CDRW only reads with CD inserted!

[RAW2K4]

I have a Lite-On LTR-532327S CDRW in an AMD 2000XP PC.

It worked fine then one day it only started allowing audio CD's to be played (through Windows Media Player). Data CD's would not work at all. They would not autorun, or show an icon in explorer. When clicked on the icon it would only open to a blank screen in explorer.

I changed the drive to the exact same model - same problems. After some testing I have now found that the drive will work fine if a CD is in the drive during boot up. Any CD will then work until I reboot. If I start the computer without a CD in the drive then I cannot get it to work.

I have tried uninstalling the driver and allowing Win XP home to find a new one.

Any ideas? I'm stumped...

 

[tazuk]

Hit this problem over the weekend on my home desktop (AMD 2000XP Win2K Lite-On CDRW), when I noticed I could no longer burn data cd's using Adaptec Easy CD Creater Version 4.0.
Finally isolated the problem down to my upgrade from iTunes 4.6 to iTunes 4.7. Fixed it by uninstalling and reinstalling Adaptec.
Have you upgraded any software or installed any MSoft security updates recently?



TazUk

Blue-screening PCs since 1998

 

[RAW2K4]

Glad to see I'm not alone tazuk. I do assume that this is caused from an MS software update. XP SP2 has just been installed recently from the net. But I do not want to take it off.
I do not have any adaptec software on this PC, just Nero 5.5.5.1. I did uninstall and reinstall this but the same problem is still there. Any other ideas?

 

[micker377]

Nero needs to be updated to work under SP2.

 

[tazuk]

Do you have the ASPI drivers installed on your system? I tend to install them as they don't install with my OS (Win2K).
You can obtain ASPICHK (determines whether they're installed) and the drivers themselves from Adaptec's site here

Other than trying them, I'd have to say I'm stumped. My reinstall of Adaptec was a last attempt to resolve the problem myself before posting here lol. I have no in-depth experience with Nero specifically.

HTH.





TazUk

Blue-screening PCs since 1998

 

[RAW2K4]

I tried the ASPI drivers that Tazuk recommended but to no avail. It did not have these drivers installed but the new ones made no difference.

The CD drive will only work when a CD is physically in the drive when booting.

Nero works without any problems with SP2 installed (but only with CD in drive at bootup of course).

Any more ideas guys???

 

[cdogg]

Nero works differently. ASPI drivers are not required in XP, and for me have never fixed a problem with Roxio or Nero in that OS. Perhaps others may differ on that.

RAW2K4,
Just as you came to your conclusion the hard way, the problem is Windows related. Likely, there is a corrupt registry setting causing your issue.

1) Did you have this problem before installing SP2?
2) Sometimes updating the drive's firmware will bring it back to life in Windows. Have you tried that yet?

I would:
- remove Nero
- reboot
- go into the properties of the burner (right-click it in Windows Explorer)
- make sure under the recording tab that "enable CD recording" is unchecked

If you're still having trouble, also try removing the device from Device Manager and reboot. Still doesn't work? A format/reinstall might be the quickest (though most painful) solution.


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

 

[bcastner]

Try the Microsoft AutoPlay "fixer" utility:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...b6-e8fa-45c4-a171-1b389cfacdad&displaylang=en

 

[RAW2K4]

Thanks for trying to help me out guys, but I'm still not winning.

I am pretty sure it started after SP2 was installed. I have not upgraded the firmware of the drive, but did try installing a different burner.

I have tried to remove the device from device manager. It finds the hardware again but does not fix it.

I tried the autoplay fix tool (great thought!) but it found no errors.

I didn't think that burning software would have such control over the CD drive on a pc. I guess because XP has it's own burning features they have to be linked in some way.

But don't give up now guys, you're giving me so many ideas!

 

[cdogg]

[blue]I didn't think that burning software would have such control over the CD drive on a pc. I guess because XP has it's own burning features they have to be linked in some way.[/blue]"

I've seen problems in XP SP1 with having "CD recording" enabled while trying to use Nero's 5.x or 6.x Ultra suite edition. I'm not sure if this is more or less common under SP2.
So, have you tried the suggestion yet of removing Nero and turning off "CD Recording" followed by a reboot? I couldn't tell from this part of your post.


"[blue]I have not upgraded the firmware of the drive, but did try installing a different burner.[/blue]"

Yeah, but you said the "different" burner was actually the exact same model (which could very well mean the exact same firmware). Go out to Lite-On's website to see if there is an update available. Even if the drive is pretty new, the latest firmware for bug fixes does not always come with the drive. Also, an update might have been released specifically for compatibility with SP2.


More ideas:

- Upgrade Nero Burning ROM 5 to the latest patch which is 5.5.10.42

http://www.nero.com/us/Update_Nero_Burning_ROM.html

- Check out these MS articles:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817357

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;867717

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320553

Although some of the above fixes were "supposed" to have been included in SP2, you can attempt to reapply them.


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

 

[micker377]

To get Nero to work with XP2, you have to upgrade to ver 6.0. The latest is 6.6.01.

 

[RAW2K4]

Micker377, I have been to the Nero site and they say v5 is compatible with XP SP2. I will install the v5 update however. And the version I have is still working (but only when I boot the PC with a CD in the drive of course).

 

[cdogg]

I "doubt" the problem is Nero. However, it does make changes to the registry affecting the IMAPI layer in Windows. This in turn can have a direct affect on access to your optical drives.

Not to flood this thread or continue to beat a dead horse anymore than I already have, but that's why even if the update fails, I still suggest you try the idea above to remove it completely just to be sure...


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

 

[Doust]

Very strange isn't it?
---
I was able to burn cd's with my cd-rw for awhile, and then one day when using windows explorer and RecordNow, I received an error just stating exactly that...ERROR! I did all the necessary troubleshooting.
Reinstall drivers
Delete filters from the registry
Firmware update
System restore
Reinstall RecordNow
Format
then replaced the drive through HP
and guess what...
it's still busted!
After racking my brains and reading these other postings, the only thing that I can think of is SP2. I can't remember for the life of me if it was after I did the update that the drive stopped working or not. However, I tried it on my 2nd HDD and it worked fine?
I don't get it either...I'm quite curious though...did all of us download SP2?
Oh, and when I downloaded the firmware update...it forced the burn process to complete, but when I looked at the disc...there was an actual gap in the data written.

 

[RAW2K4]

The computer I had actually belonged to a friend - and I had to give it back. This is the reason for no recent posts from me. And no, I had to give it back without fixing the problem.
It is interesting and frustrating that you, Doust, had the same problem.
If anyone could still help I would still love to hear a solution!

 

[TarkShark]

Well RAW2K4, wish I had an answer, this exact thing is happening to me. I will expand on my experience just a bit though. My CDRW drive will only recognize a cd if i boot with it in the drive. With Windows explorer I can't view a thing on the disk or even recognize that a disk is inserted, but with nero I can view, if not access, the cd's that I insert. Nero seems to recognize every disk as a multi-session CD-R and prompts me to continue burning to it (not very reassuring).
There are two disturbing things that keep me from being sure that Nero is the culprit or even involved. The first is that the DVD drive is behaving almost identically. It will read a cd fine if i boot the computer with the disk in the drive. Where it differs is in the way it reacts to just inserting a disk after bootup. The CDRW drive, after taking the disk for a spin or two, will (in the windows explorer window) change from a classification of "CD-RW DRIVE (F):" to "CD DRIVE (F):" and become non-responsive. The "DVD Drive (E):" will also change to "CD DRIVE (E):" only it will give me an error box that says:

E:\ is not accessable.
Incorrect Function.

Disturbing as this is, I am also having a problem with my USB flash drive. It is partitioned into two parts, one public, the other passworded. It is configured to prompt me with password entry to the secure function, but it doesn't do that. I plug in the drive, and it allows access to the public side (assigned drive H) but when i run the utility to open the secure side (drive I), I get an eerily familiar error box.....

I:\ is not accessable.
Incorrect Function.

These two somehow are interlinked both by similar behavior and similar timing. The only recent updates I have done are a security update for HTML and a Malicious Software Removal tool that did a scan and found nothing. The log shows nothing found, no actions taken.

Sorry for the long post,
Tark

 

[TarkShark]

OK,

Please ignore the previous post. I finally finished following (somewhat) the final few suggestions and found that it was Nero. It must have had an allergic reaction to one of the recent windows updates.
Regardless.... the fix was as simple as uninstalling Nero, uninstalling the two optical drives, rebooting, allowing them to be autodetected and installed, reinstalling Nero (the latest version that i had previously downloaded the installer for), and rebooting. Everything happy and running fine.
Thank you for all suggestions and RAW2K4 I hope you see this and pass it along to your friend with the unhappy computer.

Tark

P.S. I'm going to have a talk with Nero and ask him what he's about interfering with a USB Flash drive. I'm thinking he will be losing his allowance and a grounding is in order.