How to Diagnose CDRW burner problem???

[BobMCT]

My desktop has installed a LITEON LTR-52327S CDRW IDE drive. It used to work fine until recent months as I burn CD's infrequently. I am running W98SE w/unofficial SP installed.

When I attempt to burn a file to CD-R using virtually any burning software (Nero 6, Real, WMP, cdburn, etc) the symtoms are all the same. When the burn process starts the first message to appear states its writing the table of contents. During this phase the drive will spin up while the LED on the drive flickers yellow/green. When it reaches speed it slows a little, emits two distinct "clicking" sounds, then spins down only to repeat the above INDEFINITELY.

However, it READS cd's perfectly.

Short of changing drives, which I've done already two times with NO improvement, does anyone have any idea or diagnostic tricks to determine if my system or my drive are wonky????

Thanks all

 

[cdogg]

Bob,

To save time, you may want to get your hands on a cheap hard drive (4-10GB) and install a fresh copy of Win98SE. Install only the burning software you use most and test it again. Likely, it is a hardware problem with the drive, but this test will tell you for sure. You could also try pulling the drive and installing it in a different PC which accomplishes the same thing.

If it does turn out to be a hardware problem, a quick and safe way to clean the drive's lens is to use a can of compressed air to blow out the inside. It's possible that the lens is just dirty enough to affect the write laser, though it reads fine.

However, I just realized that you said you tried 2 other burners with the same problem. So more than likely you have a registry problem in Windows. A clean install is the quickest way to fix the problem, if uninstalling/reinstalling other burn software doesn't help.


~cdogg
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