CD drive is OK with CDs, but cannot see CD-Rs

[HiMax]

CD drive is OK with CDs, but cannot see CD-R's of any kind.

I reloaded the drivers.No effect.

It used to work. Now it doesn't any longer.

This is an IBM laptop 360e with a TEAC 46e CD drive.Runs Windows 2000 pro. I searched drivers.com and only found TEAC 46e drivers for Win98 so I think I'm SOL. The win98 drivers I had worked OK in Win2kPro for many months. Now "poof"! That's typical of drivers, I guess.

Any ideas?

 

[ltop]

Cant see cd-r or cd-rw

I had a problem whereby if the cd-rw disc, after it was written to, wasn't closed and made to be read from other cd drives.

don't know if this helps or not

regards

 

[kiddpete]

Depending on how the CD-R is written, it may require specific software to read it. If the software is missing or not invoked, it will not find anything on the CD. Check for the presence of the needed driver.

 

[cdogg]

CDROM drives and other optical devices shouldn't need manual installation of drivers. Windows detects the firmware which is built into the drive itself. It will then place an entry into Device Manager which is based on the firmware instruction set.

So, if you've gone and loaded drivers manually in Windows, I suggest you try to undo what you've done. In Device Manager, simply remove the CDROM device entry and reboot.

Also, you need to verify whether you're using CD-R or CD-RW discs.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[HiMax]

Thanks to all who tried to help.

This inability to synch happens even when I boot to a Win98 or WinME DOS disk and opt for CDROM support, BTW. The drive just sits there with the LED flashing trying to synch up forever when I put in any CD-R that I created on my other computer. But put in a CD or even some CD-R's that I created many months ago, and the drive works just fine. Synchs with no problem. It's a head-scratcher for sure.

Also, the same CD-R's work fine in other machines I forgot to say.

I know these gadgets should not need drivers. But , hey, when all else fails....

I may have to go to the aftermarket and see if there is a replacement CD drive for that model. This IBM760ED laptop is about a 1998 model so it's doubful if it's worth it.

Thanks, all

Dixon H Harris
Dallas, Tx

 

[garebo]

just a thought, do a search and see if you have this file on your c drive: udfrinst

You need that file to see the contents of cd-rws for sure, i am not sure if you need it to view cdrs in win 2k as i know nothing about 2k except that it is stable, and, i think, doesnt do some games very well?

 

[cdogg]

Himax,
You've pointed out a couple important things:

1) "But put in a CD or even some CD-R's that I created many months ago, and the drive works just fine"

Well right there you know that there's something different about the newer CD-R's that you're making. Are you using the same software, same burner, and same media? Somehow, it seems that one of those three are different.

2) "Also, the same CD-R's work fine in other machines I forgot to say"

Yes, that's a common problem with older CDROM drives. Some CDR media work, others do not. The best suggestion I can make is to make sure there's nothing different about the CDR media you're using now versus the media you've used in the past. That includes burn speed. If you were burning at say 4x in the past, but since have upgraded to 16x, that can also make a difference.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[kiddpete]

cdogg,

I misspoke when I used the term 'driver'. I'm not talking about a driver for the CDROM. I'm talking about the possible need for a program to read the data off the disk. For example, I have a series of CDs which were written by Roxio on my old Micron machine. My new machine using Win XP Pro was refusing to read the disk until a little Roxio 'reader' program was installed. After that, it could read all but one. I never did figure out why that one couldn't be read. I took it back to the Micron, and copied the files to a RW CD that the new machine had never had trouble reading (it wouldn't write to it though; it said it couldn't write to the format on the RW disk).

The symptom were that the CD was recognized but, explorer showed no files on the disk. BTW, I have not yet installed either Roxio or Nero on the new machine.

 

[cdogg]

kiddpete,
Well as you know, there are several ways to burn a data disk. You can either burn a session loaded with files and close the session, so that it is playable on any CDROM drive. Or, you can use a "packet-writing" program such as Roxio's DirectCD or Nero's INCD which turn the CDRW disc into a floppy drive.

The upside of the 2nd method is that you can use the CDRW disc as quick, removable storage. The downside (as you're probably referring to) is that these types of formatted disks can usually only be recognized by the software that made them.