Re: CD-ROM quality

[Herb Johnson <hjohnson@pluto.njcc.com>]

Some unasked advice. 1) I use my CD writer at a slower setting than
maximum. In my case, I write at 8X rather than 12X. There is apparently
both a medium problem and a computer problem with faster speeds.
2) I use a shareware program to do file compares to verify my disks
(primarily system backups). As these programs vary in features and
personal needs vary, I won't offer recommendations except to do a Web
search for such programs, then check them for yourself. File compares
take longer than writing the disk of course. Two suggested strategies
for file compares on CD-ROM: wait for the CD-ROM to "cool" after writing,
and use another CD-ROM drive for reading it.

Herb Johnson


Herbert R. Johnson              http://pluto.njcc.com/~hjohnson
hjohnson@pluto.njcc.com         voice 609-771-1503, New Jersey USA
             amateur astronomer and telescope tinkerer
   reseller of classic Macs & accessories from Plus to PowerMac
   S-100 & 8-inch drive manuals and parts, call for "Dr. S-100"

On Tue, 22 May 2001, Tom Droege wrote:

> Just for fun I took a stack of DS18 disks and checked each one to see if I 
> had them labeled correctly and if they could be read.  One out of 10 had 
> some bad tracks.  Sigh!  I did not try to read every track.  Somehow I got 
> all the labels right.
> 
> I also saw more clouds and more ice crystals than I remembered.  More 
> Sigh!   Still, this is representative data.  This particular block tends to 
> be early in the evening.  Possibly I should have picked data closer to dawn 
> which is usually better.
> 
> Tom Droege
> 
> 
>