back half of CD blank

I originally made a file containing African Grey Parrot whistles and beeps. It is about an hour long. I did it all in Cool Edit about 18 months-2 years ago. I fried my HD and lost the master on the HD. I took a copy I had on CD and copied that to my HD and I get a few bits of static here and there on any copies I burn.  Worse though, the back half of any CD I try to burn comes out blank. It starts anywhere from about 35 to 40 minutes into the CD when played on any other player. Just pure silence.

I imported the file into AA2, which I now have but have not learned the program yet, since I am rushing to make CDs to send to a few customers. Visually the file is there, and it plays all the way thru with no static or silent places. I was using Nero to burn the copies, I have not tried to burn from AA2.

I am a complete novice and it took me many months to learn Cool Edit 2 years ago to do the original, and AA2 is downrught scary, so any help with a starting place would be most welcome.
Thanks a bunch,
Jean

Static is not a good sign; it probably means that there are bursts of unrecoverable read errors on the disc.  Please make sure that the disc is absolutely clean.  Mild dishsoap and warm water is a good remedy if it's not IF you don't dry it with anything that is abrasive or leaves lint, which is a tough assignment.  Also, it may be scratched, or was recorded on a less-than-optimal blank that has begun to lose its data.

In any case, this may be a job for Exact Audio Copy.  Please run a search on this forum for "CD ripping" and "Exact Audio Copy" and I think you'll find some good pointers.

In any case, this may be a job for Exact Audio Copy.

He says he's got a good copy - it's the new burns that fail.

First up, try a different lot of blank CDs - some of the cheap ones can be astoundingly bad.  

Also check that the burner has UDMA enabled - as the CD proceeds, the transfer rate can get faster (depending on how the drive works), and a transfer rate limitation like PIO could become a problem.  After that, worry about the burner itself.  OTOH, I wouldn't expect pure silence, nor would I expect this level of problem without some error indication from the burner.

Have you tried burning other music?  Or data?

Paul

First up, try a different lot of blank CDs - some of the cheap ones can be astoundingly bad.

So I am doing the right thing by always using TDK or Sony blank CDs and DVDs while the whole world swears blind that the cheaps ones are just as good?

What kind of CD burner do you have?  It sounds to me like you have a bad CD drive.  Also, don't burn at high speed - try burning at 8x.  Try burning something else to CD - does it go bad at the same point?

The keys are:
Good Drive
Good Media
Slow Burn

I use Plextor Premium drives and usually burn at 16x (they are capable of 52x) and I get good results.  I have one Liteon DVD burner in the house - any CD I try to burn on that goes bad around 35 minutes.

First up, try a different lot of blank CDs - some of the cheap ones can be astoundingly bad.

So I am doing the right thing by always using TDK or Sony blank CDs and DVDs while the whole world swears blind that the cheaps ones are just as good?

Yes. The whole world generally knows bugger all about error rates, and wouldn't recognise the concept of BLER, even if it came and poked them in the eye with a sharp stick.

The best media is Verbatim. Can't say the the same for mitsubishi cars.

The best media is Verbatim. Can't say the the same for mitsubishi cars.

Be careful ... Not all verbatim disks are the same - be careful.  The dark blue Data Life Plus disks are good.  I have a stack of verbatims from Sam's Club that burn with many times the errors I get on Taiyo Yuden disks.

I still think it's a drive problem more than a media problem.

My bad.  ...must...  ...read... ...carefully...  ...slower...

Verbatim, Taijo Yuden, Mitsui, Apogee...  and occasionally consumer brands like Fuji (occasionally are Taiyo Yuden -- look if it says "Made in Japan" on the wrapper instead of Taiwan), Memorex, TDK (some DVD+R discs from either brand come from the same plant)...

I never burn faster than 8x if I care about the result.

I was using a NEC? drive, and I had horrid Power Calibration errors, so I just installed a Pioneer 110D drive, and the one disk I burned on that drive did the same thing, minus the calibration errors. I just bought a cheap drive to see if it was a drive problem since I had all the Power Calibration errors on the NEC. The drive has its own power as instructed in all the help files I checked.

I did use TDK blanks, then I switched to Sony Audio disks with the same results. I will try burning at a slower speed, and see how that works.
Thanks for all the great helps so far. I will let you all know.
Jean - the female spelling

Jean - the female spelling

This is a male dominated forum (not by choice) - it's far too easy to assume new members are male.  I'm careful NOT to use gender specific references when I don't know for sure.

In any case, Welcome - I hope we can help you get your problems sorted out soon.

I think we got it guys! Looks like just the slow burn did the job. Nero is new to me (I had ROXIO) so I wasn't finding the right speed, and I never know exactly which program in the Nero program to use. Suggetions always welcome.

Thanks so much. If it goes bad today I will be back in a heart beat.

No problem with the male gender thing, I have had it all my life with this name.
Thanks again
Jean

Looks like just the slow burn did the job.

Two comments:

You mentioned Sony "audio" CDs.  If that's what you really meant, they will be optimised for burning at 1x for use in real-time CD recorders, as well as having the special code that some of these recorders require.  Note that CDs made for speeds up to 52x often give more errors at slower speeds (like 8x or less) because they are really optimised for the higher speeds.

Lower speeds put less strain on the IDE buss, so it's still worth checking that you have it operating in UDMA mode, not PIO.  Windows switches from UDMA to PIO if the drive accumulates more than a certain number of errors on the buss (6, I think), and the only way to reset it is to delete the IDE channel concerned in Device Manager and let Windows redetect it.  It is also worth checking that you have a good 80-core IDE cable, not the old 40-core type, or it will happen again (if that's the problem).

Paul

Looks like just the slow burn did the job.

Two comments:

You mentioned Sony "audio" CDs.  If that's what you really meant, they will be optimised for burning at 1x for use in real-time CD recorders, as well as having the special code that some of these recorders require.  Note that CDs made for speeds up to 52x often give more erros at slower speeds (like 8x or less) because they are really optimised for the higher speeds.

Paul,
The ones I have now say.... Sony CD-R Audio, 80 min. So I think I got that part right. Now for the hard part.........
I looked under hardware IDE controllers and advanced. It says Ultra DMA mode 5 for the primary and mode 4 for the secondary. Is that what I am looking for? It does give me a choice and says Transfer Mode: DMA if available, and the next box says Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5

About the cable, I have no clue how to check that out.

The lowest speed I can record at is 10x from what I can see. Does the burner dictate that or does Nero?
Thanks
Jean

pwhodges is quite right. I have the same buner and the same problems.
It must be set to ultra dma 2 in bios if you are sharing it with another cd device that uses ultra dma 2 on the same channel. (40 pin cable)
Or you can set it at ultra dma ata66 on a 80 pin cable by itself or with another device that uses the same speed.
The pioneer 110D has a maximum of ata66 speed.
Make sure you have the latest firmware aswell.