Need help diagnosing CD burner problem

[mfyahya]

I have a Samsung CD burner which aborts with an 'Unknown Recorder
Error' a few seconds after trying to burn a CD. It reads CDs pefectly.
I've tried different CD media and burning software like Nero, Alcohol
120% and WinXPs CD burning feature.
Frustrated with all the coasters I was creating I got a new NEC-3500A
DVD writer but even with this I have the same problem with burning CDs.
It reads CDs and DVDS and even writes DVDs without problems. So I'm
guessing it is an software issue, only I have no clue what may be
causing it.

I have some suspicion that the problem was caused sometime after I
installed Gordion Knot DVD decrypter, and a codec pack but I'm not too
sure. Uninstalling them didn't help either.

I'm using WinXP SP2, Athlon 2400XP, 768MB Ram, nForce2 chipset (AN35N
Ultra Shuttle motherboard)

Thanks for any help!

 

[jona]

I have a Samsung CD burner which aborts with an 'Unknown Recorder
Error' a few seconds after trying to burn a CD. It reads CDs pefectly.
I've tried different CD media and burning software like Nero, Alcohol
120% and WinXPs CD burning feature.
Frustrated with all the coasters I was creating I got a new NEC-3500A
DVD writer but even with this I have the same problem with burning CDs.
It reads CDs and DVDS and even writes DVDs without problems. So I'm
guessing it is an software issue, only I have no clue what may be
causing it.

I have some suspicion that the problem was caused sometime after I
installed Gordion Knot DVD decrypter, and a codec pack but I'm not too
sure. Uninstalling them didn't help either.

You might need to update/reinstall the aspi drivers/layers. I have a
small utility called 'aspichk.exe' which indicates which drivers are
installed (or not). Google for that and the updated drivers for XP.
HTH

 

[John]

I have some suspicion that the problem was caused sometime after I
installed Gordion Knot DVD decrypter, and a codec pack but I'm not too
sure. Uninstalling them didn't help either.

I'm using WinXP SP2, Athlon 2400XP, 768MB Ram, nForce2 chipset (AN35N
Ultra Shuttle motherboard)

Codec packs can REALLY cause some horrendous problems with conflicts.
I remember installing one from the net which had tons of the popular
codecs and I didnt have problems before so I ignored their warning
that their could be conflicts and my pc went bonkers - all kinds of
problems. I ended up reinstalling everything because I was paranoid
something might be leftoever. Actually you can just uninstall all the
codecs if its one of the popular codec installer packs on the net that
Ive used.

Your best bet obviously if to use them on another PC and see if it
works and if it does or youre convinced its a software conflict which
you cant pinpoint - do a clean reinstall. Thats why of course you
should have backups. On the otherhand try rolling back your
installation to a previous save point in WIN XP and see if that works.
This has never worked for me so I just usually end up doing a clean
reinstall. Before that you could try checking your aspi layer with
aspi check and Nero speed and try reinstalling different aspi layers.
Sometimes the newest ones conflicted with my system and I had to
install a slightly older aspi layer like 4.60 or vice versa.

And obviously defrag your disk, check to see if your hds are ok -
scandisk and check for viruses, check to see you have adequate mem
free and hard disk space etc.

 

[mfyahya]

Thanks for your suggestions. I had already tried system restore and
uninstalled codec packs. I hope I can avoid a complete reinstall..

I ran aspichk.exe and it showed:
aspi32.sys ver: 4.71.2
wowpost.exe not installed
winaspi.dll not installed
winaspi32.dll ver: 4.71.2
Do I need to install wowpost.exe and winaspi.dll? I found winaspi.dll
and a wowpost.ex_ files in files I downloaded along with aspichk.exe,
I tried copying them over to windows\system32 and
windows\system32\drivers, after renaming the wowpost.ex_ to
wowpost.exe, but aspichk still showed them as not installed.

I discovered a new problem: I bought a rewritable CD for testing and
sometimes I could burn successfully on it.. but whenever I tried a
regular CD-R I got a burn error. This is driving me nuts!

 

[jona]

Thanks for your suggestions. I had already tried system restore and
uninstalled codec packs. I hope I can avoid a complete reinstall..

I ran aspichk.exe and it showed:
aspi32.sys ver: 4.71.2
wowpost.exe not installed
winaspi.dll not installed
winaspi32.dll ver: 4.71.2
Do I need to install wowpost.exe and winaspi.dll? I found winaspi.dll
and a wowpost.ex_ files in files I downloaded along with aspichk.exe,
I tried copying them over to windows\system32 and
windows\system32\drivers, after renaming the wowpost.ex_ to
wowpost.exe, but aspichk still showed them as not installed.

Yes, wowpost and winaspi.dll need to be installed (rather than
copied to sys folder) - in my case they're both ver 4.60 where
the other two are ver 4.70.

I discovered a new problem: I bought a rewritable CD for testing and
sometimes I could burn successfully on it.. but whenever I tried a
regular CD-R I got a burn error. This is driving me nuts!

Well, eliminate the aspi issue before you do any further damage to
your nuts. <g>

 

[John]

Thanks for your suggestions. I had already tried system restore and
uninstalled codec packs. I hope I can avoid a complete reinstall..

I ran aspichk.exe and it showed:
aspi32.sys ver: 4.71.2
wowpost.exe not installed
winaspi.dll not installed
winaspi32.dll ver: 4.71.2
Do I need to install wowpost.exe and winaspi.dll? I found winaspi.dll
and a wowpost.ex_ files in files I downloaded along with aspichk.exe,
I tried copying them over to windows\system32 and
windows\system32\drivers, after renaming the wowpost.ex_ to
wowpost.exe, but aspichk still showed them as not installed.

I discovered a new problem: I bought a rewritable CD for testing and
sometimes I could burn successfully on it.. but whenever I tried a
regular CD-R I got a burn error. This is driving me nuts!

You might want to try reinstalling with 4.60 version of Aspi. They
have a whole package thats downloadable and it installs everything
automatically. I did have a problem once when I used the latest
version of the aspi layer and there was a warning about it at one site
where some people had problems with some progs with the latest aspi
layer. You can easily dl various versions of aspi and install the
various versions to test it.

 

[mhaase-at-springmind.com]

Thanks for your suggestions. I had already tried system restore and
uninstalled codec packs. I hope I can avoid a complete reinstall..

I ran aspichk.exe and it showed:
aspi32.sys ver: 4.71.2
wowpost.exe not installed
winaspi.dll not installed
winaspi32.dll ver: 4.71.2
Do I need to install wowpost.exe and winaspi.dll? I found winaspi.dll
and a wowpost.ex_ files in files I downloaded along with aspichk.exe,
I tried copying them over to windows\system32 and
windows\system32\drivers, after renaming the wowpost.ex_ to
wowpost.exe, but aspichk still showed them as not installed.

I discovered a new problem: I bought a rewritable CD for testing and
sometimes I could burn successfully on it.. but whenever I tried a
regular CD-R I got a burn error. This is driving me nuts!

Have you tried changing the brand of CDR you're using?