CD/DVD RW drive not reading some media

[slow_graffiti]

having problems with a nearly new dell dimension 4700. the DVD RW (only
optical drive) seems to not recognize some CDs. From the few dvd's ive
tried, it seems to do them ok, and music cd's are a bit hit or miss. it
reads the dell resource cd, and all the diagnostics show that the drive and
its driver are working properly.

basically with some disks, when i put them in, they don't autoplay. when i
open or explore the D: drive, no files show up, and there is no information
that suggests XP is recognising any disk in the drive.

anyone heard of this fault before/know of any solutions?

thanks.

c

 

[Sharon F]

having problems with a nearly new dell dimension 4700. the DVD RW (only
optical drive) seems to not recognize some CDs. From the few dvd's ive
tried, it seems to do them ok, and music cd's are a bit hit or miss. it
reads the dell resource cd, and all the diagnostics show that the drive and
its driver are working properly.

basically with some disks, when i put them in, they don't autoplay. when i
open or explore the D: drive, no files show up, and there is no information
that suggests XP is recognising any disk in the drive.

anyone heard of this fault before/know of any solutions?

thanks.

What program did you use to burn these particular CDs? Is the old system
and burning software still available to "finalize" them for use on any
computer?

 

[c p]

What program did you use to burn these particular CDs? Is the old system
and burning software still available to "finalize" them for use on any
computer?

unfortunately it's not just self-burned CD's that arent recognized... most
of the commercial CDs i've used also fail to be recognized. incidentally
the burned one i'm using was done in Nero on XP and finalised anyway, so
that aint it. it's very strange. can't really see any common factor
between ones that work, or between ones that don't. i.e. one that doesn't
work is an ISP's setup disc with various tools etc on it, as well as their
diagnostic software (which i could really have used when i spent about 3
hours sorting out the network connections today) - it doesnt autoplay on the
problematic machine nor do any files show up when i explore it (it works
fine on other machines); and one that does work is the dell diagnostic cd,
which run's absolutely fine - it autoplays perfectly and i can also explore
the files on the disc.

i'm terribly vexed.

p.s. i am the OP, i.e (slow_graffiti) - was on friend's machine earlier.

 

[Sharon F]

unfortunately it's not just self-burned CD's that arent recognized... most
of the commercial CDs i've used also fail to be recognized. incidentally
the burned one i'm using was done in Nero on XP and finalised anyway, so
that aint it. it's very strange. can't really see any common factor
between ones that work, or between ones that don't. i.e. one that doesn't
work is an ISP's setup disc with various tools etc on it, as well as their
diagnostic software (which i could really have used when i spent about 3
hours sorting out the network connections today) - it doesnt autoplay on the
problematic machine nor do any files show up when i explore it (it works
fine on other machines); and one that does work is the dell diagnostic cd,
which run's absolutely fine - it autoplays perfectly and i can also explore
the files on the disc.

i'm terribly vexed.

p.s. i am the OP, i.e (slow_graffiti) - was on friend's machine earlier.

Since the system is so new and since it is failing to read commercial CDs
as well as the ones you've burned, I would talk to Dell about that drive.
It sounds like something is not right with it. Getting Autoplay back is a
minor annoyance but possible and it's unrelated to the reading problem. Top
priority should be getting that drive to read disks consistently or getting
it replaced under warranty.