O.K. so I installed a new DVD burner and restarted the XP home computer and it "detected new hardware". I gave it a couple of minutes and it was warned that "a problem occurred during hardware installation, you new hardware may not work properly"

So I rebooted. It again recognized the new hardware and shortly after an advisory bubble appeared saying that the new hardware was installed and ready for use. Well not so much.

I go to the website of the product manufacturer, "Gear Head" and the site was worthless. There was a download area on the the site so I select that, it takes me to a screen that says no drivers available, XP provides the driver.

What to do?

Optical drives using ribbon cable must have their chip set to Cable Select, Master or Slave... if the jumper is on the wrong pin set, it will not work... but is very easy to fix... just look at the back of the optical drive, and then to the top or the bottom where there is a label with further explanations...

If on the same cable as an IDE hard drive, then the optical drive must be jumpered as Slave or be on the second socket on cable select... while the hard drive must be jumpered as Master or first socket on the ribbon cable for Cable select.

Thanks for the reply, I did see that mentioned, I'll have to take it out and look at it's assignment.

Thanks again

SDo I finally had the time to mess with this, set the new burner the same as the old burner, Cable Select. Everything went smoothly, unfortunately it's not burning. Makes me wonder if it needed replacing, probably not. I just figured the other one was almost five years old so I thought it gave up the ghost.

I tried burning a DVD with a couple different progarms, Burnaware free edition and CopyToDVD. They both go through the motions and perform like when I was able to burn, the green blinky light on the burner blinking, the drive speeds up at the end (finalization) and it indicates that the burn was successful, pull the disk and it's blank. Whats that all about?

(1) Perhaps a bad Laser....? (2) a bad IDE cable, (3) a bad IDE controller.

You would have to substitute a known good drive to rule out the laser first.

Does this motherboard have 2 IDE sockets?

There are no aftermarket drivers for optical drives, the drivers ARE supplied by Windows.

This thread should be in general hardware.

I'm sorry about posting in the wrong place, wasnt sure, though it seems pretty obvious.

So maybe the other burner went out because of age and the new one has a bad laser? what are the odds?

Good question, still you either need to install the new drive in another machine or a known good drive in yours to rule it out as a suspect.

I've never heard of an accessable drive, with the activity light working working, not produce a disc with at least something on it.

In Nero's burning software there used to be a "simulate burning" setting, this did exactly what you describe, ran the drive, spit out a blank. So, you might check your configuration settings in the burning software.

I'm at a loss...anybody?

There are many, many new optical drives that arrive dead and useless. Get your vendor to replace it.
A quick test with a borrowed drive should resolve any questions.

How could you be at a loss? Did you try any of our suggestions? Not the answers you wanted to hear?

Whee, watch me use question marks...!

You still have to rule out the possibilities that were given, before you summarily decide they're wrong.

1) Is the device still not recognized?
2) Look through all of device manager. See any yellow or red icons? Be sure to check under all categories but especially under CD/DVD and if you see a category Other Devices

See here to remove your upper and lower CD/DVD filters Bad / corrupt filters can cause a variety of problems.

/* EDIT */
Then uninstall, reboot and let windows reinstall the CD/DVD in Device Manager
Then check no icons in Device Manager and device works for playback
You may need to reinstall your burning software next for burns to work

Captaincranky,

You have an apt username.

The next post by LookinAround was more helpful. Anybody could say my drives
are bad, that doesnt take much imagination, I was looking for a method to diagnose the issue.

It's kinda the difference between a mechanic and a shade tree mechanic. A mechanic DIAGNOSES, a shade tree mechanic replaces parts until the thing starts working again. The shade tree method can be expensive and frustrating.

LookinAround,
It is recognized now, goes through all the motions , the device manager says its working. The programs I use to burn say that the burn was successful, but the disk is always blank. I'll check further, and the filters.
Thanks

Yes I do, thanks for noticing.
Substitute a known good drive like you were told by me and raybay. That's part of the method. Nobody said you should buy another drive. So actually, you were looking for an answer that suited the question that you were tailoring to your expectations. If that gets you off, might I suggest watching "Jeopardy" Here again, no one said you should buy another drive. Perhaps, borrow a friends. You might just find one under a shade tree somewhere.
Gosh, you may not believe this but, I do so hope it's your filters.

But, here's my question; if the drive goes through the motions of burning a disc, but just doesn't produce an image on the blank, exactly how could it be, >> "not recognized in device manager" <<< because if it wasn't, the drive wouldn't even start, let alone try to burn a disc. You would get, "drive not accessable error" or something similar.

Now, I have 4 working desktop computers in the house, (plus a laptop), which equals 9 DVD drives. They all burn just dandy, I've never had to clear the filters, and when one goes bad, I just chuck it, and buy another. When I do, I buy Pioneer DVD burners, and I've never had one that wasn't recognized or refused to burn. So, basically I'm OK with DVD burners, and I really don't need you. Which is a point you might take notice of, before you start running your mouth with a bunch of "folksy colloquial wisdom", about "shade tree mechanics".

I went to the Pioneer website to try and get "parts" for a DVD burner, (the door drive band was burned up), and guess what, I found out the the drive itself was the "part". Oops!

So, let's examine your situation, you have a drive of unknown pedigree, that many of us have never heard of, "burning software", which could be anything, and this thread in the "Malware Removal Forum". Let's go with that! Scan your machine with the programs up at the top of the page, then post the logs as specified. Hey, it won't cost you anything.

Ohhhhh nine DVD drives, well you are my hero! I'll be ignoring the Captain from now on.

The software that came with the drive is Nero Essentials 7. The documentation included with the drive says that the drive will not play a DVD movie, nor will it burn anything until the Nero software is installed.

I installed the software and attempted to burn a disk. Nero would not let me burn a disk because I did not have "all the required licenses". It appears to me that the whole Nero disk is a come-on for having to purchase more Nero stuff. I did not do a "typical" install but instead did a selective install and it still has 5 processes running.

All I wanted to do was burn a DVD.

The job continues

All the required licenses were on the folder enclosing the disk... sometimes printed on the back. Sometimes printed across the bottom on the front of the folder. They would have no reason not to include them.

.
Actually raybay, that software is a come on. "Nero Essentials" is just enough to do simple tasks. There are no burning DVD-Video plug-ins, which would be, "Nero Recode", and "Nero Vision", I suppose that "Nero Showtime" is included, for the playback of DVD-Video. "Nero Express" is in the package, but no "Burning ROM". This would allow the copying and burning of music (CD audio only) & data CDs, plus data DVD.

Here again, I have several copies of "Nero Essentials" laying around the house. See, at least we agree on something, "Nero Essentials" is almost worthless.

I would stipulate that Nero 7, got the worst reviews of any previous version. That is until Nero 9, which now requires activation, instead of the entry of a serial number.

I have retail versions of Nero 6, which have the DVD-Video plug-ins and will burn everything without complaint.

Since you're not going to listen to me anyway, I won't offer any further advice, just sympathy, Poor baby. But what kind of DVD? Please tell us why you replaced the original burner. Did you try to burn a CD yet? (different lasers, you know) Did you clear the filters?

Captain,

What brand and model is your cd or dvd drive?



LOL.

I haven't used ImgBurn myself but it's a freeware DVD burning app available for download here on Techspot. Click here.

Would you like me to burn that image to DVD for you a******? (My burners work, ya know).