Written by : Gary Chung
Special thanks: C.M.Kleinschmidt

Overview

　　A stable operating system and PC configuration is required when processing CDs. This means your PC hardware and your operating system must be working well together, otherwise this may lead to failure when recording.

　　Recording failure causes some people to believe that the CD-RW drive has an instability when in fact the fault lies with the PC confi-guration. In recording CDs there is always likely to be some failure, so expect this. For example, you may record 10 CDs, and allow for 1 ( maybe 2 ) media to fail. From this, you can deduce the good quality media is essential. Some media uses low quality organic dye, which may affect the recording process. Other causes of failure could include the CD-ROM drive becoming inaccessible or perhaps something causing CD-ROM drive access to slow down.

　　We also suggest you avoid day-to-day accessing of processed media using the CD-RW drive. There is the possibility of dust accu-mulating on the media. This may come off when the media is revolving in the CD-RW drive and fall on the Optical Pick-up, affecting the drive's functioning.

Installation :

◎ SCSI interface :
1. IRQ Settings : in accord with Plug and Play.
2. SCSI Channel ID Settings: Ensure there are no conflicting devices
　 in the SCSI ID channel.
3. Data transfer rate settings: Set up the SCSI ID for the drive to
　 provide 5MB/sec.
4. A well-known brand of SCSI card (or a SCSI card known to
　 operate reliably) is required.
5. We suggest using Adaptec SCSI cards.
6. Avoid using an All-In-One Main Board if possible.

◎ E-IDE (ATAPI) interface :
1. Ensure the drive setting is correctly set to either master or slave
　 ( using the device configuration jumper ).
2. Do not connect a CD-RW drive or CD-ROM to the same E-IDE
　 connector as the Hard Disk drive.
3. Do not connect the drive to a Sound Card IDE connector.
4. A late model Main Board is required. Older Main Boards may not
　 work reliably.

◎ Hardware compatibility requirements :
1. A normal Main Board (not All-In-One Main Board). It is preferable
　 this supports Ultra DMA33 or DMA 66.
2. A stable Power Supply.
3. A high quality Hard Disk drive ( above Mode 4 or with DMA33/66
　 support ).
4. A high quality CDROM drive, ( stable and fast accessing,
　 preferably above 24X ).
5. Low dust environment, airy and not high temperature; a
　 comfortable personal operating environment.
6. Avoid making the CD-RW drive accessible as part of a Local Area
　 Netwo

Operating System Requirements :

1. Close any Screen Saver program when you are recording media.
2. Do not run too many programs at the same time as you are
　 recording.
3. Reserve an area of 650 to 700 Mbytes on your hard disk as this 4. space might be needed for an Image File (*.ISO).
5. Close any Anti-Virus program when you are recording media.
6. Close or turn off any Power Management software while you are
　 recording.
7. Run the Scandisk and Defrag programs for your Hard Disk weekly.
8. Avoid any resident software being in memory.
9. It is better if the Format of your hard disk is FAT32.
10. Upgrade the firmware of CD-RW drive whenever a later version
　　becomes available.

Notes :

1. Before you record, check :
　 Does the size ( minutes, Mbytes or blocks ) of the source data
　 exceed the size of the target CD?
　 Is the surface of the source media noticeably damaged ?
　 Is your CDROM drive working correctly ?
　 Is the source media protected in some way?

2. Quick Erase will erase the TOC ( Table Of Contents ), taking
　 about 2 minutes; Full Erase takes 50 to 90 minutes.

3. DirectCD is in accord with the UDF2.0 (Universal Disk Format),
　 processing using Packet Writing.

4. When recording Audio Tracks, use DAO (Disc At Once). The disc
　 will not contain any 2sec gaps which produce noise when played.
　 Run the Defrag program before you record Audio media from your
　 Hard Disk (assuming you first read the Audio Tracks into *.WAV
　 files on the Hard Disk )