PC cant recognise disk

[anoraknophobe]

Eh...feel a bit stupid, but ....

I've spent time looking at how to capture DV etc, but when I went to put in a blank DVD-RW last night to mess about, the PC kept saying something like "drive inaccessible" when i try to access the drive on the PC. Even when I just double click on the drive in windows explorer, it comes up with this same message.

Do I have to format it first, like you used to have to do with floppies etc? What am I doing wrong? I tried a couple of discs, with the same result. I'm sure I'm missing something simple??

[Radixmind]

can you explain more precisely what youre trying to do? are you using any burning software such as nero to write to the DVD-RW, or are you trying to 'drag and drop' in windows XP? (i have to admit, i have little experience with that type of use, and wouldnt reccommend it anyway)

also, what does the DVD-RW have to do with your 'looking at how to capture DV?' are you attempting to grab DV footage and write it directly onto the DVD-RW? because that won't work, i'm afraid.

post back with more details.

[anoraknophobe]

basically, i'm in the process of learning how to capture dv from camcorder, onto pc, and then onto dvd. i've downloaded trial version of nero7, and having captured some dv onto the pc, i wanted to burn a little bit onto the dvd-rw to see if i could then play it back on the pc and/or a standalone dvd player. i chose the rw format, purely because i liked the idea of being able to rub out any mistakes made!! the writer i have is the LG GSA-4167BAL, which is supposed to read/write with all formats. the standalone unit also says it can playback -r, -rw, +r, and +rw discs.

when using nero, at one stage it asked me where i wanted to save a file, and when i tried to chose the LG drive, it said "inaccessible disc" or something like that. i then closed nero, just to see if i could get the pc to see the disc, but when i double clicked on the drive in windows explorer (w2000 prof) it came up with the same message. right clicking on the drive and checking properties seemed to show the disk but with 0GB full and 0GB empty. i then went back into nero to go to the option to burn a dvd-video, and it seemed to go through the process ok - i never received any error messages, and there appeared to be activity in the drive - but when it finished and i tried to see the disk again via explorer, it just gave me the same message. it was at this stage i tried to play it in the standalone player, thinking it had burned something, but it didn't recognise it.

it has been suggested to me that i need to format rw discs before use - is this correct? how would i do this? is there another explanation? someone else suggested i check the firmware for the lg - what does this do? otherwise, the unit plays bought dvd's and cd's fine. i've also used it for cd-r's.

hope this helps

[funnel71]

Definitely check the firmware. That's the first step with any burner giving problems.

Next thing I would do, even though it sounds crazy, is access your BIOS, and look at your boot sequence. Make sure you start booting from your floppy, then HD, then CD/DVD ROM drive. Don't put the CD/DVD drive first in the boot sequence. I've found that correcting that helps windows to recognize discs. I don't know why, but it has happened.

Finally, put a DVD-R in there instead of an RW, see what it does with that. Is your drive able to handle RW? I know most are, but you didn't mention how new the drive was, and older models were never set to recognize RW.

Hope this helps.

[anoraknophobe]

i'm a wee bit wary of updating the firmware, purely because i've heard that it can sometimes leave your machine performing worse that before!! however, i will check it at least.

the LG does (should!) handle RW discs. it was only bought about November, but it's supposed to be able to handle just about any format under the sun, including vinyl and reel to reel tape

[anoraknophobe]

the dvd+r's i bought yesterday give me exactly the same message "D:\is not accessible. Incorrect function"

and yet, nero showtime plays the video i correctly thought i'd burned yesterday, although WMP just gives me the same message when i try to open up the file/drive to play.

what's going on??!! i can't update firmware yet as i'll need to check out how the drive is set up (mster/slave etc) and will need to take advice on that first.

[InXess]

you may check this out:
http://www.duxcw.com/yabbse/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=6227

or remove, reinstall the drive in Dev. Mgr. remove/reinstall DVD recording programs (may have conflicting drivers), use nero cleanup tool (their website), check cables, repair OS, flush the drive FW, replace the drive, replace your computer, change address, change your tel no. (in priority order)

[anoraknophobe]

i've booked the removal van already!!

yeah...i've actually found that link myself also. frankly, its scary!! basically no-one knows why this is caused - various different reasons and solutions which might/might not work. once i get back home, i'll try some of them.

[funnel71]

Did you check the BIOS settings like I suggested?

[DarrellS]

but when I went to put in a blank DVD-RW last night to mess about, the PC kept saying something like "drive inaccessible" when i try to access the drive on the PC. Even when I just double click on the drive in windows explorer, it comes up with this same message.

That's the typical windows error message you get when you try to access blank media.

There is nothing wrong with your computer. Burn something to the media and the error message will disappear the next time you try to access the disc.

[InXess]

Damn, I missed the word "blank"... sorry (can't believe that...)Blank media won't behave like an empty harddisk saying "no file found" or similar. It has no file system and is simply unreadable (like unformatted disk) so no wonder you get this msg. Listen to the man above...

[anoraknophobe]

DarrellS - fraid it doesn't! Keeps giving me the same message even with something burned on to it (see my post on 30/3, 21.40)

Funnel71 - I haven't went into BIOS yet and doesn't look like I will be for a while now!! On Friday morning when switching on the PC, I got a blue screen message when the system was trying to boot up saying "Inaccessible Boot Device" and since then, I've been unable to get any kind of access to the PC at all!!! Looks like it's not well. I wonder if the 2 things are related?? The last thing I did on Thursday night was remove Roxio Easy CD. At that stage, everything was fine.

[InXess]

Roxio and Nero (especially packet writing modules like Direct CD or similar...) on the same HDD is just asking for trouble...

[psx_pirate]

Roxio and Nero on the same hdd is deffinately asking for trouble ... 1. they conflict with each other ..... 2. they are both crap ... go get some decent burning software such as rnm

[anoraknophobe]

rnm?

[DarrellS]

You say that it won't read the disc that you burned but it will read a store bought DVD or CD. It sounds to me that you are trying to burn straight from your camera to your combo burner and that ain't gonna work.

You need to get the movie into the computer first. That is why Nero is asking you where you want to store the movie. Your DVD burner is not the correct option.

Then you have to convert the movie to DVD compliant before burning to disc.

I am not familiar with NERO 7 but my friend has it and he swears by it.
Here is the guide...

http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/125/59/

Step 1 should be...Capture Video To Hard Drive (there are different options for this, depending on your hardware - check the guides to the left for what suits you).

[anoraknophobe]

sorry...you might have misunderstood my previous posts.

nero DOES appear to have burned onto the DVD, after i first put it from the camera to the PC. Also, it does then play the said burned DVD, but only using Nero Showtime. If I try to look at the disc on explorer though, it then just gives me the error message. This error message also appears if i install blank media, and i've tried DVD+R and DVD-RW to date.

[DarrellS]

You haven't really told us anything.

The error message that you get is the normal message you get with blank media or unreadable media (corrupt data).

From what little information that you've given, I can only assume that you've burnt a corrupt disc that by some miraculous feat, NERO is capable of playing (maybe because it's a native NERO file?)

You say that the player has no problems playing any of your store bought discs so the problem must lie in the authoring or burning stage. Since I have no experience at all with trying to create a DVD with NERO (nor would I try to use Nero to author and burn a DVD) I have no answers for you, only to keep reading the guide over and over and keep experimenting until you finally get a good burn. Hopefully when you do, you will have learned what you're doing wrong and not repeat it.

The first thing I'd check would be the disc compatability with my burner. My burner will not handle any crap media for Movie DVDs although I don't seem to have a problem burning Data DVDs with them. Might try burning a data disc first.

I would also install PowerDVD and Media Player Classic which are both capable of playing DVDs and see if the DVDs will play in those programs. Not sure why you wouldn't have gotten any DVD software when you bought your burner.

[draganong]

Roxio and Nero (especially packet writing modules like Direct CD or similar...) on the same HDD is just asking for trouble...

I have Nero and Roxio EZCD instaled on the same XP machine. I use DirectCD but not Nero's packet writing SW and all is fine. For many years. I have used DirectCD since the times of the HP4020i, probably 1996 or earlier.

/dragan

[InXess]

That may be but packet writing software compatibility is a known issue.

...and all is fine.

...apparently not anymore.

So what have you done or plan to do to eliminate your problem? As indicated above you haven't given up enough info to enable any reasonable troubleshhoting.