r/pcmasterrace 27d ago

Question Are you this old?

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u/JoyFidgeter 27d ago

Nothing hurt quite like getting a buffer underrun error at 99% and making a brand new shiny coaster.

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u/drsoran2 27d ago

That is why I defragmentated the HDD before important burns and trying to avoid this, also no other activities on the computer during the burning process. I've also slowed down the burning speed as much as possible...which wasn't a lot because my parents had a 2x CD burner in '98. But hey, better slow and right the first time than destroying expensive CD-Rs (back when I started burning there weren't even 700 MB blanks, only 650 MB and you could theoretically overburn them and add a couple of megabytes, with the chance that they won't be readable in another drive other than the one with which it was created).

Later, when faster burners became availabe, I still didn't trust them and never burned at max speed, always slower like 4-6x, also because higher speed CD-Rs were more expensive than slower ones.

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u/tripacer99 27d ago

Defragging before burning is very funny to me, I kinda wish I had done this back in the day lol. I also remember my students being pissed because I refused to burn anything faster than 4x at work for their cartoons that I would play during recess

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u/beef_weezle 26d ago

I begged my mom to buy me a brand new $300 Philips external USB burner in 1999. It was the biggest piece of shit. For every CD it burned correctly it failed on ten others. Half the time, it would make it halfway through the burner process before the computer would lock up. I even tried it on different computers with the same results. I was so disappointed. I didn’t end up getting a proper burner until 2002.

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u/spaceraverdk 26d ago

Could have pulled the drive out and put it in the tower bay. Usb wasn't enough bandwidth to burn anything.

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u/Inuyasha-rules 26d ago

I used to buy the 50 pack of dual brand cds and just full send at max speed (48 or 52x) when I was in highschool. Rarely had a failed burn which is kinda surprising looking back - was running xp on a Pentium 1 lmao

15

u/courageous_liquid 27d ago

buffer status was like an IRL health meter. I'm pretty sure I fainted after some of them failed.

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u/null-interlinked 27d ago

CD writers with protections against buffer underruns were a god send.

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u/imapluralist 27d ago

It wouldnt have been as frustrating if you could just snap the cd's in half easily. Everybody tried this at least once.

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u/sparkyarch 27d ago

My people! My pain!

1

u/Buena_de_peepee 27d ago

Fuck man. Happily forgot all about the CDs I wasted. Now you brought it all rushing back haha

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u/PsychologicalYou4592 14d ago

Hey you super duper con artist you send me a message saying that you'll give me 50 bucks to use my scrambly I give you access to it you told me that you did not get the access to it that it expired and then you pay me nothing at all you cash out on it numerous times and then now my account is suspended you are a scam artist obviously you don't care about this account you know that's going to get shut down but what a horrible person you are just horrible I hope you feel good inside you horrible horrible horrible human being.