Fed up! Cannot burn CD's no matter what!

[BlayneRTFM]

Gigabyte 7VAXP M/B
Athlon XP 1800
512MB DDR
Nvidia GeForece FX5200
LG DVD/CD-RW Combo 52x32x52
Maxtor 80GB HDD
Windows XP Pro SP2

O.K. as the subject says, I am fed up! I have been having difficulty burning cd's of any type for about 4 months. The burn process always stops about half way through and pauses for about 3-4 minutes before declaring the process failed with a write error. My latest attempt has been with nero 6 ultra, fully updated.

Here is what I've tried so far.

- searching and reading every thread I could find
- new burners (3 of them)
- reinstalling xp, several times
- variouse versions of nero
- switching cd types
- new ribbon cables
- playing with pio and dma settings
- playing with bios settings
- playing with nero settings
- flashing bios
- stopping every process that can be safely stopped

I don't know what else I can try short of trashing the mobo, cpu and ram. Everything else seems to work fine - but I've gone through a whole spindle of cd's trying to figure this out.

Is there something I am missing?

 

[kiddpete]

Try something other than Nero? XP for example.

 

[BadBigBen]

Hola,

you may have to go into the Registry and fix the upper and lower filters...

see this FAQ: faq602-5358

even though it mentions the disappearing of CD/DVD's in the explorer... but should be tried anyhow...

also set the CD/DVD in the BIOS to AUTO or better yet directly to CD-ROM...



Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...

 

[Lemon13]

try the burner outside of the pccase, while burning it might get to hot

 

[BlayneRTFM]

Thanks for the suggestions people. I tried them all and none worked. I made a dual boot with xp and 2k and tried burning in 2k with same results. So I am going to have to assume its bad hardware - the question is what hardware?

Sure hope its not the mobo, I think the warranty ran out like two weeks ago! The burner is only 5 weeks old and it is a replacement for the one I returned thinking it might be the problem.

 

[lgebhart]

Have you checked event viewer after a bad burn? It should still be there, look and see if its a system error or an application error?



lgebhart

A+, Network+, IC3
MAI for MS Office 2000
OSHA Outreach Trainer

 

[BlayneRTFM]

No lgebhart I had already checked event viewer but there were no error logs in system or apps. Other than a log saying a shutdown request was denied by nero.exe - which was probably from me trying to shut the program down after the burn failed. It tends to take a few minutes to realize for nero to figure out it failed.

 

[lgebhart]

Don't know if you have already done this, but just trying to create new thoughts! :-D

Have you checked for firmware or driver updates for your writer?

Is the drive showing properly in Device Manager as a CDRW/DVD?

Is Nero the only burning software you have tried? I see where someone mentioned using XP's burning software built in to XP Pro, but I didn't see where you had tried it.

Does the CD and DVD player part work on the drive?

I take it your old drive worked at one time 4 months ago. Did you install XP SP2 about 4 months ago.



lgebhart

A+, Network+, IC3
MAI for MS Office 2000
OSHA Outreach Trainer

 

[braddds]

Now you may have looked at this...I just didn't see it in your check list...how have you setup the burner, ie: is it a master or a slave and/or in it's own ide channel? Is the other drive (80 gb maxtor) on the same ide as the burner!? When you say burn, do you mean you are coping/backing up from another cd or writing from an image or drag and dropping files through nero for backup?

Sorry if you've already looked at this, but from what you and the others have wrote, this is were I'd look next for a further explanation/solution to your problems!

Again I only ask as I've seen similar problems fixed via the proper ide setup...ie: hard drive (maxtor) as single master on ide1 and burner as master on ide2!

Other solutions can be in the way xp is setup, disk space and/or HD defragmentation!

Cheers

 

[micker377]

Is it possible that the power supply can't handle the extra stress of the burner? Can you borrow a larger (name brand) power supply?

 

[ceh4702]

If you get a drive error the drive may just be bad. You said it was a write error. Hopefully you are not writing faster than the media is rated at. When you buy CDR/CDRW media (EMPTY CD'S) make sure you know what speed they are rated as. If your burner is 32X then the media has to be 32X also. Either that or slow down the burn rate.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[micker377]

Were all the burners the same brand? The reason I ask this is that I have 3 different brand burners (in three different computers), and I have to use a different brand of CD's in each one!

 

[BlayneRTFM]

Thanks for the input folks. All very good ideas - to answer some of the questions:

- The drives show up properly in device manager.

- I have them set up with the HDD as Primary Master and the burner as Secondary Master.

- The DVD player and CD-ROM aspects work fine. And all three burners were the same LG model, and they did work at one time with SP2.

- The power supply is a heavy duty 400W supply which cost me alot of bucks.

- I've tried dragging files into nero to make data discs, I've tried copying cd's and I've tried the right-click, send to option with InCD. Errors every time.

- I was using memorex cd-r's but I noticed the drive wouldn't recognize the cd's when ejecting the source cd and asking for a writable. This was fixed with the latest update, however but I still switched to sony cd's. I have also tried reducing the write speed to as low as 24x and I am using 52x cd's.

I am assuming the problem is hardware but I am unsure which hardware. One thing I did see a couple of times is during post, I got some funny characters when displaying the IDE devices such as "Primary Slave Maxtor %@#$?^^". So now I am wondering if my IDE controller ie. chipset is faulty.

 

[BadBigBen]

Hi there, have you tried another IDE cable? there is a distinct possibility that it's either, not correctly inserted, or bad... try also another POWER Jack from the PSU on your drive, could also be faulty...

the other thing left then is the onboard controller...

Good hunting...



Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...

 

[lgebhart]

Faulty cable. I just had a friend who had the same problem with the crazy characters after the drive in the bios.




lgebhart

A+, Network+, IC3
MAI for MS Office 2000
OSHA Outreach Trainer

 

[micker377]

Have you up-graded the Nero programs? The latest is: Nero = 6.6.0.3. and Nero Vision Express = 3.0.1.14.

 

[johng75]

get a basic version of roxio(free off the internet) and give it a try, i have a similar set up, with an LG drive myself, win xp sp2, and i have had no problems,

reason i say roxio:
i have another computer that had the same type of problem, i started to burn and would stop and then give me the failed error, (this was with the software that came with it) i tried their tech support and they couldnt help me, they tried diff drives, diff cables nothin, i tried a version of roxio on it and have never had a problem since

good luck

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention
of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,
but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,
totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming

--"WOW-- What a Ride!"

 

[FredWagner]

One other suggestion, seconding ceh4702, slow down the burn rate. Way down. I had really bad problems when I first tried to burn CD's, and dropping the write rate to like 8x on a 24x drive took care of the problem. Also, try running the CD-writer or the drive you're writing from on a separate IDE controller on an expansion card, rather than the controller on the motherboard. (The real solution is to use SCSI for storage devices, but most of us don't want to spend the bucks. Even with SCSI, you have to watch the write speed).

Fred Wagner
KQ6Q@arrl.net

 

[Andy71SS]

I FEEL YOUR PAIN. Check out my similar problem and final fix thread602-976123.
It helps if there is another pc you can swap parts with.
I did find that the ribbon cable that came with the new burner made things worse. Neither cd drive was recognized upon booting up. I did get a cable from another Dell, also in "properties" for the drive under "recording" the box was not checked to allow recording. I thought that would be automatic. I'm also using Nero6. Haven't tried all the functions but I am able to use the drive for backups and drag and drop files.
Good luck,
Andy