Jump-start enhanced CDs
Jump-start enhanced CDs
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Tip Has this happened to you? You buy a new music CD and discover when you read the liner notes that it also contains a multimedia program with videos and interviews. Great! You pop the disc into your computer's CD-ROM drive -- and nothing happens. Your computer can see the audio tracks, but not the data. The problem is that not all CD-ROM drives can read Enhanced CDs, which use one of several techniques to combine the audio-format tracks with CD-ROM-format computer data. One technique places all the CD-ROM data on track 0, a solution that allows audio CD players to skip the computer data (which can damage stereo speakers if played as audio). Unfortunately, many NEC CD-ROM drives won't read track 0. If you have one of these, you're out of luck. A second technique uses a new multisession format that segregates the audio and computer data into separate partitions of the CD-ROM. This may be another reason you can't play the Enhanced CD: many CD-ROM drives are single-session, so can read only the first session on the disc. Other drives are multisession capable but require a driver upgrade to work with Enhanced CDs. You can call your CD-ROM drive's manufacturer for help with Enhanced CD troubleshooting, but Corel's Enhanced Music Advisor program may be faster. You can download the utility, which takes the form of a Windows 95 wizard, from Corel's Web site (http://206.116.221.5/cdrivers/advisor.htm). Unzip the downloaded archive file (advisor.zip), then run emadvis.exe. You'll be able to test your drive for compatibility with both track 0 and multisession discs (a format that Advisor calls CD EXTRA), but you'll need to have an example of each in order to perform the test. Be sure to disable Windows 95's CD-ROM Auto Insert Notification feature before you run Enhanced Music Advisor -- choose Start--Settings--Control Panel--System--Device Manager, select your CD-ROM drive, click Properties--Settings, uncheck Auto insert notification and click OK twice.
Corel's Enhanced Music Advisor tests your CD-ROM drive for Enhanced CD compatibility>
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