CD Recorder trouble. :/

[dr. eric]

Tell me where I went wrong. I've been using this Cd Recorder for maybe almost 2 years, and then probably early last spring or late last winter I stopped using the recording function because well, I had made enough Cds from enough Vinyl recording that I was satisfied, and now, a few weeks ago when I tried to start using the recording function again, It doesn't want to work. It will for for about half an hour IF I'm lucky, then it stops recording and says TOC Error C14. this means there is a table of contents error, I've never used the TOC feature and never plan to, I know what the songs I listen to are called and I'm not going to title them by texting them one by one on the remote. Why is the machine doing this? I've checked for vibrations and everything, but to me it seems like it reaches a certain point on the disc and just decides to stop, as well as, anything I had recorded up to that point is erased...So I'm wasting my time as well as countless Cds...you can't re record over them even if they're "blank" Someone help me, maybe you know of a much better CD Recorder. it is a Sony RCD W500c

 

[olson_jr]

I had a similar issue when I was using a Pioneer 509 recorder. No TOC errors but it would just arbitrarily stop recording and ruin the disc. Finally figured out it was only acting up when my refrigerator was cycling on...they were not plugged into the same circuit? I plugged the recorder into the PS Quinet the rest of the stereo was plugged into and never had another issue!

 

[KentTeffeteller]

The Sony has a very poor reputation for reliability. Try making sure you have clean power. Avoid Memorex Music CD-R discs, they're very unreliable. Sony Music CD-R Music or Maxell Music CD-R best for this unit. If you do lots of needledropping, you really need a good pro unit (I prefer Tascam standalones and deal with many CD recorders in broadcasting use. I've used virtually every make of recorder) My personal Tascam CD-RW 750 has never let me down. And it's had some heavy use.

 

[steerpike2]

A few thoughts:
ALL CDs have a TOC - it tells the player where the tracks start & stop. But it isn't created on a CDR until you tell the player to 'finalise' or 'fix-up' the disc. Up until then, all temporary track info is stored in the PMA (Program Memory Area) - a special area only on a CDR , but this too is only written to when you eject the disc. Up until then, track data is stored in solid state memory - usually EEPROM, so that a power failure doesn't destroy the disc content entirely.
So the player ought not to be trying to do any TOC activity during recording, but the error mesages may be limited and not always specific.

What you've recorded isn't erased - its still on the disc, but if the temporary TOC showing where in the disc it was recorded isn't stored in the PMA, the player can never locate and play that material. You can get PC software that will recover it if it was something critical.

CDRs are pregrooved with timecode, the reading of which makes higher demands on the optics than just playing a CD. It 'plays' the timecode while it writes audio on top of it. If the recorder 'loses' the timecode even momentarily, it will stop recording.
Your machine's optics may be going out of alignment, or the lens has got dirty.

EEPROM also has a finite life - the number of read-write cycles is not unlimited, it's remotely possible the EEPROM chip has failed.