I bought a Mitsumi CR-487ETE 52x24x52 burner from us-depot.com, and it has never worked up to par. With my old 48x24x48 ( MSI Dragonwriter), I could burn anything easily at 24x or even the full 48x. Unfortunately, I fooled myself into thinking that drive was broken one day, so I bought this Mitsumi. Now i can't burn ANYTHING right unless it's under 8x. I have the same problem in Windows XP, only Nero will report it burned the whole CD just fine, but it will end up being a coaster.

I'm guessing that I'm screwed, and I'll just have to buy a new one if I want out of this problem, but I thought I would try posting a couple xcdroast log files here to see if anyone sees an obvious fix (crossing fingers.) Thanks in advance for any comments, criticism, witticism, or advice.

##1## OK, here is the log file for burning a 654MB at 8x. It was successful.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Calling: /usr/lib/xcdroast-0.98/bin/xcdrwrap CDRECORD dev= "0,0,0" gracetime=2 fs=4096k -v driveropts=burnfree speed=8 -dao -eject -pad -overburn -waiti tsize=334912s -

scsidev: '0,0,0'
scsibus: 0 target: 0 lun: 0
Linux sg driver version: 3.1.24
Cdrecord 2.0 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 Jrg Schilling
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
Waiting for data on stdin...
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
Driveropts: 'burnfree'
atapi: 1
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 0
Response Format: 1
Vendor_info : 'MITSUMI '
Identifikation : 'CR-487ETE '
Revision : '001J'
Device seems to be: Philips CDD-522.
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R driver (mmc_cdr).
Driver flags : MMC-2 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE
Supported modes: TAO PACKET SAO SAO/R96P SAO/R96R RAW/R16 RAW/R96P RAW/R96R
Drive buf size : 1951488 = 1905 KB
FIFO size : 4194304 = 4096 KB
Track 01: data 654 MB padsize: 30 KB
Total size: 751 MB (74:25.69) = 334927 sectors
Lout start: 751 MB (74:27/52) = 334927 sectors
Current Secsize: 2048
ATIP info from disk:
Indicated writing power: 5
Is not unrestricted
Is not erasable
Disk sub type: Medium Type A, high Beta category (A+) (3)
ATIP start of lead in: -11634 (97:26/66)
ATIP start of lead out: 359846 (79:59/71)
Disk type: Short strategy type (Phthalocyanine or similar)
Manuf. index: 3
Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics Corporation
Blocks total: 359846 Blocks current: 359846 Blocks remaining: 24919
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 8 in real SAO mode for single session.
Waiting for reader process to fill input buffer ...
input buffer ready.
BURN-Free is ON.
Performing OPC...
Sending CUE sheet...
cdrecord: WARNING: Drive returns wrong startsec (0) using -150
Writing pregap for track 1 at -150
Starting new track at sector: 0

Track 01: writing 30 KB of pad data.
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 685899776/685930496 (334927 sectors).
Writing time: 578.446s
Average write speed 7.7x.
Min drive buffer fill was 100%
Fixating...
Fixating time: 12.414s
BURN-Free was never needed.
cdrecord: fifo had 10804 puts and 10804 gets.
cdrecord: fifo was 0 times empty and 10707 times full, min fill was 82%.

##2## Here's the one for the 52x burn that went BAD (note.. similar results will happen at 16x, ALSO -- I cut out stuff that was the same as above (the first big block) after "Calling : ..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Calling: /usr/lib/xcdroast-0.98/bin/xcdrwrap CDRECORD dev= "0,0,0" gracetime=2 fs=4096k -v driveropts=burnfree speed=52 -dao -eject -pad -overburn -waiti tsize=334912s -
...### SEE CRAP SPIT OUT ABOVE ###
Starting new track at sector: 0
cdrecord: Input/output error. write_g1: scsi sendcmd: no error
CDB: 2A 00 00 00 14 96 00 00 1F 00
status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION)
Sense Bytes: 71 00 03 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00
Sense Key: 0x3 Medium Error, deferred error, Segment 0
Sense Code: 0x0C Qual 0x00 (write error) Fru 0x0
Sense flags: Blk 0 (not valid)
cmd finished after 120.500s timeout 200s

Sense Bytes: 70 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
write track data: error after 10792960 bytes
Writing time: 146.309s
Average write speed 32.4x.
Min drive buffer fill was 100%
Fixating...
Fixating time: 0.001s
BURN-Free was 2 times used.
cdrecord: fifo had 234 puts and 171 gets.
cdrecord: fifo was 0 times empty and 124 times full, min fill was 81%.

What CD-R disc brand are you using?

What is the rated speed of the CD-R disc?

You can try to upgrade the firmware. Though it might make it worse.

Why you want to record at 52X speed? Every increase in recording speed increases distortion. This makes it hard for other drives to read the CD.

You may want to increase the fs value to 8 megabytes or more. Try different driver types.

If it aint broken (working) don't fix it.

Yeah, I'd say just burn at a lower speed. It's safer anyhow. My burner goes up to 40x, but I never burn anything higher than 2x. The quality of most discs just doesn't seem good enough to work with high speeds, and as Electro points out, the faster you burn 'em, the more jitters they're going to have. What's the hurry?

Yeah, I guess you guys are right... I'll just have to burn at 8x. It'll do pig... It'll do.