Help DVD-RW not working!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lapetite_66]

Hi:


I don't know if I did something wrong at some point or another last night but today neither of my two NEC 2500A and 3520AW dvd-rw drives seems to be working properly. I put in a disc to install/play software and once it's in there nothing happens. When I go to My Computer it shows that neither of them is picking up the disc at all and as far as I know everything is hooked up properly.


I even went to another section where one of the more knowledgable members suggested uninstalling the drive and then clicking on the "find hardware changes" tab so that XP(Professional) would find the drives again but to no avail as this didn't work. I normally make a poing to of cleaning my drives once a week but haven't done it in couple of weeks, but when i attempted to use my Maxwell disc cleaner that wasn't picked up by either of the as well.

Help please!

[kasfig]

Hi
Could it be the IDE cable or cables in the computer are loose from socket.
Ian

[lapetite_66]

Hi
Could it be the IDE cable or cables in the computer are loose from socket.
Ian

Hi kasfig:

Thanks for your reply. I thought about that but that isn't the case as both dvd-rws show up in the "My Computer" window as well as in the "Device Manager" window which says it's working properly. I can burn from the drive but whenever I put the finished disc or someother disc into the drive it's like there's nothing there.

Thanks anyway.

[kasfig]

Hi Lapteite
Sorry to hear of your problems.
Are both the drives on the same IDE channel (one slave or one master) , or are both on different ones.

I had a problem with nero 7 when burning no data was actually put on the disk so I used a different program instead for burning.

Are these dvds dvd-video disks. I find when I try to open this kind of disk in my computer using "explore" no files are shown : hwoever they will still play using a dvd player either on the pc or standalone.
Are the drives definitely installed properly?
Yours with kind wishes
Ian

[[_chef_]]

Uninstall the ide channels in devicemanager and restart.

[PGibbons]

I had the same problem a couple of months ago on 2 NEC 3550 drives. It started when I installed XP Smoker Pro and did a system optimization. The only way I could correct the problem was to uninstall XP Smoker. I don't know if someting similar is going on with you, just thought I would mention it.

[lapetite_66]

Hi Lapteite
Sorry to hear of your problems.
Are both the drives on the same IDE channel (one slave or one master) , or are both on different ones.

I had a problem with nero 7 when burning no data was actually put on the disk so I used a different program instead for burning.

Are these dvds dvd-video disks. I find when I try to open this kind of disk in my computer using "explore" no files are shown : hwoever they will still play using a dvd player either on the pc or standalone.
Are the drives definitely installed properly?
Yours with kind wishes
Ian

Hi Ian:

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner but after trying various things last night I just got
so digusted that I turned off the computer.

To answer your first question; yes, both dvd-rw's are on the same IDE channel but I've never
had a problem until now. Are you suggesting that I change that??? I willing to give
anything a try at this point. Also just as you said the dvd's etc. play in dvd player with no
problems at all.


Let me clarify something; both dvd-rws show up in the "My Computer" screen as well as in
the "Device Manager" box. However when I put a disc into the drive the autoplay function
doesn't come up and the disc in the drive doesn't show either. Right at this second I have a
Creative Lab disc in that I've been wanting to install information from. As you can see the
normal DVD-RW Drive icon changes to CD Drive icon but that as much information as I get.
I thought that just maybe I would be able to open a window to play the Creative Lab disc
manually but no such luck. When I open the window there's nothing there like the disc isn't
in the drive at all! How is that possible?

As for your question about the types of disc that I have put into the drive; well the Creative
Lab disc is a CD and I have also tried DVD-R and DVD-RW discs too with the same result.
Basically I tried everything except putting the dvd-rw on separate drives.


I did the following and it worked ...at least for the NEC
3520AW dvd-rw drive.

1. I went to the 3520AW drive and clicked on properties and clicked on the hardware tab.
2. Clicked on the "Driver" tab and then clicked on the "Update Driver" button.
3. When the "Hardware Updater Wizard" box opened I clicked on the second box "Install

from list or specific location and clicked "next" button.
4. Check the "Don't search, I will choose the driver to install" box and clicked "next" button.
5. I chose the second listed driver "CD-ROM" Drive [force CDDA accurate] driver.

After doing those steps I then went to the 3520AW drive and clicked on the "AutoPlay"
options and went down the list and clicked how I wanted the drive to operate depening on
what type of disc was inserted into the drive. It worked but as I said it only worked for the
3520AW and that's because I have both drives on the IDE cable.

I think it could work for the 2500A as well but I have a question. Right now the 2500A are
on the same IDE channel/cable the 2500A is the master and the 3520AW is the slave. Both
my harddrives are also on the second IDE the Seagate 160GB is the master and the Hitachi
250GB is the slave. Okay if I put the first dvd-rw drive onto the same cable as the Seagate
harddrive will the same rules apply, master and slave? Meaning would the 2500A be the
master and the Seagate harddrive be the slave? I guess the reason I didn't do that in the
first place is because I wanted both dvd-rw drives together and it wasn't until after I had
already set them up that way that I found that I couldn't burn on both drives at the same
time (because of them being on the same IDE cable). I normally put something I want to
make a copy of into the first burner and copy direct from that to the second burner.

I know what you're thinking, your thinking "I thought she said when she puts a disc into the
2500A it isn't showing up". You're right I did say that and it's true but the really CRAZY
thing is that when it comes time to burn/copy it seems to be able to read from whatever
disc is in the burner at that time to allow me to make copies.*shaking in confusion* I don't
know why it happening that way and I'm just grateful that I can now at least have one
burner that is functioning "properly" to some extent.

I appreciate your input!

[lapetite_66]

I had the same problem a couple of months ago on 2 NEC 3550 drives. It started when I installed XP Smoker Pro and did a system optimization. The only way I could correct the problem was to uninstall XP Smoker. I don't know if someting similar is going on with you, just thought I would mention it.

Hi PGibbons:

I haven't really installed anything lately. Is it possible that it could have been something I installed months ago as the problem only occured yesterday/last night (3/9/2007).

Thank you for your response though. It was appreciated.
.

[lapetite_66]

]Uninstall the ide channels in devicemanager and restart.

Hi Chef:

I uninstalled the IDE channels and restarted. I even uninstalled the IDE cables and put in
some new ones and nothing changed until the steps I outlined in my post to Ian aka kasfig.

Thank you for your input it was really appreciated as I really thought that I wasn't going to get any response at all from anyone. It's nice to know that there are still people willing to help those who aren't as computer savy as others.