How to eliminate buffer underrun errors?

Question

Machine: Inspiron 8200, 1.8 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 60 GB 4200 rpm HDD, Toshiba DVD/CD 4x/24x drive, Sony 4x/8x/24x CRX700E CD-RW drive (recently bought second-hand), Windows XP SP2, Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.3. Every time I try to burn a CD-R (Kodak) buffer underrun errors occur and my discs are trash. I have tried adjusting the writing speed to 4x and 2x but the same thing happens. The source discs are CD-Rs (which copy well on my other Inspiron 600m). Interestingly, when burning at 8x (disc copy), for example, Easy CD Creator reports a speed only between 3x and 4x. The CD-RW unit does not have buffer underrun protection. What could I do to be able to burn CDs on this machine? Thank you for your help! Michael

bacillus · Answer

you need to make sure that both hdd & optical drives are using dma & not pio transfers.
device manager>ide controllers>primary>properties>advanced settings & see what it says for device 0 next to current transfer mode. this will be for your hdd.
for your optical drive do the same but substuite secondary for primary.

bacillus · Answer

you didn't read my post correctly! read the line below as even if DMA if available is selected the current transfer mode can still be pio.

Michael9009 · Answer

For all units (hdd and both optical) it reads Ultra DMA mode under Current Transfer Mode. What else could I do/try?

Michael9009 · Answer

My HDD and both my optical drive controllers ARE set to 'DMA if available'. I still get the buffer underrun errors. Any other ideas? Thanks!

Storage, Drives & Media

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