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afterdawn.com > forums > software, operating systems and more > windows - general discussion > why does it take so long to read media in optical drives??
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Why does it take so long to read media in optical drives??
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Junior Member
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11. February 2007 @ 04:08 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
For the time optical media has been out, why does it still take so long, around 30 seconds, for a optical disc to be read or reconized by the O/S (2k)?
I understand it has to spin up (a few seconds) and read the TOC (a few seconds, or should be), but why should/does that take what seems forever? The whole computer is at the mercy of this process since you can't do anything else while this is taking place. Even opening another folder doesn't happen untill the O/S reads the disc.

It doesn't seem to matter if it is a plain old CD or a DVD movie. Neither does what type of drive it is or how old the drive is. Mind you, I run a 'lean' machine without the usual 30 or 40 processes running at startyup I see many other with.

I could understand when they first came out, but that was light years ago (in computer time).

Input please.
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bkf
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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11. February 2007 @ 04:17 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
It's just a system thing.
Junior Member
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11. February 2007 @ 04:45 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Yea, ok......
that didn't answer the question.
bkf
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11. February 2007 @ 05:10 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Ok the speed of your system, all the processes you don't know about running in the backround, The health and speed of your readers / burners. The health of the discs. The speed of you hard drives. The speed of you memory, The speed of you ATA buss. Which ultra dma numbers you have. And about 20 other things. It's normal.
Auslander
AfterDawn Addict
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11. February 2007 @ 07:19 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
i don't know what you're doing, but it never takes more than a few seconds on my machine to read discs...30 seconds is unacceptable.


Junior Member
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11. February 2007 @ 08:32 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Quote:
30 seconds is unacceptable.
Which is the reason for the post.
Auslander
AfterDawn Addict
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11. February 2007 @ 08:44 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
has it always been slow like this or is it a recent occurrence?


Junior Member
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12. February 2007 @ 04:06 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
In just about every machjine I have used the time is at least 15 seconds (for a CD) and 20-40 seconds for a DVD. Not just this one.
janrocks
Suspended permanently
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12. February 2007 @ 04:57 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
This guy seems to know why it happens...

http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com...1196457,00.html

I know this is pretty basic, but I enjoyed the read. The section on erasing r/w disks is particularly interesting.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/cd-burner.htm

This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 12. February 2007 @ 05:03

Junior Member
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12. February 2007 @ 06:01 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I looked in the Bios and it was set to 'Auto' for the O/S to set the xfer mode. Then I looked in DM and the nForce2 drivers were set for the Bios to set the speed. Ok, which is better??

Separate question; The TOC is closest to the center of the disc?

This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 12. February 2007 @ 06:02

Senior Member
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12. February 2007 @ 08:03 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
nForce 2 chipsets typically support UDMA mode 4 for those drives that have it. Make sure you use an 80pin ribbon cable for the CD/DVD drives. Then, if the drives do support mode 4 (66MB/s ATA) you can either manually set it in the BIOS, or the Device Manager.


Junior Member
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12. February 2007 @ 17:54 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I thought the 80 pin cables were just for HDDs' since optical drives are slower. IOWs' no improvement since that isn't the bottleneck.
Senior Member
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13. February 2007 @ 06:28 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
40pin IDE cables max out at ATA33 spec. What drive models are we talking here?...chances are they do support the ATA66 spec, which you will need an 80pin cable for.
Junior Member
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13. February 2007 @ 07:02 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Optical drives. They all are ATA-33 aren't they??
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Senior Member
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13. February 2007 @ 07:16 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Surprisingly enough, some newer drives like the LiteOn ones we use, since the 1633S model, support UDMA mode 4, or ATA66. Unfortunately, the board we're using in this machine, only supports DMA 2 (ATA33) for CD/DVD drives.
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