Re: Anyone else seeing crashes with CDs and DVDs burned with UDF?

Today Kerry Brown spoke these views with conviction for
everyone's edification:

> I don't see how from my post that you think I am talking
> about the CD's. You are very clear that your new pc cannot
> read existing CD's that were burned on your old SP1
> computer that can read them. What is not clear is why you
> think SP2 is the reason. There are more significant
> differences between the pc's than the service pack level.
> Does the old pc have exactly the same hardware, programs
> and drivers installed except for SP2? It may turn out to
> be that SP2 is not compatible with something on your new
> pc. It is unlikely with new hardware and software. It is
> far more likely that some hardware is malfunctioning or
> some driver has a bug. Concentrating on SP2 at this time
> is a red herring.

Kerry, there can be only two possibilities here: 1) some
combination of hardware on my new PC, including the CD/DVD
drives themselves, the mobo/processor, memory, what have you,
and SP2. Besides the obvious differences in HD type and SATO
vs. IDE, my printer and scanner drivers are identical.

I have eliminated the ATI Radeon video cardbeing part of this
issue by trying unsuccessfully to read UDF-encoded CD-Rs (new
ones and old ones) in Safe Mode, which takes the video card
out of the picture as well as any other driver such as my
printer, scanner, etc.

I also believe that SP2 is at least an unwitting accomplice in
my problem in that I've read dozens and dozens of chat room
comments from people with the same problem I have, and a few
more that I don't have. Most of these folks have Lite On
drives, but that's because it is a popular brand. If I'm not
mistaken, Mitsushita builds the drives for Lite On.

All this, coupled with the fact that no other computer I own
nor my builder-friend-nephew owns fails, but all are 98 or
SP1. And, none of my older CD-Rs burned with Joliet fail. That
leads me back again and again to SP2. Further, Microcrap's own
return link to me when I "send" in the report with details
about the crash says that they can find nothing in their KB (I
believe it, neither can I!), but they specifically say that it
is a driver problem, and I should contact the driver
manufacturer. Well, Kerry, Microcrap is the "manufacturer", as
Lite On does not provide drivers with their readers or
burners.

I have been working on this for a week now and have plenty of
anecdotal information but no solid facts. I simply cannot
believe, though, that so many people are having crashes with
UDF packet writing CD-Rs and DVD-Rs *only* under SP2 if SP2
does not at least in some way be part of the problem. SP2 is a
virtual rewrite of all of XP Pro, and it would be easy to
create a side-effect bug that maybe alpha and beta testers
missed, or it was found and reported but not yet acknowledged
and fixed. The fact that nothing exists in the KB may only
indicate that M$ hasn't yet recognized the problem or hasn't
yet found a fix or a work-around. I don't like Bill the Gates
particularly, but I have found the MS KB to be invaluable - if
I can find specific references for problems I encounter.

So, I am still keeping an open mind about this. There's
precious little else I can do until my nephew has time away
from running his father's machine shop 15-18 hours a day to
come over and swap my drives around to see if an older drive
makes the crashes go away, and the newer drives make my SP1
box fail.

Should it turn out to be a Lite On problem, I imagine he is
going to have a devil of a time finding some other
manufacturer that is *known* to work reliably with the several
versions of UDF. Finally, let me say that I have consulted a
number of books on Windows XP Pro SP2 (specifically) that
*all* say that UDF is fully supported, so I can only report
what I am seeing and hope that something pops up that I can
fix.

Thanks for your contuing help and suggestions.

--
ATM, aka Jerry

"You?re gonna get your mind right"
"This the way he wants it, well, he gets it"
"What we got here is failure to communicate"

The Cap'n to Lucas "Luke" Jackson in "Cool Hand Luke"

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