cd writer/burner problems

Question

I am having a problem with my cd drive when I put in a disk I sometimes have to put it in several times before it will read, when I try to burn a cd it will stop after it starts burning and tell me disk no longer good, I have bought several brands of disk and it happens on all of them, I check the disk info and it says the disk is good then I try to burn after it fails sometimes the disk will say no used space so the drive actually did something to make the disk useless, I can burn dvd's with no problem, when I check the device manager it says device working properley  Help

osprey4 · Answer

Hi, Patti:

Please work through these standard troubleshooting steps first. When you post back, it would be helpful if you provide the model of your Dell and the model of your CD burner (hint, check device manager).

pattiann2 · Answer

osprey4, thanks for the reply I uninstalled the driver and when it came back I was successfull in burning one photo cd before it messed up again. All other solutions came back as device working , I burn with nero, and after the first one went through I tried to erase and it said successfull but when I put the disk back in all the pictures were still there, I then used a new disk and tried to burn a audio cd it failed at 5% I have a error log from nero but I dont understand it my computer is a dell GX270 optiplex on the properties to the drive it says disk drive Maxtor 5A250J0 the cd/dvd says HL-DR-ST DVD-RW GWA4164B,

osprey4 · Answer

Patti: There is a firmware update for your drive, download and instructions here. Give that a try.

pattiann2 · Answer

No luck, I noticed when I try to load my pictures to the burn list it tells me they are not proper format, thats never happened before, looking at the burn error log it looks like when it starts to burn it can no longer detect the disk, like I said when I first uninstalled and rebooted it worked perfect for one photo cd , could it be just a bad drive and I do have a new drive I sould put in but I have never took the cover off a computer before, would it be too difficult to remove and replace

osprey4 · Answer

Ok, let's try one more thing. Delete the upper and/or loswer filters as described in the CD/DVD FAQ under 'code 39 error'. After you do that, you'll need to reinstall Nero.

pattiann2 · Answer

would sending you the error log from nero help

pattiann2 · Answer

No luck with that either, it starts to burn then stops and then the disk I used it will not read again at all says no disk when I reensert it.

osprey4 · Answer

Yes, please post that. Also please let me know what blank discs you are using.

pattiann2 · Answer

I AM UNABLE TO POST THE LOG WHEN i TRIED IT SAID TO MANY CHARACTERS, i TRIED TO CUT OFF SOME BUT THEN SAID DETECTED PROHIBITED CONTENT OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT I WOULD BE HAPPY TO EMAIL IT TO YOU, I AM USING ALL BRANDS OF DISK SONY MEMOREX ECT CD-RW, I AM TRYING TO BURN MY WEDDING PICTURES TO DISK SO ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF PLEASE LET ME KNOW IT SEEMS AS THOUGH IT STARTS TO BURN THEN NO LONGER DETECTS THE DISK IF I TRY ON THE CD WRITER IT GET TO THE LAST 5 SECONDS BEFORE IT SAYS DISK MAY BE NO LONGER USABLE, ALSO WHEN I TRIED THE F12 IT SAID MY MAXTOR DISK DRIVE PASSED TEST BUT THE HL-DT-ST-DVD+RW GWA4164B WAS NOT DIAGNOSTIC SUPPORTED

pattiann2 · Answer

hi just wanted to let ou know I tried something else A friend told me to download silentnight stand alone burner and if worked I was having software issues if not it was driver issues well it didn't work so i guess it is a driver problem

pattiann2 · Answer

problem solved replaced the drive working fine now burning on nero and cd writer thanks for all the help now I know what to check if I have any more problems

williamkidd · Answer

Good work, pattiann2. Thanks for posting your solution. :smileyhappy:

I have a rather strange request concerning the drive that wasn't working for you (the DVD-RW GWA4164B). If I'm not mistaken your system has the one optical drive (CD/DVD) and a floppy drive so to do this you would have to pull the now working optical drive out and put the one that was causing problems back in. Doing so won't hurt the one that is working correctly. What I'm looking for is a drive to serve as a guinea pig of sorts. There is an HP firmware update that is supposed to correct quite a few issues with the DVD-RW GWA4164B. Applying that update to the drive would result in one of two things: (1) the DVD-RW GWA4164B would work correctly once more or (2) it would be turned into a paperweight. Since it doesn't appear that the Dell firmware update corrects the problems associated with that drive I thought it might be worth trying the HP update to see if it can fix things. Unfortunately I don't have a DVD-RW GWA4164B to try it on so that is why I am looking for someone to take a chance to see what that update would do. You would need either a blank floppy disk or a blank CD-R disc (not CD+R or +-RW) to do the flash update on the drive. There are a few other people having issues with that particular drive so I am going to ask them as well about performing the HP update. Flashing the drive would also void the warranty if it is still under one so keep that in mind as well. All I need is to see one person's result so if you would consider doing the update let me know. I also understand if you don't want to try it since your system is now working correctly so don't be shy to say no. :smileyhappy:

If you'd like to read about the update you can find the information here: (link removed by williamkidd)

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

EDIT: removed link

Message Edited by williamkidd on 09-27-2008 04:15 PM

pattiann2 · Answer

I'm curious myself I will try that next week as I am outta town, and I will let you know, Thanks for the reply

williamkidd · Answer

Hi pattiann2. I decided to remove the link to the HP firmware and instead offered up another possible solution on the thread DVD GWA4164B question

Keep any eye on that thread as that is where I will probably post any updates.

pattiann2 · Answer

THANKS I WILL  TRY THAT MONDAY EVENING AND LET YOU KNOW:smileyhappy:

Storage, Drives & Media

cd writer/burner problems

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