Unable to erase CD-RW

[jaffman]

I am unable to erase a CD-RW with existing data using Nero or WinOnCD. CD info status shows CD-RW as "This CD is read-only". What gives?

[dbman]

Turn the disk over. The brand logo should be face up

[AP Enterprises Ltd]

If your CD-RW is correctly faced so that the logo faces up, and you still have the problem, try this:

In Nero, choose Erase CD-RW but choose full erase and not quick erase. The full erase will actually erase all physical data on the CD, but it will take awhile. The quick erase will just make it appear to be empty, but the data is still there. Maybe that will solve your problem?

And did you choose "finalize CD after burning"? Because if you did, then that might be what's causing the problem.

[VidGuy]

Did you reboot or force a burn to quit in the middle with this CD-RW. Whenever I have done this, no power on earth seems able to resurrect the CD-RW - it's trash can time....

Finalizing after burning won't cause this kind of problem - you should always finalize if you actually want to use the CD in something other than another CD-Burner.

[jaffman]

The brand logo is facing up. I've tried both Quick and Full erase.
Finalizing CD after burning shouldnt be the problem as VidGuy stated and I havent rebooted or quit halfway thru a burn session.
Could the media itself be the problem?

[Joecks]

I had the same problem with my burner. I opened the player and cleaned the laser with a soft tissue.

now working great!!

GL,

Joecks

[jaffman]

I was about to try that but then tried a different and brand of media and hey presto.....it works. What a bummer, I've got 20 of these CDs and now I cant reuse them. I'm gonna take them back to PCWORLD. Thanks guys, been a great help.

[Ton]

This is going to sound strange, but it happened.
I had a few CDRW's that would not erase as well.
Tried them in a friends unit and they erased fine.
Tried to erase them again in mine and no go.
Kept telling me they were not eraseable media.
Some disks of the same brand (CompUSA) would erase.

I then changed my CDRW & CD/PD drives from jumpered cable select to the CDRW being master and the CD/PD as slave and now all CDRW's are erasing just fine. Strange but true, but what do you expect from an old HP CDRW. Maybe it was a bad ground on the cable select ppin. Anyways, time to get a better drive HP SUX.

[jaffman]

Well waddyuknow, I did a bit of rearranging of the old IDE cables and it worked!
Ton, U R a genius, man.

[js1604]

Hi,

it happened to me some time ago too. the problem was solved after i uninstalled all cd emulation programs like InCD (Nero). besides this type of program tend to screw up disk i/o, better not to have it installed.

hope this help.

JS