ECDC faq - jason carr's mousepad:

I am not affiliated with Adaptec, Roxio, or any other CD-R software company. These are my opinions, based on my ownership and use of ECDC 3.5 OEM, 4.x OEM, and 4.x Deluxe on the three burners I use for archiving data. I recommend you use this information as a starting point for your own research and creativity; examine all information critically, no matter where you find it.

ECDC / DirectCD user FAQ

This FAQ last updated on Tue Jul 10 12:31:58 CDT 2001.

Adaptec Software
How do I check to see if my ASPI layer is ok?
What are the most recent updates for DCD and ECDC?
Does Adaptec/Roxio have a mailing list to keep me informed?
What does 'mastered' mean?

Multisession
What are multiple sessions for?
What does 'importing' a session mean?
I didn't import the previous session. Can I get to it?
What is CD Extra?
How do I make a CD Extra disc without the CDPlus garbage?
How can I close an open disc without writing another file
Do I have to close the disc?

Disc Recovery
My CD-R crashed! Is it all lost?
My DirectCD disc crashed!

ISO images
How do I make an .ISO image with ECDC?
How do I make a CD from an .ISO image?
Can I get to files that are in an .ISO image?

Archiving and Organization
How can I change the volume name of the CD-R?
How can I make a new directory on the CD-R?
How should I archive critical data?
Isn't it ok to use DirectCD CD-RW to store my critical data?

CD-mp3 Players and OTR
Why use a CD/MP3 player?
What are the limitations of a typical CD/MP3 player?
How should I burn a cd of MP3s for use in my portable player?
How should I prep my Old Time Radio (OTR) shows to play on a mp3 player.

Meta-faq
Why do you maintain this faq?
Why do you answer this question instead of that one?

Links
What are some general CD-R resources?
What are some mastering resources?
What are some packet writing resources?

Adaptec Software

How do I check to see if my ASPI layer is ok?
Download Adaptec's AspiChk, which will ensure you're using the latest version. Note: apparently ECDC 4.x and greater do not use an external ASPI layer.
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What are the most recent updates for DCD and ECDC?
See the updates here on the Roxio site.
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Does Adaptec/Roxio have a mailing list to keep me informed?
Yep, see Roxio discussion list page.
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What does 'mastered' mean?
Mastering means to write data (or audio for that matter) to CD using normal burning software like ECDC, Nero, etc. You can master your CD in one big pass (like DAO) or in multiple sessions. Mastering is not packet writing.
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Multisession

What are multiple sessions for?
Multiple-session (multisession) discs are useful if you want to add data session later (save more files) or combine different kinds of session on one disk. ECDC will allow you to write:

Multisession Data discs, made by importing a previous session into a subsequent one
CD Extra, which combines audio and data
Multi-Mode (not very useful, more people use CD Extra)
custom multisessions, in which you manually burn strange combinations of sessions for your own bizarre needs

Since audio players only look for audio in the first session, it would normally be useless to make a multisession disc with more than one audio session.

Here's a nice post on multisession by Bob Retelle and mrichter's riff on multisession.
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What does 'importing' a session mean?
In a multisession data disc, information about the previous session gets picked up by the next session. It's like passing a baton in a relay race; each session builds on the work done previously.
The information gets passed along until the disc is closed ("finalized"), when the Table of Contents gets written from all this passed-along information. Here's an example:

Monday
Start with a blank 650MB/74min disc.
Burn ~50MB of files to it, close session [disc will be left open unless you specify it to close].
Discspace left: ~600MB (not exactly, but close enough for our purposes).
Tuesday
Import the last session (from Monday, see automatic and manual importing methods below)
Burn another 100MB, close session. You now have access to ALL the files you've burned on both days.
Discspace left: ~500MB
Wednesday
Import the last session (From Tuesday) and burn 400MB of files; close disc.
There was still ~100 space left, but we don't care because media is cheap.
The disc is now un-writable (but not indestructible), and to an innocent bystander it would look exactly like you burned the whole disc at once.

Notes:

ECDC has a setting in "File | CD Layout Properties" to automagically import previous sessions. This is generally the way to go. Or you can do it manually by selecting "CD | Import Session" (note that ECDC selects the most recent session by default).
you have to specify close disc/session at the beginning of the burn session.
Although I left it out for clarity, there is a ~13MB overhead associated with each session

Another (clearer, IMO) explanation of importing was authored by Bob Retelle (used by permission). And there is a Roxio multisession overview and howto page.
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I didn't import the previous session. Can I get to it?

You can get to the files directly using Session Selector if you have the Deluxe version.
If you have OEM or regular, try "CD | CD Information" and select the session in question. You will be able to write out an image of that session and work with that. And in the future use the automatic import feature noted above.
Use ISObuster to get to the previous session.

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What is CD Extra?
CD Extra is a format which looks like an audio cd to your player, but looks like a data disc to your PC. The first session is an audio (CD-DA) track, while the subsequent session[s] is data. This works as designed because audio CD-ROM players look only at the first session, while your PC will look only at the last session. Cool, huh?

You can make a CD Extra cd-r thusly: "File | New CD Layout | CD Extra".
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How do I make a CD Extra disc without the CDPlus garbage?
ECDC wants to put extra dirs on your disc during a CD Extra burn. You can get around this by manually burning two sessions; the first is your audio track; the second is an unlinked (don't try to import the audio session) data session. The only problem is that ECDC won't accurately report available disc space. Make sure to do a "CD | CD Information" and check the Free Sectors section before you do your data burn. You are responsible for guessing how much you can burn to the data track!
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How can I close an open disc without writing another file
You can't, as far as I know. Write a small file (or directory) to the disc and choose 'close disc' when you start the burn. This is necessary because your mastering software actually opened a new session when it closed the old one (assuming you didn't opt to close the disc then). Don't believe me? Look at the "CD | CD Information" and admire that new, empty session...
You can probably leave the disc open; most machines will read from a still-open disc.
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Do I have to close the disc?
Apparently not, if it's a data disc. The buzz is you can leave it open with no ill effects. I've certainly never seen a reader that wouldn't read an open disc. For business purposes, though, I always close discs I burn for clients. This minimizes the possibility of them burning another session without importing the previous session (creating a "files are gone!" tech support call) or confusing the issue of who put what on the medium. Closing the disc in that case simplifies matters.

Audio players might freak out if the disc is not closed, due to the absence of a formal Table of Contents. Leaving an audio-only disc open doesn't accomplish anything useful anyhow since the audio player only sees the first session.
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MP3-related

Why does ECDC say there are no valid MP3 files?
"The Fraunhofer CODEC is required to handle MP3s and is missing. Installing Windows Media Player 7 will insert a version of the CODEC that can encode at reasonable rates as well as decode." See Roxio knowledgebase entry. See Roxio knowledgebase entry.
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Why does ECDC shorten some tracks?
Sometimes 4.x will truncate audio tracks burned from MP3. You can see this happen when you add the track to the list. I don't know why it happens (VBR? Funny bitrates?) but it can be fixed by extracting those tracks to .wav before you burn.
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Audio-related

How can I record straight from an audio source to CD-R?
It depends on if you want to burn CD-DA or datafiles like .wav or .mp3.

Data: I record scanner audio sometimes by saving the output to a DirectCD disc just like I was saving it to HD. When you're outputting directly to MP3 this method can hold 50+ hours of voice-quality audio on a standard 650MB disc. I still think it would be better to record to HD then burn to CD later.
For digitizing speech, I recommend ScanRec: it's free, will use your mp3 codecs, and has built in VOX. Good stuff.
Audio: Truly, I don't know why you'd want to do this; you'll get 74 mins of audio, and so much can go wrong and the live stream is gone forever. (you have been warned...) But mrichter says SpinDoctor bundled with 3.5 Deluxe could do this, and that 4.x cannot.

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Disc Recovery

My CD-R crashed! Is it all lost?
Many people report partial or complete recovery using CD-R Diagnostic.

You may also be able to recover individual session as discussed above.
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My DirectCD disc crashed!
"If you have DirectCD 5.0 try the built-in DirectCD Program GroupDirectCD (not the Windows scandisc utility). If you have a version of DCD prior to 5.0 try CD-R Diagnostic, as discussed above. In DCD 5.0 Scandisk was heavily updated and is the only tool currently capable of recovering compressed discs. On DCD prior to 5.0 Roxio advises that CD-R Diagnostic might have better results in recovering deleted folders if Scandisc is not run first, though."
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ISO images

How do I make an .ISO image with ECDC?
Pretend you're making a normal burn (drag or paste files to the bottom CD layout in ECDC), then before you would click "Create CD" to burn, instead select "File | Create CD Image". It may default to .cif, but you can force it to write .iso. Note: some people say ECDC writes a non-standard .iso format. YMMV.
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How do I make a CD from an .ISO image?
"File | Create CD from CD Image".
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Can I get to files that are in an .ISO image?
ISObuster will do this, and it's free.
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Packet-related

Why does ECDC think DirectCD is using my CD-RW?
The CD-RW that comes with some OEM setups is pre-formated for fixed-length packet writing under DirectCD. You will have to do a full erase with "CD | Erase CD" to use that CD-RW for mastering. This may be problematic, if DirectCD keeps taking immediate control of the disc. There is no clear consensus on what to do to run and end-around on DirectCD. You might try:

Erasing on machine with a burner that does not have DCD installed
Messing with your registry to keep DCD from running, reboot, erase the cd, restore the registry to its original state, reboot.
using a non-Adaptec erasing app
turning off AIN so DCD doesn't know a new disc is in the drive
giving up and using a fresh, unformatted CD-RW

Let me know if you find something that works consistently. It almost certainly will not work to kill DirectCD from the Task Manager / Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
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Why does a DirectCD-formatted CD-RW have a capacity of 530MB?
That's the nature of fixed-length packet writing. DirectCD on CD-R is variable-length and takes up much less overhead (see next entry, though, on leaving enough space to close the disc). See the bottom of mrichter's article for more info.
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What are the various options for ejecting a DirectCD CD-R?
You'll get a dialog box:

"Leave the disc as it is...." - The disc will stay DCD and next time you pop it in it will be mounted like a floppy again.
"Organize the disc so it can be read in most standard CD-ROMs..." - Basically you close the session to ISO9660 level 3 so Win* machines can read it. If you put it in the drive again, you can open another (automatically linked) DCD session. You might be able to burn a standard session after the closed DCD session with a non-ECDC mastering SW; ECDC complains and won't do it, noting that it's a DCD disc.
You also have an option to "Protect disc..." which closes the disc and writes a TOC.

When you eject a DCD CD-RW, the system finishes its writes and just ejects the disc - no further options are available.
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My DirectCD disc is too full to close it to ISO 9660!
It takes a bit of space to wrap the packet-written disc to ISO9660 Level 3 - Roxio says 10MB is enough slack; I usually leave 20MB just in case.
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How can I copy a DirectCD disc?
Yes; how you go about it depends on what you want to accomplish. If you use CD Copier you will end up with another DirectCD disc, which probably isn't what you want. If you want to make a mastered disc out of a DirectCD original, use ECDC and drag the entire drive letter of your source cd down to the CD Layout (bottom) panel. This will replicate the entire disc structure (folders, files) on your target disc in whatever format you specified in the "File | CD Layout Properties": iso9660, Joliet, etc. You can also copy/paste the dirs and files into the CD Layout - whatever you're used to.
Be aware your machine might not be able to copy DirectCD discs as fast as mastered discs. You may end up having to drop the speed down a notch or two. My machine will copy Joliet at 8x, but closed DirectCD at only 4x.
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How can I make packet writing safer?

Use good handling technique. Packet-written discs are particularly vulnerable to schmutz on them.
Ensure a stable writing environment. This means close down crash-inducing software, no burning during thunderstorms or other power disruptions. A crash during a write spells certain grief. (Don't ask me how I know this, or how many times it took me to learn the lesson).
Use CD-R (variable length packets) rather than CD-RW (fixed length packets). The newsgroups are littered with people crying because their DirectCD CD-RW crashed taking all their "critical data!" with it. Media quality seems to much more important in CD-RW than CD-R, in my experience.
If you're finished writing packet, eject the disc. This will force DCD to finish writing to the disc and your information should be safer in the case of a system lockup.
Close to ISO9660 Level Three when you're finished with the disc or at any other point you'd like a nice wrapper around your data. In my experience, the iso-closed session is safe even if the disc fries later on (I welcome tech comments from people on this in particular). Note that closing the session to iso9660 takes some amount of discspace (something less than 20MB) so you don't want to do it after every single write you make. Takes a long time, too.
More info about that here.

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Media-related

How should I handle media?
Handling before the burning is the critical part, though I wouldn't recommend cowboying the discs too much at any time.

Hold the disc by the edges or by sticking your finger through the hub hole. I prefer the finger method because I tend to get oil on the very edge of the media if I hold it the other way. Plus sticking your finger through it is more fun; it's like something you'd do in the first grade.
Use compressed air to clean the media before every burn.
Make sure you have a grip on the media; it is possible to blow it out of your hand and onto the dirty floor. And it always seems to land 'butter-side' down.
Be certain to hold the aircan vertical so you don't blow liquid chemicals all over your media. You may want to back off a bit if you notice condensation where you were blowing - and certainly let it evaporate if necessary before putting it in the tray.
Every once in a while it would not be a bad idea to blow the dust off your burner's tray. Blow from the side rather than from the front (or the dust would be blown into your burner).
Refillable plain air dusters do exist, but they're expensive (this one was $16), and hold very little air compared to commercial air duster cans. I carry mine to the car when I'm headed that way and top it off to 140psi with the 12v air pump I keep in the Honda. This would likely be too much of a pain for most people. I use the refillable and keep a commercial duster backup.
Wipe off fingerprints, if any, with a soft cloth. Wipe from inside to outside rather than in a circle. Remember to blow off lint afterwards with your trusty aircan.
Keep the disc shady and dry. Direct sunlight, water, or other environmental factors may reduce reliability.
Be aware the delicate part of the CD is just below the top of the disc. If you injure this foil/dye layer your disc is toast.

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How can I make ECDC use 80min media?
It will, but older versions don't explicitly show you this. Don't use the wizard and ECDC will let you burn 80mins (assuming your drive can handle them). In newer versions you can doubleclick on the "space left" status bar and get a choice of 74 or 80 min display.
Also see Roxio's Writing 80-Minute Discs page.
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What are these audio rated cd-r media for?
They are required for use in stand-alone recorders. The extra cost is, partly at least, a result of greasing the palm of the media moguls to recompense them for the duplication.
If you are using a PC there is no reason to pay extra for those blanks, though if you've already got them it's fine to use them to burn CDs with your PC burner. You can use them for all purposes you could use regular CD-R blanks for (data and audio) - there is no functional difference when used on your PC.
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Is there any way to salvage the remaining space on a coaster?
Yes, although there are some limitations. But since you're starting with a coaster how bad can it go wrong?

the following applies to coasters that were not DAO (because the ToC would already be written, making salvage impractical, I guess).
media is so cheap there's little reason to do the following stuff
note that previously-written data is still on your disc, even if you can't see it directly. Don't distribute these salvaged discs to your friends/enemies if you were burning sensitive info to them when they failed originally.
Although I've never had a salvaged disc flake out on me later, I'd use these salvaged discs for non-archival purposes.

DirectCD/packet re-use of coasters

put disc in drive, click on DCD icon on system tray.
if it says 'make writable', the disc is usually salvageable and you will see much of what you were burning when the coaster was made. I would 'delete' that existing information to keep things clean although it does not of course recover disc space.
if it offers to 'format' it tries to format the disc to DCD and generally errors out on my attempts. Can be closed ('organized") to iso9660 level three as usual.

ECDC/mastered re-use of coasters

Turn off "automatically import previous session."
Eyeball "CD | CD Information" to see how much space ("free sectors") is left on the disc.
make your new layout and click "create cd". Note that ECDC will /not/ show the space used by the aborted session in the "space left" bar at the bottom of the screen. That is why you'll need to check the CD Info in the previous step and do the math in your head.
you'll get a warning that "the disc is not blank"; that's ok. In effect you are burning a multi-volume disc.

Maybe I'm a giant geek, but I get a kick out of getting some use out of something that is generally regarded as trash.
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What else can I do with coasters?
You can shoot them. They disappear in a shower of foil sparkles.
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What constitutes good media?
Short answer: Whatever works.
Longer answer: Whatever works in the intended drives under expected conditions, for the expected length of time. For many people this is Kodak, Mitsumi, or Taiyo Yuden. For you it may be something else - whatever it is, pick something that will let you relax and sleep at night. The only brand I will warn you against is Ritek, who is so bad that Phillips has pulled their license.

It is axiomatic in the CD_R world that different burners and players like different media. This page on CD-R quality (or this one) may or may not be helpful.
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Archiving and Organization

How can I change the volume name of the CD-R?
Doubleclick on the volume name and you will be able to rename it; when you burn that session the name will "stick". Or you can right-click and choose "rename".
You can change the name to something else in a later session, too.
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How can I make a new directory on the CD-R?
Right-click on the volume name or directory you want the new dir under and select "New | Folder".
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How should I archive critical data?

Use good media.
Use good media-handling techniques.
Use CD-R rather than CD-RW
Master the media with something like ECDC, Nero, etc rather than using packet-writing like DirectCD. If you feel compelled to do packet-writing, at least do it safely.
Verify your data with ECDC's "File | CD Layout Properties | General | Automatically Verify file system function (available only under 4.x?). There's nothing worse than deleting your data from the hard drive and realizing your burn went sour.
Use 650MB/74min media rather than the less portable 700MB/80min media.
If you can find it and your burner will use it, use media with Pthalocyanine dye rather than cyanine. Although this kind of thing might be hard to tell, Phthalocyanine tends to be colorless, straw-colored, or very pale green/yellow, and cyanine tends to be blue or green. Pthalo looks like it might be a more stable dye than cyanine.
If this is Greek to you, or you don't know what dye you've got, or your burner doesn't like Pthalo, don't worry: both dye types will probably outlive you.
Use a Sharpie marker instead of a label. Labels can delaminate and cause reading issues. And when people try to then peel them off the foil data-layer comes with it. Dead Cd! People who are worried about Sharpie ink either use TDK's CD marker or write only on the clear ring around the hub.
Make an Archival Copy (AC afterwards) of any disc you need to use from time to time. Store it in a dark, cool, and humidity-controlled environment. Make a copy to use as a Working Copy.
Store your ACs in a fire safe. They are cheap compared to loss of data. You can probably get one for $50 at Walmart.

This page on CD-R longevity may be useful.
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Isn't it ok to use DirectCD CD-RW to store my critical data?
No. DirectCD is fine, and so are mastered CD-RW. DirectCD-formatted (packet-written) CD-RW seems to be an unstable and dangerous thing. It's fine for shuttling short-term, reproducible data from here to there, but it is not acceptable for holding files you couldn't stand to lose. Personally, I use it to move 400MB files from between home and school, and it works just fine for that. If it goes south, I can burn another copy from the original.

I encourage you to back up your DCD/CD-RW data to mastered CD-R ASAP. Consider yourself warned.
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CD-mp3 Players and OTR

Why use a CD/MP3 player?
Because you can use standard CD-R (and maybe CD-RW) instead of expensive and relatively low-capacity flash memory. You can get about 45 hours of voice-quality OTR on one CD.
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What are the limitations of a typical CD/MP3 player?
A given unit may or many not have the ability to play CD-RW, Variable Bitrate (VBR) files, or MP3s recorded at very low or very high bitrates. Many do not show id3 info, or show it incompletely. The ability to cue/review (ff/rewind) within a file may be absent. Do your homework before you buy a unit.

The players also use batteries faster than the Rio-type players. Buy some NiMH batteries and use the power cords whenever possible.
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How should I burn a cd of MP3s for use in my portable player?

only mp3s should be on the disc; other types of files may cause lockups.
Put the files in at least one subdirectory; too many in the root directory might confuse some players.
The disc should be mastered, not packet-written.
There should be only one data session, and you should close the disc.
Strict ISO9660 would seem to be the safest filesystem to use, though most seem to handle the Joliet extensions.

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How should I prep my Old Time Radio (OTR) shows to play on a mp3 player.
To ensure greatest portability and playback, your OTR will need to be at 32+ bitrate and 44.1kHz (or maybe 22 if your player can do that) sampling rate - although the expanium is supposed to handle other sampling rates. Since many OTR files are encoded at less than this, you may have to resample them. I use WinLama, a batching encoder that uses LAME, for this. Fraunhofer codecs are actually preferable at these low bitrates, but I haven't found front end that will re-sample mp3s with Fraunhofer yet. You'll get noticeable (though tolerable) artifacts with LAME codec at low bitrates.
UPDATE: I've been messing with ECDC 4.x Deluxe lately, and it looks like Spin Doctor will do mp3-->mp3 conversions, although it does not batch them very efficiently.
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Meta-faq

Why do you maintain this faq?

I found myself typing in redundant information in the various cd-r newsgroups.
There are several excellent CD-R FAQs out there; what was lacking, IMO, was an author who would (1) build a FAQ that was organized with issue-specific URLs and (2) be willing to post those specific URLs to the groups in response to requests for help.
None of the existing FAQs focused on ECDC/DirectCD, which seem to be the dominant apps in their categories.
I believe in the 'net as a way to disseminate information
FAQs do their work even when the author is not directly involved

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Why do you answer this question instead of that one?

I lacked the experience, knowledge, time, interest or patience necessary to answer in a useful manner.
I didn't see the post; my newsserver sucks. (Southwestern Bell Internet Services).
The question was about software I don't use.
I pick my battles carefully in order to steward my resources. It's newsgroup triage.

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