Topic: EAC fails, what next?

[Sloan Simpson]

I'm in the processing of ripping some audio CD-Rs to FLAC. These are my "masters", at that time (1999-2001) I was retreading DAT tapes (yeah, I know  ), these CD-Rs are all that exist of most of these shows.

Now EAC is failing to rip some of the dicsc. Some tracks will rip properly, others will just cancel, leaving the show incomplete. What's my next best option to get the data from these? They will play in iTunes, etc. so the data isn't completely gone.

[kirk97132]

Some things I've done that worked for me were.  Set drive to spin up before extraction. Go back and do the bad track or do them one at a time if there is more than one.  IE: rip track 8 finish then start over and rip track 9 etc, etc.  Try a different drive(s).  I have three different drives and sometimes one will get a clean rip when the others won't.  That has worked about 90% of the time.

[ScoobieKW]

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/support/faq/extraction-questions/

Try burst mode. This bypasses error correction.

Have you tried to extract with iTunes? If their player will tolerate the errors, perhaps their copy routine will as well.

Last ditch efforts? Try either a dual cd recorder, or go out analog from a cd player into your recorder.

[Gordon]

Try burst mode. This bypasses error correction.

that's what I would do but only on those tracks.  then listen to them to make sure they are ok.

[H₂O]

I would try a different brand/model drive first and then what others have suggested with the settings.

A drive that I have found to work very well even on hard to read disks (although it is SCSI) is the Plextor 40x CD-ROM drive - you can find them for about $20 shipped on ebay if you shop around enough - but you will still need a SCSI controller (that will work in your OS) and cable

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-04N2964-Plextor-PX-40TSI-SCSI-CD-ROM-Drive-/280409940593

[flipp]

Try CD-DAE. It's the only other program besides EAC I found that would do an additional extraction and compare it with the original rip. Not as robust as EAC but very useful for the discs EAC had problems with. If CD-DAE and EAC both have problems extracting then try the other suggestions (different drive, burst mode) in this thread.

< note that this is an old program and I do not know whether it works with anything newer than XP >

[Sloan Simpson]

Thanks everyone

[ilduclo]

soundforge rips for me, mostly pretty well, too when eac fails.

[hi and lo]

Some drives are better than others. I won't suggest you go out and buy a legacy SCSI drive, but there are probably some newer dvd drives out there that may have better luck with the error correction.

When all else fails, burst mode is just fine if there are no audible glitches.

Optical media is the devil.

[page]

Try either a dual cd recorder, or go out analog from a cd player into your recorder.

I once had a cd fail with cdparanoia and eac, but it would play fine through the hiccups just fine in my dvd player. So I used the spdif out on my player and recorded it that way.

Try burst mode. This bypasses error correction.

that's what I would do but only on those tracks.  then listen to them to make sure they are ok.

I've taken it one step further. extract by range (with a cue sheet) and then narrow it down to as small of a section as possible, then rip the entire track with some other method and patch the bad section between the secure copy sections and analyze it carefully.

Optical media is the devil.

troof.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I won't suggest you go out and buy a legacy SCSI drive,

Oh yeah, those were great.. I have a couple of those nice Plextor SCSI drives.  I built a dedicated linux ripping machine with a local copy of the CDDB database (no network required).  With both drives cranking it would rip a CD every 30 seconds, automatically ejecting and feeding the drives.  Other than feeding CDs you only had to touch it if a disc was not in the db.  It was a ripping monster.

I should probably sell those drives since I'm not using them.

[Sloan Simpson]

Some drives are better than others. I won't suggest you go out and buy a legacy SCSI drive, but there are probably some newer dvd drives out there that may have better luck with the error correction.

When all else fails, burst mode is just fine if there are no audible glitches.

Optical media is the devil.

No kidding. I've tried extracting several in burst mode, and they are riddled with "scratching" sounds So far all the bad ones are on CD-Rs with the blue data surface.

[kirk97132]

Try different drive(s)  And try it doing the tracks individually one at a time. 

[YYzepp]

Obviously trying to clean the CD itself doesn't hurt (if you do it right).   Before trying Burst Mode I would try another Gap Detection Accuracy mode. Sometimes when I had errors on portions of a disc changing the gap detection accuracy to another would help.

[morst]

Turtle Wax?