+------------------------------------------------------------------------- | $Id: FAQ,v 1.3 1997/02/07 18:21:45 angela Exp angela $ +------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frequently asked questions ========================== Please read these questions and answers carefully, before asking any questions. Maybe your question is answered in this list. We sorted the questions according to the following categories: - Questions about support and registration - Questions about CD writer support - Problems between SCSI hostadapter and CD writer, SCSI hangups - Questions about Audio CDs - Questions about Data CDs - General questions about burning CDs - GUI related questions - Questions about the settings Questions about support and registration ---------------------------------------- Q: Are there any mailing lists for MakeCD? A: Yes, there are. Refer to "english/MakeCD.txt". Q: I have entered and saved my registration number and address. Nevertheless, the next time the MakeCD registration requesters pops again. What's wrong? A: You are probably trying to register MakeCD on a partition with AFS (Amiga File Safe) with a version older than 16.16. Update AFS and the registration will work. Q: I'ld like to pay with my VISA card (or any other credit card). Do you accept such cards? A: Unfortunately, VISA (and other credit card institutes) has quite strong conditions. If we accepted VISA cards, we would need one VISA registration about every two days. We are far from that limit. So, payment with VISA is not possibly, sorry. Q: I want to get registered by transferring the money on a bank account. Please tell me an account number. A: We did not include our bank account in these documents on intention. Often, name and address do not appear properly on our bank statements, so we can't send you the registration. Furthermore it will need more time to register you, as we don't get our bank statements very often and since we would have to transfer your data to Katrin Schmidt, who goes ahead with your registration. If you _really_ don't see _any_ other possibility, you can write us an email about that, but other possibilities are _really_ preferred! Questions about CD writer support --------------------------------- Q: When will you add support for my CD writer XYZ? A: It is not easy to support all different CD writers, because there is no standard SCSI command set to access them. However, if you send us the command set of your CD writer, we will do our best in order to support it. Problems between SCSI hostadapter and CD writer, SCSI hangups ------------------------------------------------------------- Q: When writing a CD-R the CD writer suddenly stops, but MakeCD doesn't show an error description. I can select abort, but nothing happens. The computer doesn't crash and I can still use the SCSI bus. Is this a known bug? A: I have encountered this problem with a Oktagon V6.8 when writing audio tracks to a Philips CDD2000 V1.26 with enabled disconnect. It was reported for other controllers, too. It is a bug in the controller or the target drive: MakeCD is waiting for a write request that is never completed because reconnection failed. MakeCD can hardly do anything about this. You should disable disconnect for your target drive and/or try sequential reading/writing. Q: I have a Philips CD writer (or Grundig, HP SureStore or other compatible CD write, refer to Compatibility list). Writing in test mode works find. But when I write a CD without test mode, I kill CD-Rs all the time when I am almost finished. The error is "Buffer underrun". Why that? A: We heart several times about that problem. A user who seemed to be quite good informed told us, that this is a common problem with Philips and compatible CD writers. He was not sure if you can fix this by getting a firmware update or if you have to send your CD writer to Philips to get this fixed. Anyway, this bug is a problem of your CD writer. Contact your dealer. Q: While writing a CD, sometimes my SCSI bus hangs up. This happens in both, test mode and real writing. Is there anything I can do agains this? A: Obviously, your CD writer and/or your SCSI hostadapter have some problems. Sorry, we can't help you there. Have a look at our Compatibility list - maybe a user with a similar configuration had the same problem and can tell you a solution. If nothing helps, contact your dealer. Questions about Audio CDs ------------------------- Q: When copying an audio CD, I get a buffer underflow. Obviously my 8x speed CD-ROM drive is not fast enough, although my CD writer writes only in double speed. What's wrong here? A: Many CD-ROM drives read CDDA data in single speed only. In order to copy an audio track, you should switch your CD writer back to single speed - or use temporary files. Q: How can I set the length of the pauses between the tracks? A: This is not possible with any Amiga CD writer software at the moment (27.12.96). MakeCD uses the track-at-once mode, too, i.e. it only sends the pure track data to the writer and leaves calculating checksums and writing of pauses and table of contents to the writer. This has the advantage that writing can suspended unlimitedly between tracks and multisession would be possible. Selecting the length of the pauses would only be possible in the disc-at-once mode. MakeCD will offer both modes alternatively as soon as possible. Q: Is there a possibility to copy a CD with multiple tracks without pauses despite of the fact that writing will add pauses? A: It is possible, however, the copy will consist of one large track. You have to select the first track of the original CD as source and set its length to the total length of all tracks (= "end last track" - "start first track" + 1). MakeCD will read all tracks in one piece. Questions about Data CDs ------------------------ Q: Nice to see that MakeCD is able to write MultiVolume CDs. But when will I be able to use the data contained in an old data track in the new data track? A: We are working on it, but did not get it finished in time for MakeCD 2.0. It is coming soon, though... Q: I have read that MakeCD is able to write Amiga Protection Bits and file comments. I wrote an image file with Rock Ridge and Amiga Attributes turned on - but when I mount this image, all files have standard protection bits. The script bits are still lost. What is What is wrong here? A: You need a filesystem that supports Amiga Protection Bits. The freely distributable AmiCDFS2 supports them since version 2.30. AsimCDFS supports them starting with version 3.7. The author of CacheCDFS has promised to follow soon and has a working beta version. Q: I have created an ISO image of my data. But after I've written it to my CD-R, I noticed that you have put MakeCD into the image, too. I am a registered user, and I really don't like that! Please turn that off! A: We didn't put MakeCD into your ISO image on intention. You did it yourself. ;-) When you used the ISO settings to select the paths, that are supposed to be written to the image, you pressed the "New" button too often. So empty entries appeared in the list. This causes MakeCD to scan the directory "", which usually is the directory that contains MakeCD. So just make sure you don't have empty entries in that list. Q: Every time when I am going to burn a Amiga CD, I browse through all directories to locate all directory levels that are more than eight levels deep, in order to avoid creating a corrupt image. When can I expect such a function in MakeCD? A: Don't worry - even if you use more than eight directory levels, your image won't be corrupt. On the Amiga, such images are even readable without any problems. Just DOS PCs are not able to change into those deep directories. But that's not a problem for most of the Amiga users. However, we are going to implement such a function, as soon as we find time for it. Q: I want to create a multi volume CD, by just copying the data tracks of some empty CDs on one single destination CD-R. I have tried this by simply copying the tracks one after another and by fixing the session between the tracks - without success. Just the 1st track is readable. What's wrong? A: Every multi session or multi volume track, which is not the very first track of the CD-R, has to be created especially for this CD-R, because every data track looks different - depending on the block number on CD-R, where the data track is going to be stored. You can not write a track, which has been created for basis block 0, to a different block on the CD-R. MakeCD warns against this from V2.0 on, but previously tracks were written without protest, because baseblocks were not yet supported at all. Q: Now I have created a multi volume CD. I tried some CD-ROM filesystems, but I either can see the very first or the very last volume. Where are my other volumes? A: Unfortunatly, this still is a problem with multi volume: there are only a few filesystems, which suppurt this at the moment. However, multi volume updates for CacheCDFS and AsimCDFS already have been announced. We hope, AmiCDFS will follow soon, too. Stand by. General questions about burning CDs ----------------------------------- Q: I have written a CD, but it seems to be damaged. My CD-ROM drive cannot access it. :-( A: You have to fix the session or the CD-R in order to access the CD in your CD-ROM drive. Q: I have created a data CD-ROM using MakeCD. Although no errors were shown, the image is obviously quite damaged, because some icons are missing on Workbench and a lot of archives on that CD-R are damaged, too. I tried a different version of MakeCD and got a 2nd damaged CD-R. Sometimes, the disk icon of that CD even does not appear on Workbench, and sometimes even the filesystem crashes. Didn't you test at all? My configuration is: A4000, Yamaha CDR 100, Toshiba 4101, Noname CD-Rs. A: I guess you tested the CD-Rs on your Toshiba CD-ROM drive. Toshiba CD-ROM drives (and CD-ROM drives of some other companies, too) are known to cause problems with some special CD-Rs. The same CD-Rs run without any problems on other drives. Try it! Your "damaged" CD-R will most likely run without any problem on some other CD-ROM drive. Read the "Compatibility" file. It contains the name of some CD-Rs which seem to be good. Q: I want to read a CD with data and audio tracks. However, at the end of a data track MakeCD reports a read error!? A: When listing the contents of a CD MakeCD only tries to remove the pause at the end of a track from the track's length since V2.0. If you use the length suggested by older versions you will get a read error as soon as MakeCD reaches the pause after a data track, because pauses can only be read after audio tracks. You can either reduce the size of the track before starting reading, or you can ignore the error by selecting "Use File" in the requester reporting the error - or update to V2.0 :-) Q: Reading and writing of data tracks works fine even with disconnect, but I get into trouble when using other track types. Why that? A: Some controllers increase performance by making assumptions for example about the block size they are to transfer, e.g. block size is a power of two or an even multiple of x bytes (x = 32, 64, ...). These assumptions are wrong for such unusual block sizes like 2352 bytes (audio track) and the controller software fails. Q: With which CD writers can I use the repair option in the "Target CD-R" window? Which kind of damage can I repair? A: When the writing is interrupted by a loss of power, then the Philips writers and compatibles offer a command to make the CD-R useable again - however, only if the CD-R was not removed from the drive yet! This is the feature the Philips drivers use. The Yamaha writers don't support this kind of repair. In case the data stream is interrupted while the writer is still working, most drives finish the last track automatically. The track is simply too short. Q: The requester that shows the drivers, does not show all drivers which I have installed. In the directory Modules/SCSIDrivers, I saw that there are a lot of different drivers for MakeCD, but I can only select a few of them. How come? A: The drivers which you mean, are good for both, writing CD-Rs and reading tracks from a CD-ROM drive. For example, if you want to create an audio CD, you need CDDA data. In order to read those data from an audio CD in your CD-ROM drive, you need a driver for MakeCD, that is able to read CDDA data. Those drivers are on the SCSIDrivers directory, too. If you select a driver for your CD writer, you will only see drivers, that support writing CD-Rs. However, if you select a driver for your CD-ROM drive, all drivers will be shown. Q: I just have updated MakeCD. But the new version obviousely does not work, because one of the .module files has a wrong version number. At least, a MakeCD requester tells me that. A: Of course, it _could_ happen that we release a buggy update. But usually this misbehaviour is caused by something different. Both, the .module and the .driver files are libraries (although you NEVER should copy them to LIBS:). This means, that they stay in your memory after you left MakeCD, until a memory allocation flushes them. So they are reloaded only if that's really needed when you restart MakeCD. If you have started an old version of MakeCD, before starting the new version, this misbehaviour might happen. Just reset your Amiga - after that everything should work as usually. MakeCD V2.0 tries to do a memory flush itself. GUI related questions --------------------- Q: The online help of MakeCD causes trouble with CycleToMenu and MagicCX. What can I do against this? A: You should not install hacks. Well, probably you do not want to remove these hacks, do you? So after you have understood MakeCD, we suggest you to use the menu to turn off bubblehelp to avoid the problem. Note that the bubble help is from triton.library and so we cannot change its behaviour. Q: I want to save the window sizes or open the windows on a public screen. Is this possible? A: Since the windows are from triton.library, you can use the Triton preferences editor to achieve both. You don't have to register Triton for this - but of course Stefan Zeiger would be pleased if you do so nevertheless :-) Questions about the settings ---------------------------- Q: What is the difference between sequential and parallel reading/writing? Which one should I use? A: MakeCD 1.0 always used the parallel method: Two independent processes read or write simultaneously. In the sequential mode buffers of the same size are read and written alternating. The parallel method is more demanding in regard to the system's reliability. It works only well if disconnect is supported properly and is enabled for both harddrives, CD-ROM drive and CD writer or different controllers are used for source and target. The sequential method avoids several potential flaws of controllers. It has another drawback: When a read request is delayed, the next write request cannot start and the data stream is interrupted even if the buffer is not empty, i.e. the buffer cannot compensate temporary fluctuations of read performance any more.