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Topic: C2 support in IDE -> USB adapter chipsets (Read 3028 times) previous topic - next topic
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C2 support in IDE -> USB adapter chipsets

I've recently purchased an external enclosure for IDE 5.25"/3.5" drives with a USB interface.  After some trial and error I've discovered that with the enclosure I've purchased, C2 error reporting doesn't work.  In fact, audio reading doesn't even work if C2 error flags are requested.  It seems that only certain chipsets will pass the C2 requests correctly, and unfortunately mine isn't one of them.

Does anyone know of any external IDE to USB adapters that work correctly with DVD/CD drives and will pass the C2 correctly?  I don't have to have an actual enclosure- a simple adapter would work just as well.

Edit: The chipset in my current enclosure is:

        Device VendorID/ProductID:  0x067B/0x2506  (Prolific Technology, Inc.)
        Device Version Number:  0x0100

C2 support in IDE -> USB adapter chipsets

Reply #1 –
Quote from: sbooth on
I've recently purchased an external enclosure for IDE 5.25"/3.5" drives with a USB interface.  After some trial and error I've discovered that with the enclosure I've purchased, C2 error reporting doesn't work.  In fact, audio reading doesn't even work if C2 error flags are requested.  It seems that only certain chipsets will pass the C2 requests correctly, and unfortunately mine isn't one of them.

Does anyone know of any external IDE to USB adapters that work correctly with DVD/CD drives and will pass the C2 correctly?  I don't have to have an actual enclosure- a simple adapter would work just as well.

Edit: The chipset in my current enclosure is:

        Device VendorID/ProductID:  0x067B/0x2506  (Prolific Technology, Inc.)
        Device Version Number:  0x0100


Until someone comes up with a more informed response, I'll just say - How about firewire?

My firewire enclosures work just fine.
They also have USB connections, but I've never tried them.

From all I've heard, FireWire is the more trouble free interface.

C2 support in IDE -> USB adapter chipsets

Reply #2 –
Quote
FireWire is the more trouble free interface


Not under Windows, you can get BSODs, the drivers are just rubbish.

C2 support in IDE -> USB adapter chipsets

Reply #3 –
FW: The firewire interface under windows tends to make some assumptions about IO requests that aren't really well documented...e.g. the requirement of the firewire host chipset's DMA engine that requires all IO to be 8-byte aligned.  I'm convinced that 4K-page-aligned IOs up to 32KB in size should always work for firewire, with even the most obtuse ancient firewire to ATA bridge.

USB: USB chipsets on the other hand seems to always work 4-byte aligned IOs up to 64KB in size, which makes them less likely to fail arbitrary transaction layouts.  However, there are additional translation layers with USB that don't exist in other connection methods.  This leads to a lot of the USB-to-*ATA bridges having limitations on the types of transactions allowed or, alternately, having bugs that cause the USB connection to drop when, say, trying to do IO on devices where the drive doesn't conform to the USB bridge chip's unrealistic timeout expectations.  e.g. when trying to secure rip scratched CDs when the drive goes off into its own internal retry strategies or when dealing with a hard drive with runs of bad blocks.

Most DVD-related software just hardcodes the DVD performance related recommended transaction size of 32KB, so there's never any trouble with DVDs.

But back to CD ripping - the latest dbpoweramp R13.1 release has fixed most of the problems I ran into with USB and firewire (except for the XL1B's bridge which seems to fail for all transactions over 32KB).  What software were you testing the USB bridge with?  It's possible the USB bridge itself might be blocking transactions over 32KB, but I haven't seen one of those yet.

-brendan
 

C2 support in IDE -> USB adapter chipsets

Reply #4 –
Quote from: bhoar on
But back to CD ripping - the latest dbpoweramp R13.1 release has fixed most of the problems I ran into with USB and firewire (except for the XL1B's bridge which seems to fail for all transactions over 32KB).  What software were you testing the USB bridge with?  It's possible the USB bridge itself might be blocking transactions over 32KB, but I haven't seen one of those yet.

I was testing it with my own CD audio extractor I'm developing for OS X.  I wasn't using extremely low-level calls (just ioctls) but I suppose I could use a USB probe to monitor the transfers to try and discern what was going on.

I've since purchased a Bytecc BT-300 and everything works as expected with the same drives that were failing with the other enclosure.  Unfortunately I cannot determine conclusively which chipset Bytecc is using but it appears to be manufactured by JMicron.