CD Burner reports buffer underrun error?

Infopackets Reader Sandie 'littleone' writes:

" Dear Dennis,

Lately I've been having problems with my CD writer drive whenever I try to burn a disc. I get strange error messages which tell me that my computer wasn't able to fill the data quickly enough during the burn. I have tried to reinstall the software for the CD burner, but it hasn't helped. Do you have any suggestions for me, other than buy a new CD ROM? Thanks for your input. "

My response:

The problem you are experiencing sounds like a CD buffer underrun error. All CD burn sessions must be uninterrupted or the resulting disc will be bad. Newer CD ROM burners have buffer underrun protection (although the underrun protection technology has been known to cause problems, especially with music CDs).

If you're receiving a buffer underrun error message, it may be because:

1. There are too many programs running on your machine and are competing with the burn process. Do not attempt to use your computer while the burn is in progress, and quit all extraneous services and try the burn again (see the below Gazette Article, re: EndItAll2).
    
2. A buffer underrun error may occur if you're trying to copy from CD ROM drive to another CD ROM drive at the same time. Normally this can be done, but only if both CD ROM drives are using a different I/O [input / output] channel. See this previous gazette article for more info.
    
3. The CD burner may require DMA (Direct Memory Access) mode. If you recently ran System Restore on your machine, it's possible that you lost these settings. To check if your drive requires DMA mode, refer to the owners manual. More info on DMA mode here. Side note: If there are any other devices attached (chained) to your CD burner, they must also be DMA compatible for DMA mode to work properly (in most cases), otherwise, your machine may become unstable.
    
4. The drive is erroneously producing the error message because it may be defective, or there may be a problem with your computer. If you haven't been able to solve your problem by now, I suggest you take the burner out of your computer and try it on another computer system. If it burns OK 2 or 3 times on another machine, then the problem is with your computer and will require further troubleshooting.