Strange problem with my Yamaha CD burner

[tkteo]

It's a Yamaha CRW-F1E CD-R/RW burner. Bought it three years ago.

My motherboard's BIOS is able to recognize the drive; Windows XP recognizes the drive as well, and I can even use Nero to make backups of my documents and data files (end of semester approaching so I wanted to back up my stuff in case something happens during exam period). Nero even reports that the burn was completed successfully.

But when I try to access the drive from either Windows Explorer or plain DOS prompt in order to check the contents of the disc, nothing happens. It's as if there is no disc in the drive even though I just loaded the disc. Same thing with normal CDs like an audio CD or any software installation disc. The drive will not read it.

Had to ask my room mate to check the discs on his laptop, and they are okay. So it's a problem with my CD burner.

It's the only CD drive installed on my system, so now I figure I have to buy a new drive, prob. one of the newer DVD burners. But it's the first time I ever heard of a drive being able to write to blank discs but being unable to read them!

 

[howard_hopkinso]

It`s not the first time I`ve heard of the problem. Since a cd-drive is used many more times to read/play disks it`s no surprise that it`s the read side that goes first.

The cd-drive uses a different laser frequency to read than it does to burn disks.

Once you get a new drive all should be well.

Regards Howard :grinthumb

 

[Nodsu]

Have you tried cleaning the drive lens?

You can open it up and make do with some alcohol or get a cleaning CD.

 

[tkteo]

Thanks. I was caught up in my anxiety and forgot about trying lens cleaning CDs. Thankfully I have two of them with me and one of them begins cleaning once the disc is loaded, and after the drive spun it for a while it began to recognize a disc had been loaded. All right!

So far so good. Thanks to Nodsu and Howard for your replies.

PS. The official Yamaha documentation recommends against cleaning the lens. So much for that recommendation!