Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with burner

Water Heater/Oil Burner Question

jimmyjimjim — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:09:25 -0800

How can I determine how much hot water my upstairs neighbors are using? I rent a house with a totally separate apartment up on the top floor. When I moved in, my landlord told me the upstairs has its own hot water, so I'd need to take care of the entire oil burner bill myself. Then my oil burner failed...and, very interestingly, they didn't have hot water upstairs! So my landlord offered to contribute $20/month toward my oil bill to compensate for the upstairs hot water use (note...they have electric heat and no washer or dryer or dishwasher upstairs).

Problem is....there's a certain sound when the neighbors use hot water. And sometimes I notice that sound continuing for hours and hours. I have no idea what's up with that, but I'm wondering if they're using a lot more than $20 worth/month.

Is there any way to measure/track their hot water use versus my own, without installing expensive/fancy equipment? I don't need it exact, I just want to know if the $20 is going anywhere near to taking care of their share of the bill. I do have access to the oil burner/water heater.

Best DVD Burner?

davr — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:00:05 -0800

What's the best DVD burner? I need a new DVD burner, is there any reason I should buy one model over another, or should I just get whatever's on sale today? I've got a fairly old generic DVD burner that doesn't support dual layer, and I'm looking to upgrade since they seem so cheap these days. Does it matter what model I get, or is it such that I can just buy whatever happens to be on sale today? Are there advantages to a certain brand over another? Basically I just want something that's fast, cheap, and produces good quality burns. Any advice would be helpful.

External burner for MacBook Pro

dearleader — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:12:19 -0800

My MacBook Pro no longer burns DVDs, and from what I can see it would cost more to fix it than to simply buy an external one. Anyone have any recommendations for a good burner?

My gas grill has low flow.

rocketman — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:26:10 -0800

My gas grill is broken. Why would the gas flow decrease so that I can only get one burner to cook on high? My grill is two years old, used semi-regularly for a few summers. I'd really like to use it near-daily this summer. The problem is that late last summer, the gas flow reduced severely. I can get a single burner to cook on high, but when I turn on additional burners, the flame immediately goes down, as though the gas flow is being divided among the extra burners without getting more gas into the grill.

At first, I thought my LP tank was low, but replacing the tank with a new one didn't change the problem. Could the regulator valve be broken? If so, is it as easy as removing the existing valve and replacing it with a new one?

Thanks.

Extracting phantom files from old CDRW

benzenedream — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:50:41 -0800

I have a legacy CDRW which shows up empty when mounted in either Linux or Windows. Extracting an iso image under linux via dd yields greppable strings which indicate files are hiding inside. How do I extract the files without knowing what format or filesystem they are in? Mounting the iso as a loop device in Linux yields no listable files. This disc is from ~2000. I assume the final FAT written to the disc is either corrupt or unreadable but files are written earlier on the disc. Is there a "file boundary guesser" that I can pipe the ISO to, which will spit out the possible files?

Cost for a new hot water oil burner/furnace

coffeefilter — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:53:50 -0800

(Oil Heat) - Getting a new oil burner / furnace. (1) How much should it cost, including installation, for a new oil furnace that's at least pretty good/efficient? (We've gotten one estimate, so far, for $10,000 (!) $11,000 for antifreeze pipe system.) What's the cost for the equipment vs cost of labor? (2) The $10K was for a System 2000. Is the System 2000 really that good? Anyone have one? How much did it cost? How much did it reduce your heating bills? 1700 square feet, hot water base board.

Cranky CD burner

Wolof — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:43:01 -0800

CD burner on my Powerbook G4 is erratic. I get some burns done, but I'm getting more and more drink coasters. The process seems to be failing at the initialisation stage. 10.4.11, iTunes 7.

Any thoughts?

I thank you.

I want to get an external DVD burner for my new Windows laptop. Suggestions?

yoga — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:57:34 -0800

I want to get an external DVD burner for my new Windows laptop. Suggestions? [posted for grouse] I have a ThinkPad X61 with no internal optical drive so this will be my primary CD/DVD reader as well.

Should I try to get a FireWire drive or does it not matter? Any particular brands or models I should seek or avoid? It would be really nice if there were one that would play DVDs from any region or could be programmed to do the same.

Any U.S. vendors I could order from and get in the next week? Or should I just go out to Fry's and get something there? I'm in Austin, TX, for the rest of 2007.

Also, I'd like to install Windows XP from the drive (Vista is awful); will I have any problem booting from an external CD drive?

It melted.

konolia — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:18:19 -0800

SOMEBODY in my household made a sandwich and left the empty bread wrapper draped over an electric burner on my stove. Which is now melted onto the coil. What is the easiest way to clean this off???

How do I convert VHS to DVDs or digital files using my laptop?

dorisfromregopark — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:22:58 -0800

How do I convert VHS to DVDs or digital files using my laptop? I have a Dell Inspiron 9200 laptop with a DVD burner built in. My goal over the next few weeks was to take our library of family VHS videos and convert them to DVDs. After searching online (including this askme thread), I settled on the the ADS Tech DVD Xpress DX2. It seemed like just what I was looking for: I could either copy the tapes directly to a recordable DVD or grab the video off the VHS and edit them as I wish on my computer. I ordered the item, installed the programs that come with the device...and my usb port gave a power surge failure and my computer would not recognize it.

That failure led me back online and I briefly considered the WinTV-PVR-150 before I realized that this device is made for PCs. I now worry that I will be unable to convert these tapes using a laptop.

Is there any way I can do this using a laptop? Will the usb power surge failure only occur with devices that do not have an independent power supply (the DVD Xpress did not have its own power supply)? Do any such devices exist? I would rather not spend $20/tape sending these away to a professional. I'm hoping any solution costs ~$100, but I'm willing to listen to any feasible option using a laptop (I have no access to a pc short of purchasing one).

Thanks in advance for any help, friend(s)!

Tips for removing glass from a heating coil?

crazy finger — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:37:24 -0800

How do I safely remove glass that has melted to my stove? So my girlfriend ran out of room in the disk rack and leaned a glass pot on one of the burners on our oven's range. I accidentally turned on the wrong burner when making tea and the whole thing melted down and the house filled with a strange smell. I let the thing cool down and then covered the mess before banging around in there with a spoon which allowed me to remove most of the glass through breakage.

My problem now is that there are still small, jagged fragments left on the coil and I don't know what the best way to proceed is. Can I just reheat this thing and try to melt the glass down further? Can I sand the coils and try to remove the glass that way?

Which is screwed up, my DVD burner or my laptop?

anthropomorphic — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:25:20 -0800

I'm using Windows XP, and a 3 yr old external DVD+RW/-RW burner. Pacific Digital, NEC 2500a. I've been burning avis to DVD using Roxio 6 Drag to Disk. I have a great many dvds that aren't closed - partially burned, unformatted to work in any drive, they'll only work in the dvd burner with drag to disk. My dvd burner has suddenly stopped recognizing both THESE dvds, and also BLANK dvds, though it will read dvds I have burned before. The partially burned dvds and blank dvds give me a CD icon in My Computer, and will not open. It says something like "Incorrect function" when I try. This is also the error I used to get when I burned coasters. In my research on this topic, I've now been schooled on the evils of packet burning, so if you can help me solve this problem, I will switch to Nero, I swear.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled Roxio 6 twice, to no avail. I decI also uninstalled Roxio completely and installed an older version of Nero - Nero 6. With Nero 6, the Nero Burning ROM program attempts to open and then freezes. I have to shut it down in the task manager. This happens even when I disconnect the external drive. This makes me suspect that it may not be the burner's problem.

I have tried many solutions. These include installing Roxio's updates to the software, and reinstalling the ASPI (driver?). Nothing works. I'm occasionally also getting a BSOD when a program tries to reboot my computer itself. (I don't get the error when I restart). The error message on the BSOD is: "driver unloaded without canceling pending operations" Please help.

Advise on camping burners?

easternblot — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 18:27:50 -0800

I'm trying to find a cheapish single burner stove for camping, and a local store is selling the Primus Classic Trail burner, BUT has run out of Primus gas cylinders. Is it possible to use it with another brand? The girl in the store said it wasn't recommended, but how bad will it be: is it the "doesn't work well" type of not recommended, or the "might explode" type of not recommended? I want warm food and water, but also safe cooking. And cheap.

No, it never has been on the level...

QIbHom — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:57:37 -0800

How to level a burner on a gas stove? I have an old gas stove, and the 4 burners are all uneven in different ways. I'd like to even them out, but am having difficulties finding anything on how to do this.

Can I just use anything flat and heat tolerant to shim the grates? Are there kits for this, or should I just go looking for scrap tile or something? Any gotchas? Should I try to come up with a way to fasten the shims in place? Or, should I just mark each grate, then shave metal off the bottom until I get evenness (or the world's thinnest grates).

CD burning software for directory backups?

futility closet — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 07:02:14 -0800

What's a good (preferably free) CD burner that I can use to do weekly data backups? In the ones I've tried, a "project" is a list of files; I want one that goes by directories instead, so it'll automatically include new files. I'm on WinXP.

Big Buffer

iconjack — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:51:48 -0800

What CD burners have the largest buffers? The consumer products seem to have 2MB or 4MB buffers. I'm looking for something much larger. In fact I'd like to find one that can buffer a whole disc's worth.

Can anyone help?

Burner will not recognize 16x dvd-rs

weretable and the undead chairs — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:44:19 -0800

Why will my burner not recognize my DVD-Rs as 16x? I have a Pioneer DVD-R/DVD-RW burner that is supposed to handle 16x on either media. I had previously used 8X media and in Nero it would pop up as 8X and I could set it at 4X or 2X if I wanted. However I just bought some Taiyo Yuden 16X media and when burning it does not give me a speed option and defaults at 2X. Any ideas?

DVD Burner b0rked

weaponsgradecarp — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 18:25:26 -0800

DVD-RWFilter: I burned a DVD ages ago, and on attempt to re-read, wimdows thinks it's blank. I burned a 1.4gb mini DVD (8cm disk) a ways back with a handful of large files on it, totalling about 400mb. When i put it back into my computer (which has since been reformatted), windows asks me what i want to do with the blank CD I've inserted. I NEED THESE FILES!!
Any suggestions?

How do you control a Sony external DVD burner without its original software disk?

Toolshed — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 15:44:26 -0800

I recently bought a Sony external DVD/CD dual-layer burner (DRX-710UL/T), but didn't get the CD that comes with it and Sony won't sell me one. The four-year old Vaio laptop I'm using it on sees the device, but I have no way of controlling it. I know that Windows XP Pro (the Vaio's OS) supposedly has all the drivers built in. Is there an application that would act as an interface between the burner and the laptop? Or does anyone know where I can get a copy of the disk?

Slow DVD burning

synecdoche — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 16:37:00 -0800

I have two dvd burners in my computer. One is an old(er) LG that is capable of burning (with the right media) at 4x. Last week, I picked up a new one that is capable of burning at 8x. However, the burn times seem to be the same. Now, the media I am using is capable of being burned at 8x. In fact, Nero tells me it is burning at 8x, and estimates the burn time at about 8 or 9 minutes for a full (4.7GB) disc. However, it counts down that 8 or 9 minutes and then just keeps burning, and it is taking closer to a half hour.

This is how long it took the old burner to burn things at 4x. Furthermore, I tried burning things at 2x, and got the same result. This happens regardless of the DVD media I am using.

Is there some setting I have wrong? The only thing that looks strange to me is that, when I burn, the buffer level hops around a LOT.

The resulting discs are perfect, but it'd be nice they came out as fast as they are supposed to!

For reference, the new burner is a Pioneer DVR 109. It is capable of going as high as 16x, but I have no 16x blanks. A friend has an identical burner and has no such problems.

24 hours w/o music is bad news

hamster — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 19:41:59 -0800

GrrFilter: Are the CD-Rs I bought just really crummy? I bought a 30-pack of Sony CD-Rs on sale. Of the 15 I've tried, only two burned. The rest gave me an error notice and spit themselves out. I tried burning my last two Imation CD-Rs and they worked great, which makes me think it's got to be the Sonys. I've turned the computer off and let it rest, but nothing helps. I'm using an iBook G4 with iTunes, and none of my songs are iTunes purchases; they've all burned before. I've tried burning at 1x and 8x, but no dice. Here's what my log says:

console.log:

Size: 1 KB
Last Modified: 6/23/05 9:31 PM
Location: /Library/Logs/Console/Hamster/console.log
Contents: Mac OS X Version 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
2005-06-23 21:21:29 -0500
iTunes: Burn started, Thu Jun 23 21:25:57 2005
iTunes: Burning to CD-R media with SAO strategy in MATSHITA CD-RW CW-8123 CA0T via ATAPI.
iTunes: Requested CD burn speed was 1x, actual burn speed is 8x.
iTunes: Burn underrun protection is supported, and enabled.
iTunes: Burn failed, Thu Jun 23 21:26:11 2005
iTunes: Burn sense: 5/2C/00 Illegal Request, Command sequence error
iTunes: Burn error: 0x80020022 The device failed to respond properly, unable to recover or retry.

Any ideas on how to make the rest work? I'm taking a twelve-hour road trip tomorrow and could really use some tunes on the way... thanks!

Do CD burners grow old and die?

ackptui — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 09:51:47 -0800

The CD burner in my 1GHz PIII era computer has been acting flakey lately, getting halfway thru a burn and then crapping out with an error, or just causing the burning software to hang, such that I have to kill it. The software that came with the box was Adaptec, which I believe has evolved into Roxio since. I tried installing Nero 6, but that seems to detect even more errors from the burner. I have burned maybe a total of 200 discs over the life of the box. Is this the burner telling me it need to be replaced? If I drop in a new burner, can I just re-install Nero or Roxio and expect it to work? I also have an older PI box that I would not mind having a CD burner in, does Win95 support CD burners, or is that a lost cause?

Apple DVD Burning

gaby — Mon, 09 May 2005 15:01:57 -0800

I want burn DVD's, but I want to do it on my Mac and PC. I had an external enclosure, so I could move the drive between PC and mac easily. The proble is it wouldn't let me use my Optorite DVD drive to write DVD's on my Mac, only to read them. Where can I find a list of the DVD writers that OS X supports natively? I put the Optorite DVD burner into a generic enclosure (looked exactly like this one) that had a "Prolific PL3507 Combo Device"
USB2/Firewire chipset in. The Apple System Profiler told me that disc burning was not suppoted with this device. It could have been the external enclosure, or the drive, but it wasn't going to let me burn a DVD, on my Powerbook, or my housemate's Mac Mini.

I know I can get the Lacie DVD Burner and use that but I believe that I can get an enclosure and DVD burner for less. I just need to know that the drive is supported under OS X before I part with more money. I haven't been able to find a list on the Apple support forums, on via google and I took the external enclosure back to the shop.

Freeware DVD Burners

445supermag — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 12:57:46 -0800

Are there any decent freeware/shareware DVD burning programs for win XP or should I bite the bullet and buy Nero?

Archiving VHS To DVD?

Lynsey — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:06:30 -0800

Do any MeFites have ideas/experience/recommendations for a way to archive VHS tapes to DVD? So far my Google-fu has turned up software that requires having to add video cards to computers, plus a DVD burner, etc. My work would prefer a product that is a stand-alone thing that you can pop in a tape, then convert it to DVD and pop out a DVD. Is there such a thing?