Problem With CD Drives

[Vincentjames501]

Alright, my problem is that both of my DVD burner have stopped working properly. They both read all media properly but the problem is that they will not detect blank disk (neither one of them). If I put in a blank media (either cd-r or dvd) nothing happens at all and when i got to my computer it just sits there and loads and never allows me to do anything with the disk and often freezes the computer.

Ok guys. I'll try to give all the info that I have here. Im running vista x64 ultimate and I have two dvd rw drives. I have an old HP DVD writer 200j ATA and a Samsung TSSTcorp SH-S203N sata. Both drives worked on windows XP 32bit. Both drives are up-to-date on firmware. I had CDBurnerXp and that was my only burning software and I've uninstalled it hoping that it would fix my problem but no luck. I've uninstalled itunes and many other programs hoping to get some functionality out of them. I have a feeling some hardware setting is set up wrong.

PS. If this is the wrong section to post I apologize. Anymore questions please ask

 

[Roguestar]

Try swapping them out with another drive? Try using a new IDE cable; perhaps the old one is kaput? Check if they show up in BIOS?

 

[Vincentjames501]

Well both of them worked prior to vista installation. I wonder if it could be a faulty program that caused them to be screwed up?

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

My DVD burner from time to time just fails to do anything at all. Won't read when I put a game disk in, and fails to open. Then oddly enough I restart my PC, and it works...or it doesn't. But then, eventually it works flawlessly again. So I personally think it's a crap shoot. As far as advice...do what Roguestar said

 

[QuixoticOne]

Sounds like a VISTA problem to me.

Shut down and physically turn off / remove the power cord from the PC; sometimes they get a glitch that a simple reset or soft-power cycle doesn't fix.

Boot into vista safe mode and see if you can even access the DVD tools from there.. maybe not possible in safe mode, IDK.

Boot into Vista and create a brand new administrator class account on the PC, shutdown/reboot, login to the new account, and see if the DVD stuff works from the new account; maybe some DRM / crapware messed up your normal account so it doesn't work right. Reinstall some burner software from scratch in the clean / new Vista account, see if that works.

Remove any video games, DRM software besides iTunes, etc. and see if that helps.

I know I've got a USB DVD/CD that is my only unit and it just totally stops being recognized at all after I play a game or whatever f&&&ing piece of s*** buggy DRM software likes to mess up CD/DVD drives and recording options and so on.

Double check that the media is really blank / OK... sometimes discs are defective or they don't appear to burn but they get a little trash written on them that makes them unusable the when you try again...

Also update the FIRMWARE of the CD/DVD drives.. it COMMONLY happens that the firmware may just not recognize a certain model/brand/production lot of media due to the media code on the disc.. even if the "brand/model" doesn't change on the packaging often they WILL switch the physical manufacturer / type code of the discs in the package so even though a given brand/model # used to work maybe next time you buy it it won't work at all due to drive firmware bugs / incompatibility.

Try a totally different brand / type of media.

I assume you didn't accidentally get DVD-R media for a DVD+R only drive or something like that.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: CDC Mail Guy
My DVD burner from time to time just fails to do anything at all. Won't read when I put a game disk in, and fails to open. Then oddly enough I restart my PC, and it works...or it doesn't. But then, eventually it works flawlessly again. So I personally think it's a crap shoot. As far as advice...do what Roguestar said

This used to happen to me with my previous DVD burner; any time I'd leave a game disc in it'd forget about it then not run the disc until I took it out and put it back in again. Turned out it was just on the slow path to failing entirely, so I replaced it once it stopped reliably burning DVDs.