off topic: weird computer drive problem

[DMBillies]

I'm in the process of backing up my CD collection because my car got broken into about 6 months ago and they stole all of my back-ups (thankfully I did not have my originals in there). I wanted to burn them off of my girlfriends computer because it has 2 drives and I should be able to set-up one to read and the other to write without having to drop them onto the computer and without any loss in quality. I'd say I'm fairly computer saavy and have never even heard of anything like this happening...

Problem: The CD burner kept rejecting the blanks and it was giving me an error that there was a problem with the discs. I thought maybe it was my burning software, so I tried burning a data disc using windows. This also gave me a disc error, so I thought it might be the blanks. I burnt a couple on my computer and there was no problem with the discs. So, I went to work on her computer and that's when things got weird. The CD burner drive will not read a software disc (I tried a game CD and a Dell re-boot disc) or an original music CD (I tried several). Windows tries to run the auto-start (mouse flashes the disc) and then nothing happens. If you try to explore the CD through my computer, it basically acts like there is nothing in the drive. Ok, so that would seem like a driver problem. I tried updating several times and windows can't find an updated driver. I even tried unhooking the drive, uninstalling the driver, restarting and then re-installing everything. Ok, so now the really weird part... one time, to try out the drive to see if I fixed it, I put a burnt music CD in the drive. It started right up and played in media player as if there was no problem...so I thought I fixed it. Except, it still doesn't run original music CD's or data/software CD's. I've tried multiple burnt music CD's and they all work, but no other CD I've tried (and I've tried at least 20 differrent ones) will be recognized by the burner.

Troubleshooting checklist... it's not the discs, it's not the drive (at least, it is capable of playing burnt music CD's), I doubt it's the driver (plays some CD's, re-installed it multiple times, no other version that I can find available), as far as I know I have the drive hardware set-up correctly (I switched it's position in relation to other drives making it first in the line with no difference in performance of any of the of drives, I also tried unhooking every other drive except for C to make sure I didn't accidentally have too many drive inputs into one port). I'm not sure when it stopped working as we haven't actually tried to use the drive in a long time and there were a lot of things added and installed since.

Does anyone know why a CD drive would only play burnt music CD's and nothing else?

Also, if you have no clue what's going on but do know of a good computer board to pose this question at, please let me know. I've run out of things to try aside from packing the box full of explosives and lighting it off for the upcoming 4th of July holiday.

TIA,
Brian

Computer: I'm running Windows XP Pro on a Dell Dimension 4100 with a Pentium III and 256 Mb RAM. The drive is an LG CD-RW CED 8120B running driver 5.1.2535.0.

 

[greystreet41]

I didn't read all of that, but didn't see anything about the burning software you're using. Are you using nero?

 

[papagimp]

sounds like a bad burner to me, I've had similar problems in the past.

 

[DMBillies]

I'm using Sonic Recordnow and I've tried uninstalling it (still didn't work right when uninstalled) and reinstalling it with no effect.

 

[gflat65]

Have you tried rebooting? I tried to burn on my new dell and it locked out all new discs until I rebooted. Discs it had read five minutes before didn't show up when I'd go to My Computer. Rebooted and all was fine again. Likely not the root cause, but potentially a band aid.

If everyone kept a big stick beside their computer as a persuasive device, I think there would be fewer crashes (excuse me-MicroCrap related crashes, anyway). Apples are looking better by the day...

 

[theop]

If the reboot doesn't work, the drive is probably going bad.

The solution: Buy an iPod and an adaptor for your car.

 

[DMBillies]

Yeah... I rebooted about 25 times... the only kind of booting I didn't try is the kind involving a swift kick to the computer.

I know there is a lot of hate out there for Microsoft, but if it's a bad drive that's not really their fault

I've been thinking about the iPod solution, but my main aim is to have EXACT copies of the original discs (kept in a seperate location) in case something happens to them, and/or my computer, and/or the DVD's they are backed up on, and/or my external harddrive. This is really just me being paranoid because data is easy to lose and hard to replace. I've learned too many hard lessons...

Which begs for a horror story... my harddrive crashed when I was about a week away from handing in my master's thesis. I hadn't backed up for a month and was going to lose all of the writing I had done for that month (basically all I had done), have to spend another few weeks redoing everything, and miss my graduation deadline effectly making me have to spend another semester in school. Luckily, after restarting my computer about 15 times, the harddrive started one time, let me move that one file, and then crashed again... I'm not a very religious person, but boy was I thanking the big man that day.

Any other ideas to try?

 

[KAiNE]

Problem #1..... its a Dell.....LoL

I have seen many burners do exactly what you describe. As a matter of fact I have a 3month old DVD burner that no longer burns DVD's but will burn CD's. It will read anything except a non-burnt DVD (dual or single layer).

Rip all your Cd's to high bitrate (320) MP3's. Then you can create audio CD's at will. http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos

Replace the burner, they are only like $25

FWIW.... I never burn from CD/DVD drive to CD/DVD drive. Sure its possible but risky IMO.

 

[DMBillies]

I find that computers are like cars... everyone has their brand and everyone knows of at least one car from every brand that has been a hunk of junk. So, I take no offense to the rip on Dells.

It's looking like I might need to go out and buy a new drive, I was just hoping that there might be an easy fix I'm not seeing.

As far as burning from drive-to-drive, I've done it a lot in the past on other computers. When burners were slow and there was very limited memory you could end up with pops and skips, but haven't had any problems with that in years. I just like it because I can copy a disc in half the time. That's no big deal if you're just doing a disc here and there, but when you have 250+ to copy... it's a nice little perk.

Anyway, thanks all for the input. Any other ideas are more than welcome.

 

[TitansFan]

I second the drive being bad. Dell in my opinion is one of the best high volume builders. They were the first manufacture togo to a single normal motherboard instead of a dual proprietary
boards. If only they would move their tech support out of India... that way maybe you can understand the person on the phone. Check out www.newegg.com
thats where I get all my parts to build comps.

 

[Freed]

I have the exact same problem with mine. It's not just that it's a Dell. Mine's an HP. I have rebooted countless times as well hoping that would fix the problem. NADA. It won't even write the XP back up/restart discs or whatever they're called. I have tried, let me count...6 times to burn the back up CDs but the burner spits them back out after the first of the 5-7 are halfway done. At least mine's still under warranty.

 

[PhoenixINX]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7464995#post7464995 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by KAiNE
Problem #1..... its a Dell.....LoL

Dell's are using NEC, Sony, and various other manu. for their drives... I'm sure it's Dell's design flaw that caused the failure.

 

[KAiNE]

My statement is only my opinion based on 10+ years as an IT consultant and network admin. It is based on 100's of first hand experiences helping Dell customers correct their PC issues and getting their warranties honored by a company that tries very hard not to.

Just like with hard drives... there are "white label"/OEM drives with next to 0 warranty and there are "retail" with 5 years or more. There is a reason for this and its not just price.

Bottom line.... Dell uses the cheapest components they can get. Most all hardware manufacturers make seconds.

I have an LG-GCE-8240B burner manufactured 4/02 that does something similar to what you describe. What was the DOM on your drive?

 

[DMBillies]

I'm not in a position to take it apart right now (particularly if it's not going to help me fix it), but I know the drive is the original drive and the computer would have been bought sometime in '01.

Getting only 4 or 5 years out of a drive is nothing unexpected to me and that's all I generally get out of a computer anyway, not because of hardware failures but because of outdated technology. I assumed because it was repeatedly reading one type of disk an not another that it might be some sort of software issue somewhere along the line.

Finally, I don't want this thread to deteriorate to an argument over what computers are the best and, in particular, what computers are crap. I only put brand names in the post in case it helped someone tell me what the problem was. All companies cut costs in some way and the ones that don't may make good products but are hard to afford (which probably explains why the average grocery store carries Budweiser and not Samuel Smith and why people love to say "you pay for what you get"). Kaine, I wasn't offended by your post, I just don't want this thread to cross that magical line...

 

[Reef_bones]

Its the drive. When a Burner goes out they act very strange. I even had one that would burn the first couple of tracks then error out. The knock on Dell is true, they do use the cheapest parts available. I have been buying buisness systems from them for years now and its hit or miss on quality. All PC makers are the same way. Sony is the only one I have found that has great quality with most of thier products. My only advice for someone wanting to buy a new PC, get a DELL but stay away from the 399, 499, and 599 specials. Go ahead and spend the extra money and get the next step up from the base models, they are made with better motherboards and processors. Which is the main thing to worry about.