# track following error! please help



## shvan

i have LG CD writer i didn't use it much before it begins damaging CDs with this annoying message (track following error).please help.


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## Lorand

It is caused by one of the following:
1. Poor media: try more than one brand of CD-R media to rule this out as cause. 
2. Poor power: the electric power supply of your recorder could be fluctuating. Try a different power connector and make sure it's not being shared by any other devices. 
3. Optical head is dirty or needs alignment - first clean the head by a CD-cleaner disk. If it doesn't help, contact a computer service.


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## Praetor

4. LG => low endurance, low quality, half-capability burner. Of course this only applies to LG burners faster than 16x

Low Endurance: No LG burner faster than 16x can handle several CDs nonstop. High quality burners can.

Low Quality: Talk to cd-conneseuirs (sp) ... track C1/C2s on LG burners using same branded media. Results are fairly consistent.

Half-capability: Most LG burners are single sheep burners. Their 2-sheep burners are (a) not all that terribly great and (b) faster than 24X and thus it goes back to the other faults

Now i know im soundin very doom and gloom .... but ive gone through about half a dozen (of my own) LG burners as well as serviced several hundred towers with LG burners (of course not all those towers, maybe 5%, had optical drive problems)


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## Lorand

I have LG CD-writers at home and the office and they work great. It could be just pure luck?


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## Praetor

Yes and know. Endurance *maybe* as thats kind of a subjective thing to discuss (mostly because 99% of people will not process 500CDs in a day burning them all at max speed and doing this for a week nonstop -- when i had my LGs, I did and they lasted 192-238 CDs nonstop before failing on me). More "aggressive" or "premium" or "hardcore" drives like those made by MSI, Plex, ASUS, Litey etc have a lot more 'endurance' when you measure in that kind of fashion. Please note that although I dislike LG i will take them any day compared to a sony, hp, phillips, oporite etc.

As for low-quality, that's slightly subjective (although not as much). LG drives, for their cost are very nice drives however for their price bracket (sometimes cheaper) you can get a better drive. Now the question does arise: "How many people are gonna notice?" Valid question and the answer depends on (a) what the people are burning (b) what media they are using, (c) how fast they are burning and (d) are they cd-conneseiurs or not:
(a) Burning (S)VCDs and such is a bit trickier than burning DataCDs, see point (c)
(b) I ruled out this variable by noting if all the drives being compared used the same branded (and made) media
(c) The faster you burn the lower the quality -- many times noticeable by average Joe -- you know when your AudioCD skips and pops? Or your movies skip? All other things being the saem the problem is the burn speed. Now if you compare say an LG at 52x and a Plexy at 52x... the Plexy will come out on top -- by a noticeable margin -- as it should, it costs damn near twice/three times as much. Now even something like the Liteon/Asus burners which cost within $5 of the LGs, they will come out on top.
(d) This is the only subjective component. Since this was my first area of expertise and ive had a crapload of experience first hand with LG burners (prolly close to 2500CDs on several LG burners) i'd say im quite qualified to make a "connesieur"-type appraisal. 

As for capability there's no argument here (well there can be but that'd be futile ). You simply *dont* make backups of protected games using LG drives (or some of the other not-so-great drives, IMO, i listed above) simply because you wont be making a 1:1 .,.. and that's the whole point 


So i would say in conclusion, some of it is luck but a significant portion is not. Note also that my comments only apply to LG drives >=24X, their older drives are superb (even though they are only 1-sheep, but for 1-sheep drives they did a decent job), My 'beef' is only with their more recent burners


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