StarBurn

This is a great new CD/DVD burning utility available on today's MG front page. Most of us (myself included) tend to just click Next Next Next when installing software, seldom stopping to read what's on the screen. However, during the StarBurn install, there are options that are enabled by default to change both your home page and search page in Internet Explorer. If you're not paying attention, this might surprise you the next time you go online. It also will install a DVD drive emulator which is (if I'm correct) a virtual drive. When I installed, I unchecked all the boxes except the top one. See the screen shot below for details. The red box is the IE changes, the green box is the drive emulator.

Just a heads up.... not a big deal.

:major

 

Also on today's front page is AShampoo's Burning Studio 6; another great, free, burning utility. Registration is apparently required, but it's free, and only requires an email address so it's not a big deal.

StarBurn http://www.majorgeeks.com/StarBurn_d5936.html (I forgot to include the link in the first post whooops)
AShampoo Burning Studio 6 http://www.majorgeeks.com/Ashampoo_Burning_Studio_6_FREE_d5937.html

@ plodr- sent you a PM.

 

AShampoo has more of a Nero type of GUI, and StarBurn is more like NTI or Easy CD Creator 5 (I haven't used a newer one so I can't compare) and has a Windows Explorer look and feel, where the AShampoo is more of a dragondrop type of thing, or you can select files and click 'Add'. One thing that I really miss in StarBurn is a 'back' button or a 'level up' button. As you browse through folders looking for whatever it is you want to burn, occasionally you get to a spot where a back/level up button would REALLY come in handy.... one nice thing about StarBurn is the built-in themes and skins so you can customize the color scheme... they probably have additional skins at their web site, but I'm guessing on that.

 

Absolutley! The only annoyance so far is the lack of a 'back' button or a 'level' up button. When browsing for the file(s) you want to burn, you can't easily go back or return to a previous level in the tree, you have to start over (unless I missed something)....

 

So far I have burned two DVD movies, an ISO, and some data CD's with StarBurn, and all have been perfect. The other app I mentioned above, Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 has one feature that I have NEVER found in a free burning tool: it burns .cue/.bin images! Oh... wait.... there is a free app here at MG that does .cue sheets too, but I don't remember the name. I tried it once but it wasn't user friendly so I dumped it and have been using Nero to burn .cue/.bin images. But now there's AShampoo! I have burned a DVD movie, a .cue/.bin video CD, an ISO, and some data, and all have been perfect! If we could give half-stars in the ratings, I would give Ashampoo 4.5 stars; I don't give it 5 stars because of all the jumping through hoops needed for registration, and because of the horrible color scheme. I really dislike the blue and red theme, yuk uke

And I give StarBurn 4.5 stars too; the lack of the 'back' button or 'level up' button is a real bummer, and I should give it only 4 stars because of this, but it has different color schemes and skins, so I gave it an extra half-point. It doesn't support .bin/.cue burning, but most free burning apps don't either so I didn't figure it into my analysis. Another plus for StarBurn is the built-in drive emulator, but it may not actually be active in the free version and may require a registration fee to unlock the feature; I need to look into this a bit more. A negative for StarBurn is the 'hijacking' of Internet Explorer. Yes, it's not hidden, and it's easy to disable, but it shouldn't be there at all. But the overall strength of the program keeps it at a solid 4.5 stars.

:major
[dlb]

 

OK- I looked into the virtual drive emulator in StarBurn. If you don't install the 'StarPort' driver when you first install StarBurn, you cannot use the virtual drive feature. There doesn't appear to be a way to install the StarPort driver later, after the main program has been installed. In addition to this, the virtual 'StarPort' drive is only free for 30 days, after which a registration key must be entered to continue its use, and I'm assuming this registration key cost something....

So- now I have to uninstall StarBurn, and re-install it to test the virtual drive feature

EDIT- I think I need to lower my rating to 4 stars... the 30 day trial 'countdown' starts regardless of whether or not the drive emulator software is installed. I tried to run it (I didn't install it during setup) and it said "30 day free trail starts now". Then it errored with "StarPort driver not installed". Shouldn't it check for the status of the driver before starting the trial? It's been my experience with trials that they leave something in the registry even when uninstalled. That way, if someone tries to get another free 30 days, they can't simply uninstall and re-install. I do have a message in to the StarBurn folks about this, and if it's possible to install the StarPort driver without having to uninstall and start over, and about what effect this will have on the 30 day trial. I guess we'll see...

 

No, I haven't, but I found it here http://www.download.com/BurnQuick-Data-Audio-CD-DVD-Burner/3000-2646_4-10075245.html and it says it's $14.95 (???) Anyway, I'll download it tonight and give it a real quick once-over; I use XP Pro so my results my not mean much since you're using Win2k, but I'll let you know what I think if you want....

 

Wow. I have never heard of someone having so many problems with burning CDs. I have used all of the programs you've mentioned with XP and never had any troubles. I have tried several of them with Win2000 and never had any problems. You may have an underlying problem with your OS or maybe your CDRW drive isn't totally healthy or maybe it's really old... anyway, sorry to hear about your continuing problems. Here's a couple more free burning apps, give 'em a go and let us know how it goes....
Deep Burner http://www.majorgeeks.com/DeepBurner_Free_d4055.html
Final Burner http://www.majorgeeks.com/FinalBurner_d5319.html
Express Burn http://www.majorgeeks.com/Express_Burn_d4573.html (I have used this on Win2000 recently and it worked fine)
EasyBurner http://www.majorgeeks.com/EASY_Burning_d5392.html (the GUI isn't too attractive, but it's a decent no-frills burning app)
So... there's four more for you to try. If none of these work, then I'd start looking at something else from an OS issue, to a possible bad drive or data cable, maybe even incompatible blank media.....

GOOD LUCK PLODR!!! (I'm tryin' here )

 

Plodr, CDburnerXP is good for data disks (really all you can do in the free version). I've had it work when Nero was acting buggy over a file name or whatever. It's a simple interface. I'd give it a try if you haven't used it yet.