Windows XP problems

[Peelback79]

A little background:

A year ago my momma dearest got into the graphics design world. She's always been an excellent painter and her work on computer is excellent too. She knows Window's better than I do. A year ago she had this company build her a computer, it's a decent rig but despite everything they've done to fix it, it won't read any cd's burned off of it. I'm getting peeved because she spent a little over 1000 bills on this computer, it's been a year and they still haven't fixed, and now they're ignoring her!!!!!

The problem: The computer runs great, burns the cd's, but it won't read any cd's that IT writes. Any cd's writtin on other computers, any software cd's, DVD's, all run fine. When you put a cd in that the computer has written and try to access it, you get a "Windows has encountered an error....needs to close.......we care blah blah". Again, any other cd's or dvds can be accessed and ran fine as long as her computer didn't write them.

What they did to remedy it:
Swapped mother boards?!?!?!
Changed hard drives?!?!??!
Changed cd burning software. They put Nero on.

I wish she'd brought it to my attention sooner because it sounds like they know less about her computer than she does.
I can get the specs on the computer when I get to look at it, but I have two thoughts on the problem:

1- Software- Clean wipe windows, re-install. No biggie.

2- When the company built it, they put it two hard drives?!?! She asked for 2 gigs of ram and they said that 1 gig was enough and that two hard drives would help make the system faster. When she saves something to her C drive it automatically appears on her D drive. Maybe there's a RAID issue? I don't know much about that.

Also, this company has worked on two peoples laptops that I know, and for no reason at all the laptops will go into sleep mode and crash while the people are using them. Any speculation on that would be helpful too.

In closing I think this company is the biggest problem. They also worked on a company's system and now that company can't back up it's files either. So I about tempted to tell her to keep the hard drives, get her money back, and have myself build her a computer.
Thanks to all who help. I'm off to get the specs.

Edit: Her comp specs:
Pentium D 2.8
1 gig ram
EliteGroup 661FX-M7
120 gig Seagate HD partitioned 60/60 (Don't know why they did that)

 

[VirtualLarry]

What applications is she using to burn those CDs? Is she using a drag-n-drop program, or a mastering program? Those drag-n-drop programs often include an auto-installing piece of software to read their disks, and perhaps that program is crashing on your machine.

Otherwise, perhaps your CD burner is defective, and is producing bad discs. Have you tried replacing the drive?

 

[dclive]

When a CD is burned, can you then read that CD on another machine?

What happens with self-written CDs when her machine is booted in safe mode?

 

[Peelback79]

The discs it burns reads fine in any other computers. Any other discs burned on other computers read fine in problem computer. It just will not read any discs that it burns?
I'm outta ideas on this one. Again, the computer will read and run any disc that was not burned on it.

 

[dclive]

Read my website - read the section on CD/DVD filter drivers, and post what upperfilter and lowerfilter drivers you have in that area of the registry.

 

[Brazen]

That place sounds shady. Why would they talk a customer out of a RAM upgrade?! And the hard drive thing is weeiird.

Judging by what you've said, I would do what she can to get her money back and buy from a reputable company, or build your own with quality parts. Otherwise, I would say it's a bad burner, or just a low-quality burner.

You could also try the burning software: ImgBurn is free, awesome, and never fails me.