Have you tried a different burning program like ImgBurn to see if it has the same results? If it isn't PIO mode or Nero, then it could be any number of different things. Among them the burner may be failing or at least needs cleaning.

Nero should have generated a log file that often tells you what the burner and Nero are doing and what errors there may be. You can post that here and it may help. Your screenshot seems to say it's operating at 16X speed, so something is causing the slowdown.

I guess I'm not clear either on why you are doing a simulation before the burn. Are you copying the DVD or is Nero re-encoding it?

[lapetite_66]

You might check your DMA/PIO settings and see if the drive has reverted to PIO mode:

To check DMA/PIO mode within Windows:

Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

From there, right click on one of the channels and choose 'Properties>Advanced Settings'. All drives should be DMA mode. The 'Current Transfer Mode' for Hard drives is usually DMA 4-6 and DVD burners DMA 2-4, DVD ROMs usually DMA 2. If you see any in PIO mode, that can slow things down.

Changing them back may be easy or complicated. First see if you can change them in that window. If not, I usually uninstall the channel the drive is on and let the OS reinstall it. This will usually take a reboot. This will not damage any files on the computer.

But your problem may be the burner or Nero. Have you tried a different burning program like ImgBurn to see if it has the same results? If it isn't PIO mode or Nero, then it could be any number of different things. Among them the burner may be failing or at least needs cleaning.

Nero should have generated a log file that often tells you what the burner and Nero are doing and what errors there may be. You can post that here and it may help. Your screenshot seems to say it's operating at 16X speed, so something is causing the slowdown.

I guess I'm not clear either on why you are doing a simulation before the burn. Are you copying the DVD or is Nero re-encoding it?

Hello redwudz:

First let me thank you for your help.

I checked and yes the 3520AW is in PIO mode. While I managed to change the transfer
mode field back to DMA I was unable to change the Current Transfer Mode back to DMA
mode.

When you say uninstall the channel the drive is on do you mean that you disconnect
the IDE cable from the motherboard???

As for why I do simulations as opposed to just copying outright, well I normally rip the
movie etc. onto a dvd-rw disc and copy from them. Bsecause I use them so much they tend
to wear out quickly which is kind of crazy when you think about it as they are supposed to
be able to be written over up to 1000 times right? Anyway, although I take good care of my
computer discs they still tend to become unusable to copy from at times so I always make a
point to do a simulation so that I don't end up with a coaster if the dvd-rw suddenly becomes unstable while in the simulation mode.

I am keeping a note of this problem that occurred but I curious to know how something like
this happened in the first place and is there some way to prevent this from happening in the future?

[lapetite_66]

Your drive channel has probably switched from UltraDMA to PIO. In non geek terms, download and doubleclick on the following file, then restart your PC.


http://winhlp.com/tools/resetdma.vbs (right click to save)

Hello Soopafresh:

Thanks for the advice.

I'm bit confused on just how exactly that I am supposed to use that information though. Do I go to my Accessories tab and click on the command prompt and copy that information into the command prompt window?

[redwudz]

If you right click on the offending channel in Device Manager, you will see the option to 'Uninstall'. Do that and reboot and usually it will reset to DMA. No unplugging needed. The reason it does that is a Windows 'feature'. With PIO, it will still be able to read the drive, albeit at a much lower speed. Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to restore it. If you uninstall the channel and reboot, Windows will restore it and reset it to DMA most times.

The reason it happens is that if Windows sees 6 consecutive read failures from a drive, it automatically changes it to PIO mode, which is really slow. If your are having a lot of trouble reading a disc and you hear a lot of 'seeking' noise from your DVD drive, it will likely revert to PIO.

If you can't reset it by uninstalling the channel, then you will need to do some registry changes. Uninstalling the channel is much safer.

If uninstalling doesn't work, get back to us.

[lapetite_66]

If you right click on the offending channel in Device Manager, you will see the option to 'Uninstall'. Do that and reboot and usually it will reset to DMA. No unplugging needed. The reason it does that is a Windows 'feature'. With PIO, it will still be able to read the drive, albeit at a much lower speed. Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to restore it. If you uninstall the channel and reboot, Windows will restore it and reset it to DMA most times.

The reason it happens is that if Windows sees 6 consecutive read failures from a drive, it automatically changes it to PIO mode, which is really slow. If your are having a lot of trouble reading a disc and you hear a lot of 'seeking' noise from your DVD drive, it will likely revert to PIO.

If you can't reset it by uninstalling the channel, then you will need to do some registry changes. Uninstalling the channel is much safer.

If uninstalling doesn't work, get back to us.

Thank you for the advice I will do it that way next time but this time I used the VBscript from Soopafresh. I was kind of skeptical as Norton kept telling me it was a virus but I knew it wasn't *prayed it wasn't* and clicked and allowed the script it to be used once and rebooted and my DMA channel was reset.

Thanks again!

[lapetite_66]

Your drive channel has probably switched from UltraDMA to PIO. In non geek terms, download and doubleclick on the following file, then restart your PC.


http://winhlp.com/tools/resetdma.vbs (right click to save)

Hello Soopafresh:

Thanks for the advice.

I'm bit confused on just how exactly that I am supposed to use that information though. Do I go to my Accessories tab and click on the command prompt and copy that information into the command prompt window?

Soopafresh:

I followed your advice and used the vbs script although I must admit that when Norton was telling me it could have been a virus I was concerned but I put my trust in you that you wouldn't lead me wrong and everything turned out okay. As how to use the script I've figured that out obviously but when I first read your advice I was using the Firefox browser and the vbs didn't download right so I tried it again with IE and it did and as they say the rest is history!

Thanks again!