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When a blank DVD is inserted into my DVD burner, Windows Explorer and My Computer recognize it as an audio CD. Explorer shows one `track01.cda' file. It does this on two systems with different brands of DVD media. WinXP doesn't do it. Has anyone else noticed this quirk and have any info on why?
The reason I ask is that I am having weird problems with two backup programs and I'm wondering if this has something to do with the problems.
I've done some searching but didn't come up with anything.
Win 9x assigns a pseudo file to each track of an audio cd--track01.cda, track02.cda, etc. That's why that file is showing on a blank cd.
But that doesn't explain why it's being seen as an audio cd in the first place. Some explanations are a dirty cdrom, dirty or scratched cd or files added by burner software.
I had that problem when using an add-on IDE card. The person wanted the HD, a cdrom, burner, DVD player and Zip drive on the computer, necessitating I use a card because he wanted 5 IDE devices. I used an old Promise ATA33 card.
I forget how I had all the drives connected but I had the burner on the Promise card. When done it turned out whenever a blank cdr was put in the burner it was seen as an audio cd and track01.cda would show. The burner and cdr disk were new so that wasn't the problem.
I couldn't figure out what the problem was so I finally told him to just close the cdplayer box when it came up and go ahead and burn the cd in the normal way. That will probably work for your situation if you can't get it fixed.
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Thanks DAVEINCAPS! It's doing it on two different burners and multiple DVDs that I have tried. Strangely, it quit all of a sudden on one system, but rebooting brought it back.
I am still trying to record. I haven't been able to get two backup programs to work and programs like Nero and EZ CD Creator work intermittently. I get miscellaneous errors. I suspect that my problems have nothing to do with this quirk. I'll keep working on it and will post back if I learn anything important.
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You might try uninstalling any and all burning software and then see if a blank disk is still seen as audio. That would indicate whether or not files installed by the software was the reason.
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You might also make sure you have the 98 chipset drivers installed. They should update the IDE controller drivers and may help.
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Thanks DAVEINCAPS! I do have the latest chipset drivers installed. Just for the heck of it I installed a backup that I have of a minimum Win98 install (with no software installed). It acted the same way.
My recording problems might be due to a flaky burner and flaky backup software. I finally gave up on the backup programs, switched to the second system to do the backups with Nero and got it done.
I'm still baffled by the track01.cda thing, but like you suggested, it's evidently not causing any problem. I'll probably do some more searching in the future when I get caught up a bit.
Thanks again!
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A little more info. The burner is definetly defective.
I also think that the track01.cda had an effect on the backup program. On the system that works, I had to remove the auto insert notification option for the burner. When a DVD was inserted, it caused the Windows CD Player to start up and I think that caused the backup program problems when going to multiple disks.
Someday I'll look into the track01.cda quirk some more and post if I find out anything. I'll check this post occasionally to see if anyone else comes up with anything.
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Thanks for posting back about the possibility of the burner being defective. If I run into that problem again, I'll swap burners to see if that fixes it.
The track01.cda was there because the OS thought it was an audio cd. I think it acts like a place holder to establish the audio track--kind of like how windows will create an empty config.sys file if you don't have one. I don't think it would have affected the ability to record on the disk--but I can't say for sure.
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Yeah, that burner (NEC) is doing some very strange things (locking up, error messages, etc) intermittently when trying to record. It reads perfectly fine.
"The track01.cda was there because the OS thought it was an audio cd."
So the OS is mis-identifying the new DVDs as audio and writes that track01.cda file? That makes sense. Well, I'm not sure about it making sense for the OS to do that, but it does explain things.
Kinda confusing because I've had that file disappear and then come back after a reboot a couple of times. But maybe the system ignores it under the right conditions.
Other people have had similar problems. A little more searching turned up the following:
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/8996
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/22446I said earlier that WinXP didn't have the problem. I just made one quick check and jumped to that conclusion. I think I will check some more.
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This is weird! I tried several DVDs on WinXP along with rebooting several times and never got the track01.cda.
I went back to Win98 and it no longer shows the track01.cda. I also checked the other system and it no longer shows the track01.cda.By the way, DAVEINCAPS. I think I misunderstood what you said about the track01.cda placemarker. I suspect that you meant it was a placemarker in memory and wasn't writing it to the DVD. That sounds very logical to me.
I'm gonna keep checking my systems for this quirk and I'll be doing some more searching.
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Yeah, sorry, I never meant to leave the impression it was writing that file to the disk. It's just windows' way of marking the track while (what it thinks is) an audio cd is being accessed.
Hopefully it'll keep working right for you, but I sure wish we could figure out what causes it
Thanks for the links also.
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That was my fault DAVEINCAPS. I should have known better.
I've been checking both systems every once in a while and the problem has not returned.
It's one of the strangest bugs that I have ever run into and I would also really like to learn what causes it.
Maybe `Mass Solar Ejections'? :-)
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I did some more searching and came up with 3 more sites.
http://www.pechorin.com/m/2002/09/10/Need_tech_help_How_do_faulty_DVDs_behave-183750.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;232671&Product=w98
http://club.cdfreaks.com/archive/topic/58288.html
It appears to me that the problem is brought about when Windows has a problem initially reading the DVD, possibly because of poor media. A bug in the software (driver?) might cause him to assume that it's an audio CD. Both batches of DVDs that I am using are `Bargain Basement' types, so they might be borderline.
If the problem comes back, I might `try' loading a CD driver in config.sys and autoexec.bat so the stock windows driver isn't used. I'm not sure if that will override the windows driver, but I'll give it a try.
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I have a couple more bits of information to add in case someone refers to this post in the future.
I tried loading a CDrom driver in config.sys and autoexec.bat. It had no effect on the problem.
I discovered that I had a new DVD that I received with my Pioneer DVD burner. It acts the same as the other `cheap' DVDs that I have. I would think that Pioneer would include a DVD with their drive that is compatible. So I have serious doubts that poor quality media is a reason for the problem.
My feeling is that it's a windows bug.
I probably will not waste any more time on it.
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Thanks, I'm thinking it's a windows problem also, or at least, that's one of several causes. Maybe whenever one of those unknown things occur, windows defaults to seeing the blank disk as audio.
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Thanks DAVEINCAPS. That default theory sounds really good to me.
Maybe one of these days someone will come up with an definite answer.
I think I should add that my systems are basic Win98SE without any Windows updates. If I get bored some day. I might try Win95 and Win98FE.
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