burncd problems

[abc at ai1.anchorage.mtaonline.net]

FBSD 4.10
keywords: burncd cdrw 700 650 device busy

i have had seemingly inconsistent problems/errors with 'burncd',
and i exhausted myself on it the past few days trying to prepare
a bunch of CD sets.

to possibly prevent others from struggling, this is some
information i have found which may be helpful to others:

older or cheap CDRW drives can't deal well with 700MB CDRW's.
they may work, or may not.  they can't track on the thinner
tracks well.  i would have some CDRW disks that worked
flawlessly, and others that were a real pain within the
same brand.  some CDRW disk manufacturers are better
than others it seems.  Memorex 700MB disks seem to be
particularly problematic for older/cheap drives.

if you got an older/cheap CDRW drive, stick to 650MB,
or at least avoid Memorex 700MB disks.

i had trouble with Memorex 700MB disks on a Creative
8x4x32 speed drive.  when i upgraded to a 48x24x48,
all my problems with Memorex 700MB disks went away.

acd0: CD-RW <CREATIVE CD-RW RW8435E> at ata1-master PIO4
acd0: CD-RW <CD-RW 48X24>            at ata1-master PIO4

it is difficult for the average user to figure out,
because all you ever see is "drive busy" errors - and
that doesn't tell you much.  but from my reading, CD
drives don't tell a driver too much, so that's all
that can be said.