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I know this is not really a tech support forum but I thought I would ask if anyone has experienced the same issue I'm having. I have a 2TB G Technologies external drive connected to my Dell XPS420 computer via the Firewire800 connection on the drive going to the Firewire400 connection on the computer using the cable supplied with the drive. Everything was working fine until I tried to upgrade the Firewire cable to an Audio Quest Carbon cable. When I switched out cables the G Drive didn't show up in explorer. Put back the stock cable and the G Tech drive showed up again. Tried this with two different cables and now even the stock cable connection isn't showing up in explorer. I had to switch back to USB for now which works fine. The point of me getting the G Tech drive with Firewire connections was (as suggested somewhere on this site) to use a Firewire connected external drive for music storage along with a USB connected DAC. Obviously the Firewire card on the computer may have died coincidently but I thought I'd see what you may have to say before diving into that. Thank you to anyone with suggestions!

Thank you jrlx and Arran for your suggestions, I didn't realize that Windows 7 could burn blu ray by dragging and dropping onto the drive icon. I looked at Nero but since my burning needs are so basic (not making movies or anything like that) I decided to try imgburn for free first and I've been very successful with that program so far. imgburn has an incomprehensible array of settings that I would say are not necessarily for the novice computer user but once it's all set up it is pretty easy to use. I have successfully burned several 50GB double layer discs as well as regular DVD-R. I also have been using dbpoweramp for my CD ripping and file conversation and Foobar2000 as my media player on my Dell XPS. dbpoweramp is fantastic. I've been able to rip two different file codecs to two different folders simultaneously with one rip of a CD. Very cool. With a High Resolution Technologies Streamer II DAC connecting my computer to my two channel audio system it sounds very good.

I recently purchased an external blu ray burner from Other World Computing (it is a Pioneer BDR206 with OWC's enclosure which includes eSATA, Firewire 400/800, and USB 2.0 connections). The intended purpose for this drive is to backup large amounts of data, specifically the files created from ripping my client's CD collections to NAS drives, etc. I'm looking for suggestions on blu ray software. Basic, straightforward burning software that you may have experience with. I'm not editing video, photos, or anything else. I will be using the OWC drive on my Dell XPS computer. Thank you in advance for any comments or suggestions.

Hello everyone, this is my first post on Computer Audiophile so I'll take up some space to give you a brief background. I am an audio video integrator/programmer designing and installing custom high performance home theater, audio video distribution, and home control systems. I am also an audiophile and am in the process of maximizing the audio performance and CD ripping capabilities of my computer system. The intent here is to develop a set of computer hardware and software tools that I can use to rip clients (and my own) CD collections to external hard drive and then have those files available for streaming to the various audio systems I install, recommending the same hardware/software tools to the client. My current computer system consists of a 2011 Mac Mini (i5 dual core/8GB RAM), G-Technologies 2TB external hard drive connected via Firewire 800, High Resolution Technologies Streamer II USB DAC connected via a powered USB hub which then feeds my Marantz integrated amp/Arcam power amp. I use sbooth's Decibel software for playback. So my question is about FLAC encoding software. I have done some research and it seems that FLAC is one of the most widely supported file formats (in relation to the system hardware I use) but of course iTunes doesn't support ripping of CD's in FLAC or the conversion from AIFF/ALAC to FLAC. I've done some research on sbooth's MAX, as well as programs called xAct and XLD. Does anyone have any thoughts about which of these would provide the most accurate process for ripping of CD's to FLAC (or any other format) or, keeping the compatibility requirement in mind, is FLAC the best format to rip to. I've also read some comments about how these various programs handle the metadata for CD's and don't really understand this aspect of the software so any thoughts are also appreciated. Thank you in advance for your comments.