CD/DVD Inspector Trace

Activation of the trace mode causes the table of contents and directory of any CD or DVD examined to be recorded in a file. It does not record the contents of any of the files contained on the disc. It may contain some information from the disc because some sectors (usually 10 or less) are dumped in hex and character format. It will contain the file names of files found on most discs.

The purpose of this is to allow InfinaDyne to diagnose your media without having the actual disc in our hands. It is also useful occasionally when diagnosing problems with specific devices as this kind of information is also placed in the trace file. The trace file also allows us to know what software was used to create the disc. The trace file is a simple text file that can be opened with any text editor, such as Notepad. If you have concerns about the content of this file, please review it to ensure that you can send us the file. While we treat all such trace files as confidential and believe there is nothing in a trace file that can be considered to be "contraband", if you are concerned, please check.

There are two ways of activating the trace. One is through the Preferences and the other is through the command line. These are described below.

Preferences

To activate the trace through the Preferences dialog, first remove all discs from CD and DVD devices. This will prevent the software from beginning the examination and it will start without any device selected. Then, select the Preferences item from the File menu and press Alt-D. You will see a message saying that tracing has been activated. Now use the Select Device menu selection (under File) to select a device and examine the disc.

The file "Inspector.dbg" contains the trace information. This can be most easily found by using the "Open trace file folder" shortcut in the Start->Infinadyne menu. Note that additional trace files named "Inspector (2).dbg" through "Inspector (6).dbg" may be present. You probably want to send all of these files. Please email the file collected to support@infinadyne.com. If the file is quite large, please compress it using the Windows Send To option for a compressed folder.

When you use the Preferences technique, after you have collected the information you need about a disc you should turn tracing off. This is done the same way it is activated: by pressing Alt-D from the Preferences dialog. If you do not do this, trace files will continue to be collected. Only the last six are saved.

Command Line

When you report a problem with CD/DVD Inspector, you may be requested to use the command-line technique specifically. This collects information about the startup process of CD/DVD Inspector. If CD/DVD Inspector is crashing or hanging during startup, you should always use the -d2 technique described below.

To activate the trace through the command line, use Windows key with "R". Then, click the Browse button and locate where CD/DVD Inspector is installed – it is by default placed in C:\Program Files (x86)\InfinaDyne\Inspector. Then, add the option "-d" (without the quotes) to the end of the line, adding a space after the file name shown. Click the OK button and CD/DVD Inspector will start with the trace activated. It should look similar to this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\InfinaDyne\Inspector\Inspector.EXE" –d

Note that the quotes around the filename are required.

In cases where CD/DVD folder hangs in such a way that the computer must be reset (Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing), the command line parameter "-d2" should be used. This will severely impact performance, but it will insure that all of the trace information is written out properly. Just like the option of “–d” you will use the Windows key and press R to enable this option. This should look similar to this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\InfinaDyne\Inspector\Inspector.EXE" –d2

Note that the quotes around the filename are required.