Unlocking a CD Writer from Nero

Seanie M

Hi all,

is there a way I can unlock my cd writers from Nero so I can use Roxio/Adaptec and others? Nero is a resource hog, and I don't like the way it operates sometimes. Having installed Easy CD Creator, it cannot detect the writers, so my guess is that they are locked to Nero. I tried this AFTER I uninstalled Nero too.

Thanks,

Seanie.

ChipZilla

Heh heh, you think Nero is a resource hog? ECDC is ten times worse. Also, you seem to have to patch ECDC to keep it up-to-date with newer drives - have a look on the Roxio support site for updates. BTW, you did uninstall Nero, didn't you?

If you want something "lite" try Stomp RecordNow.

Seanie M

well Chip, I'll explain the scenario to you!

Both below are run on W98 2ndEd:

On my older P3 (450MHz + 256MB RAM), I used ECDC, and yes, it made my system slow, but it did work fine. When I dragged and dropped files to be written, they appeared in ECDC as they appeared in the folder where they were stored/named. Handy for the Print Screen function instead of retyping the playlist for a jewel case cover, or writing out the track list on the jewel case card.

On my P4 (2.4GHz + 1GB RAM), Nero 5 screws everything up! It seems to go for the ID3 Tag, so my MP3's are not named as seen in the source folder where they are stored and named. And instead of the BSOD when I drag and drop audio files and the system almost freezes, I get the even worse Windows white pop up box, telling me my system is dangerously low on resources, with a close button for an unnamed file, and then Ctrl+Alt+Del won't work! I have to press the reset button to get back to normal I'd say 6 times out of 10 attempts at writing Music, MP3, or data.

So, uninstalling Nero, retarting, installing ECDC 5 (with all the 12 MBytes of upgrades), restarting again, and opening ECDC, it can't find my 2 cd writers on this machine. It still works fine with the P3 and its writer, which did not come with Nero.

So people, is there a way any CD Writer that comes with Nero bundled in the box, to get untangled out of it and freely used with other writing programmes? I'd really like to find out!

Cheers,


Seanie.

ChipZilla

Tell you what. Uninstall all your writing software, and stick on Force ASPI which you can get here:

http://radified.com/ASPI/forceaspi.htm

Reboot after that and make sure all drives are present and correct. Then stick on ECDC (and the updates before you reboot!). Hopefullt after the reboot everything should be ok... :cool:

Ciaran500

I don't think the burner is "bundled" to Nero. My drive came with nero but I never use it and I've had no problems with other burning software.


Did you try anything other than ECDC?

Seanie M

ChipZilla wrote:

Tell you what. Uninstall all your writing software, and stick on Force ASPI which you can get here:

http://radified.com/ASPI/forceaspi.htm

Reboot after that and make sure all drives are present and correct. Then stick on ECDC (and the updates before you reboot!). Hopefullt after the reboot everything should be ok... :cool:

I might give that a go. It won't make my chip explode or cause my RAM to bring the second coming of Jesus or anything will it?

Seanie.

Seanie M

Ciaran500 wrote:

I don't think the burner is "bundled" to Nero. My drive came with nero but I never use it and I've had no problems with other burning software.


Did you try anything other than ECDC?

These ones seem to be held to it Ciaran. I never heard it being done before either, so I am assuming that with contracts etc it is locked to Nero.

I have not really tried anything else, as I wanted to be able to do the Print Screen thingamajig. I DJ alot, and I'm rewriting my collection to get it in order, and a made wants a copy of everything. I've got over 500 original albums and singles ripped to MP£ to rewrite to cd, so its going to take a long time. Hence I want to get rid of Nero.


Cheers,

Seanie.

astrofool

there is no such thing as a drive locked to a certain program. It'll be ECDC not detecting your drives properly.

vibe666

astrofool wrote:

there is no such thing as a drive locked to a certain program. It'll be ECDC not detecting your drives properly.

not entirely true i'm afraid.

InCD which comes with Nero (it's a packet writing tool, so you can drag and drop to CD/DVD in explorer and use the CD drive to save stuff the way you would any other drive) quite often 'locks' the drive when you put in a blank disc, preventing it from being used by other applications.

it can be a real pain in the hole, but you can prevent it form starting with windows by disabling the InCD service altogether in administritive tools, in control panel (in XP, can't remember how to do it in 98) or by opening task manager and manually ending the process.

Prisoner6409

astrofool is correct. Drives do not come with software that locks a drive to it. You can install any DVD authoring software for any dvd writer/rewriter. Now some dvd apps might try and hog resources but thats different than the drive being locked into one piece of software. Pinnicale, InCD and Nero came with my Plextor 708A and I can use all three plus Alchol120, DVDdecrypter, ShrinkDVD and DVDXCopy depending on what I want to do. All I do is unload/disable(or not load) the others apps when I want to use one particular one.

vibe666

most of the time yes, but i've personally experienced InCD preventing other applications from using my DVD burner. it's happened twice now (on two installations of windows I mean) and both times I had to disable the service completely before i could use the drive, even with other apps within nero.

trust me i'm not making this up.

that said, i'm running it now and it works fine and hasn't caused me any trouble for ages. but it can happen.