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About various CD-R/RW drives, disks and their manufacturers
I'm bored with it. Now I'll write a lot of good words about various CD/DVD
(especially RW) devices,
disks and their manufacturers. I love'em. All'em.
I will collect uglinesses of CD-devices implementations. Please, if you
can tell me something outstanding about some CD-drive, mail me:
FB 
or mail alterX@alter.org.ua (remove X)
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A long time ago I was naive enough to believe, that existance of standards
is a very good thing. I supposed, they were invented to make our life easier.
Let's take for instance a fat hand-book. Then plug some new unknown device to
computer and begin feeding it with commands. Of course, all the commands are
harmless. Of course, they all and their parameters fully comply the standards
from the hand-book.
We expect that receiving of STATUS_SUCCESS means that device understands
the command sent. We also expect, that any error code returned points to the
source of problem unambiguously. We would be able to rely on device responses
for our commands. We would be able to determine capabilities of the device and
set of commands those this device understands. At least, we come to this idea after
reading specifications.
In practice, we have the following:
- There are many standards in our world. Some of them can be grouped
to family (like MMC, MMC-2, MMC-3, MMC-4). Some others generate own families.
Now we have a bush of interlaced and sometimes alternative spacifications.
Perfectly.
- Some developers invent their own standards (like NEC and Plextor do).
Some others - their own deviations from existing standards (of course,
there is no place, whe you can read about it).
- Still one group of vendors cannot make friends with Quality Assurance department.
As result we have many devices with unpredictable behaviour on unknown comamnds or
on commands with unexpected parameters.
- Relatively new information -
http://www.ixbt.com/optical/magia-chisel.shtml. This article is in Russian.
It describes problem, that appears after recording magic sequence of bytes
to the CD-R/RW. The sector containing this sequence becomes unreadable for most drives
(e.g Sony (LiteOn), Teac).
Nevertheless, standard commities continue breeding. Looks like there more commities than
objects to be standardized. My be we have to invent a commity for standartization of
standard commities ?
Thus, it is impossible to write a programm, that can reliably determine
capabilities of the device analysing responses on predefined set of commnds.
For example, to read device parameters in some various ways, try to execute
CD-RW specific commnds, issue commnads defined in different standards, etc.
Unfortunately, such method of probing often simply hangs the device. We are
to create database. Find my small database below and still one much greater
database at http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq05.html.
CD-R/RW drives
| Vendor |
Device |
Supported Media types |
| Sony |
CRX-xxxx |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW |
- Requires Full Blank for Packet-writing. Looks like it is a 'feature' of Sony family.
PS. In general they are rather good devices... Exept the one, described below.
|
| Sony |
CRX-0811E |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW |
- They states, that it supports Packet-writing. They deceived me.
None of CD-writing tools could format disk with this drive.
Even mine one. I tried all possible combinations of recording parameters.
- The device always reported SUCCESS when attempted to write in Packet-mode.
But disks seemed to be empty after that. The main difference from
normal blank disk was state of 1st track: It was reported as Fixed-Packet.
Disk could be reverted to recordable stabe only by Blank.
- Full Blank did nothing, if the device decided, that disk is empty.
Status SUCCESS was reported immediately without any media access.
The only way of making device to perform Full Blank was writing something to disk.
- Device required disk to be Full Blank'ed in order to write to it in Packet-mode.
- And finally, it didn't support GET_EVENT command,
that is claimed as mandatory for such class of devices (MMC-2).
PS. People sold it to me and didn't want getting it back...
|
| Sony |
DRU-500AX |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW |
- They said, that it supports both DVD+RW and DVD-RW. They deceived me.
None of DVD-RW disks was recognized by this device...
|
| Sony |
DDU-1621 |
CD-ROM, DVD-ROM |
Info from Alex Y. Matiash:
- "Have upgraded firmware for zone unlocking. Before upgrade the device
reported its capabilities properly. After it claims that is capable of
writing DVD-RAM with unknown speed."
- this firmware allows +RW reading...
- ... and reportd speeds incorrectly. Previously, the following ones were available:
16/24/32/40, now - 4/8/16/20/28/32/40 but really 28=40, 20=4, and so on.
|
| Toshiba |
SD-W2002 |
CD-ROM, CD-R, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM |
- Dies immediately when receive STOP/START UNIT commands.
- Randomly falls in a strange state when receives GET_EVENT command.
It stops understanding DVD-RAM media. Other types of media are recognized normally.
This can be cured with power-off with sequetial software reset.
Under Windows 2000 it is rather unplesant procedure... it takes
about 20 minutes. And the result is not guaranteed.
- The divece often comes to the state described above on
unexpected reboot (reset, power failure). It also does so
on unrecognized commands. It does it randomly.
PS. This piece of iron taken me for a long time each working day.
I don't know what I'll do to author of firmware if I ever see that person...
|
| Matshusita |
CW-7xxx |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW |
- When internal write buffer becomes full, the device hangs.
All data is lost.
According to standards, data must be written down to media
automatically, without Writing Software intervention.
This can be cured with sending SYNC_CACHE from time to time.
PS. In general it is good device...
|
| IDE |
CDR RW |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW |
- Hangs on SYNC_CACHE command
PS. In general it is good device...
|
| Lite-ON |
LTR-123 |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW/MRW |
- After recording some data to disk it randomly stops reporting
user's Eject Requests via GET_EVENT.
|
| Yamaha |
CRW2100E |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW |
- Sometimes it dies on read command after multiple packet writes
when write buffer is full.
- It required complete matching of Fixed-packet track parameters and
Write parameters. This leads to inconvenience when formatting blank CDRW.
|
| TEAC |
W54E |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW |
- There is HighSpeed logo on the front panel. If I'm not mistaken,
this means that in can write to high-speed disks. Rather strange, the device is
4x4x32. Really, it cannot write to such disks.
- Ignores mismatches of Copy, CopyProtect bits in Write Parameters and
in Track Parameters (on Packet tracks).
PS. In general, it is perfect device. It almost fully complies MMC specification.
(Except one thing, that doesn't make any inconvenience).
|
| Pioneer |
DVD-RW DVR-105 |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DRV-R, DVD-RW |
- Requires SYNC_CACHE command after each WRITE command when writing using Fixed Packet (UDF).
Otherwise reports LONG WRITE IN PROGRESS.
- Understands both MODE_SENSE/SELECT_6 and MODE_SENSE/SELECT_10. But returns incorrect WRITE_PARAMETERS page
when MODE_SENSE/SELECT_6 is used. Also, MODE_SENSE/SELECT_6 cannot change WRITE_PARAMETERS.
|
| NEC |
DVD_RW ND-2510A |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R DoubleLayer |
|
Perfect device. Reads even plates from tea set ;). Complies main part of MMC specification.
At least my driver did't detect any deviations and worked well with it.
|
| NEC |
DVD_RW ND-1300A |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW |
- Have problems with reading scratched disks and old CD-RW disks.
- Sometimes requires SYNC_CACHE command after WRITE command when writing using Fixed Packet (UDF).
Otherwise reports LONG WRITE IN PROGRESS.
PS. Not bad device.
|
| BENQ |
DVD DD 1620 |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R DoubleLayer |
|
|
| ATAPI |
DVD DD 2X16X4X16 |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R DoubleLayer |
- After VERIFY_10 and VERIFY_12 falls into interesting mode:
all READ requests actually perform VERIFY operation. So, drive checks if the requested block is
readable and returns appropriate status. But it returns zero-filled data buffer.
This can be cured with hard reset.
- Cannot correctly mount DVD-RW in background formatting state. If such disk was not turned into
compatible (with DVD-ROM) state (with closed session), the following happens:
the disk is recognized as DVD-ROM, its size reported as for fully formatted DVD,
read attempts beyond actually formatted area fail with error and 2-3 seconds delay.
I understand, that according to MMC-5 mounting of such disk optional, but...
- If during disk recognition operation neither programm send any command (even such harmless ones
as TEST_UNIT_READY or GET_EVENT), sometimes the disk of described above format is mounted properly.
But only sometimes. If any command was issued, the bug is reproduced.
- Have greate problems with reading scratched disks and used for a long time CD/DVD-RW disks.
|
| HL-DT-ST (LG) |
DVDRAM GSA-4081B |
CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD-RAM |
- Slows down (10 times) when sending WRITE_PARAMETERS during DVD recording. No errors reported, but devices
thinks about something.
PS. Not bad device. Reads old and scratched disks normally. Doesn't make long delays on read errors.
Complies main part of MMC specification.
At least my driver did't detect any deviations and worked well with it.
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