Help with PS1 Game Burns - CDR, x Speed, Software, & Drive

[Ziggy]

Awe, shucks. I just checked my Verbatim CD-Rs and they're CMC. I've never had an issue with them, but I also haven't used very many of them yet.

[Jagosaurus]

@Joe,
Good point on chip. I was on the PSDev net forums reading on the UniROM softmod & a poster said it was more stable (less problems & stuttering) than traditional parallel port Goldfinger method + disk swap.

So what I thought was the second console's laser being more sensitive may just be the Goldfinger route itself. Plays imports flawlessly fortunately.

@Ziggy,
We'll see how the Verbatim Azo/DLP stack up against the CMC. They come in this evening from Amazon.

If those don't work, I'm resulting to blaming my disk drive/laptop laser. It rips movies & games fine though.

I have your ASUS disk drive bookmarked from the Turbo CD burn topic. I have a SATA to USB powered converter ready, so it would only cost me 20 bucks to try out.

[Ziggy]

They're good drives. I've burned many, many DVDs and CDs with the PATA version that I had, and many more with the updated SATA version that I got.

[Jagosaurus]

Yeah, oddly enough... while I've ripped probably 500+ movies and games to MKVs, ISOs, & bin/cues on my laptop to archive the files ... I've only probably burned 15 CDs/DVDs on this drive . Day of the HDD...

I'll update you guys if I get time to test the DLP/Azo disks tonight hoping it resolves my issue.

[Jagosaurus]

Okay... start with the good news. Amazon did ship the correct disks. Here are what the Verbatim DataLifePlus Azo packing and disks look like. You'll see the proprietary recording dye mentioned on the back.

ImgBurn verified them to be the Mitsubishi Chemicals variant I was hunting. Supported write speed options stayed the same so assuming that's tied to my drive vs the disks.

Unfortunately no luck on 10x or 24x burns (min & max options I have). I think I have narrowed down the issue to my disk drive. After reading a ton of threads out there, it seems to usually be 1 of 6 issues:

1. CD-Rs > tried multiple, bought best rec I could find
2. Burn Speeds > tried multiple
3. Bad bin/cue > tried multiple, even on person rips that work in emu & POPS
4. Mod/Method > tried mod chip & AR/Goldfinger method on 2 systems
5. Software > using ImgBurn, seems to be the preferred and proven
6. Disk Drive > seems to be my lone option left to try

@Ziggy,
Think I'm going to order the $20 DRW-24B1ST today. Not a bad investment either way.

[Ziggy]

@Ziggy,
Think I'm going to order the $20 DRW-24B1ST today. Not a bad investment either way.

Yep, that's the exact model drive that I have in my main desktop right now. I just checked my order history and I've been using this one since 2015. The main burner I had before that one, an Asus DRW-1814BL (with a PATA interface), I had purchased in 2007 and used it regularly until I got the 24B1ST in 2015. There was nothing wrong with the older model, it still works fine, I just wanted to use SATA in my newer desktops.

[Jagosaurus]

@Ziggy, Nice. Just placed order on it. Amazon is nuts... should be here tomorrow. Hopefully I get this all figured out this weekend! Powered SATA to USB adapter ready.

If this doesn't work... I'm stumped lol.

[Jagosaurus]

Asus 24B1ST drive (Ziggy recommendation) arrived & looks to have me on the right track with the Data Life Plus Azo blank disks. I need to do some more testing on speeds, but I'm 2 for 4 so far. The 2 errors may have been the file itself.

I actually am thinking that maybe my own personal PS1 rips aren't the best base files for burning CDRs due to my existing drive, although my rips have always worked fine for PS2 ISO HDD loading and PS1 emu.

My new PS1 rip set up, complete with SATA HDDs behind it full of bin/cues, ROMs, ISOs, OGX xbes

Amazon link to Asus drive for anyone who needs it. Worth noting I'm using a wall AC powered USB to SATA adapter & ImgBurn. The first time you use it over USB, ImgBurn will give you a "Locking drive for exclusive access" status for a few minutes. Just let it work. It's not frozen.

[Ziggy]

What software did you use to rip your PS1 games? And what image type did you rip to?

PS1 games can have a few different types of copy protections, in addition to what requires the mod chip. One such protection are sectors that will intentionally cause reads errors when you try and rip the disc. There's a few other types of protections, if I recall correctly. Using Clone CD to rip to the CCD format is preferred, as far as I know it can overcome every type of protection a PS1 disc might have. Using Imgburn to rip a PS1 disc to BIN/CUE should work for most PS1 games, but will break certain types of protections if they exist. Imgburn can burn CCD images, but cannot make use of the SUB file which I believe is important for PS1 games with certain types of protections.

[Jagosaurus]

I was running 2.5.7 ImgBurn to both rip & burn. [Edit: to bin/cue]

Hm, I don't think the games I was dealing with were any of the copy protected games. I'll double check those lists.

I'm going to DL the latest ImgBurn ( 2.5.8 ) & rip a retail game disk today on my new Asus drive. I'll then try to burn that file to a CDR. Should let me know if my OG drive was creating rips decent enough for emu, but not in turn burning.

I ripped a ton of movies & games over the past 5 years with that OG laptop drive....laser may have started to act up at some point.

The burns have been much more stable with the Asus drive so far.