Bizarre behavior from DVD/CD RW drive - can't burn DVDs

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This one has stumped Dell customer support, so I would be grateful for any help that can be offered.

I have successfully burned DVD+Rs many times. Mysteriously however, my DVD/CD RW drive (NEC ND1100A) will no longer recognize blank DVD media, although it still plays CDs, records CD-Rs, and plays DVDs. If the drive is empty, Windows Explorer shows it properly listed as a DVD/CD RW drive. When I insert a blank DVD+R however, Explorer suddenly changes to show it as a CD Drive, and does not recognize that there is blank media in the drive. Additionally, I have 321 Software's DVD X-Maker and Roxio Creator 7 (both of which I have used in the past) and now neither of them recognize the blank media either.

What's been done:
* Device manager shows the drive to be working properly.
* Drivers are up to date.
* Uninstall and plug and play re-install of the drive shows that Windows XP has detected the NEC ND1100A DVD/CD RW, but then suddenly changes to show that it has detected a CD drive, leaving me with the same problem.
* Partial re-installation/repair of XP produced no change.
* System restore did not allow me to restore to a previous state on several tries, and now that the partial re-install has taken place, no previous state exists.

Anyone have any ideas?
 
Firstly XP has no built in support for dvd writing, so when you insert the
dvd it will show up as a cd and not work. This is normal.
For the other apps, it's guessing.

Is the drive a +/- drive or just a + drive? If so, is the media +, I have
known people send out the wrong ones by mistake.
A faulty batch of discs? Try some others.
Drive faulty, try a new one?
Clean the drive.
Graham

--
Graham Hughes
MVP
www.simplydv.co.uk
www.dvds2treasure.com
plan.9 said:
This one has stumped Dell customer support, so I would be grateful for any help that can be offered.

I have successfully burned DVD+Rs many times. Mysteriously however, my
Click to expand...
DVD/CD RW drive (NEC ND1100A) will no longer recognize blank DVD media,
although it still plays CDs, records CD-Rs, and plays DVDs. If the drive is
empty, Windows Explorer shows it properly listed as a DVD/CD RW drive. When
I insert a blank DVD+R however, Explorer suddenly changes to show it as a CD
Drive, and does not recognize that there is blank media in the drive.
Additionally, I have 321 Software's DVD X-Maker and Roxio Creator 7 (both of
which I have used in the past) and now neither of them recognize the blank
media either.
What's been done:
* Device manager shows the drive to be working properly.
* Drivers are up to date.
* Uninstall and plug and play re-install of the drive shows that Windows
Click to expand...
XP has detected the NEC ND1100A DVD/CD RW, but then suddenly changes to show
that it has detected a CD drive, leaving me with the same problem.
* Partial re-installation/repair of XP produced no change.
* System restore did not allow me to restore to a previous state on
Click to expand...
several tries, and now that the partial re-install has taken place, no
previous state exists.
 
This is an old thread but hopefull someone finds this. I have a similar
problem with Win XP.

Problem: Insert blank dvd-r and click on the drive properties and it says
the disk is full. Pinnacle thinks the drive is empty and tells me to insert
a blank dvd. Bottom line... I can't burn dvd anymore!

Debug: Burned two home movies to dvd-r (same lot of dvds) the day before.
Worked great. I have a Toshiba SD-R5112 (Mad Dog 4X burner). I also have an
NEC DV-5800A dvd player that came with my Dell desktop. This has to be a
software issue because both drives think the dvd-r is full if you insert
them. Inserting cd-r media works great... it recognizes the cd's as being
empty and ready to burn to.


Tried: reboot, reinstall of dvd decoder, removing useless Nero
Going to try: remove hardware + reinstall, swap master with current slave,

I'm not a computer genius so I don't know what else to do. Any help would be
appreciated. I've been all over the web and seen this problem but have never
found a solution.
 
I'm the original poster for this thread.

Apprarently, the OS became corrupted, and I ended up having to re-install
Windows XP to resolve this problem. The apparent trigger was an "update"
installation of Apple iTunes, which I have since seen hose up other hardware
and software as well. Unfortunately, a complete re-install of the OS appears
to be the only viable fix. (I am now the proud owner of a Maxtor external
hard drive to mitigate future data restoration issues if I ever have to
reinstall XP again.)

If you have Apple iTunes on your Windows XP machine, I STRONGLY recommend
that you create a restore point using "System Restore" before installing any
updates, and that you do not "update" install. Instead, use Add/Remove
programs to remove the older version; reboot; install the new version as a
clean install.
 
I don't have Apple iTunes... and I was really hoping not to have to
re-install XP pro. A system restore point sounds really good right now. I
wish I had done that. When you do a system restore does it delete all work
you've done since you created that point? Just wondering.
 
It doesn't alter any work you have saved, just teh condition of programmes
and the O/S, so if you installed a programme yesterday and did some work in
it today which you saved, then did a system restore to 3 days ago, the app
would disappear but the work would still be there.

--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
Laird of Glencairn
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com
 
I need to make a correction.
The DVD Drive does not recognize a blank DVD as "full" rather it says "0
Bytes". So it thinks nothing is in the drive.

When I insert the blank dvd the drive description also changes from DVD-RW
Drive (E:) to CD Drive (E:)

When I double click on the E: drive it pops up a warning box and says
“E:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function.â€

What’s interesting is at the top of the warning window it says D:\ like it
thinks the E drive is the D drive. Windows XP Pro is confused!

What I tried this weekend.
1. Started in safe mode. Uninstalled the dvd drives. Shut down. Swapped
them. Set one as master one as slave (where before they were cable select).
This did nothing.
2. Tried Microsoft's CD-R fix (MSFT article 316529). This also did nothing.
3. Disabled IMAPI CD burning
4. Reloaded Pinnacle Video editing software... and the dvd decoder. Still no
success.

Any suggestions? Ideas? Help! Thanks :)
 
Sorry for delay.
Windows does not support dvd writing.
You need to use another app, such as nero to write to dvd's.

--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
Laird of Glencairn
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com


ctoro said:
I need to make a correction.
The DVD Drive does not recognize a blank DVD as "full" rather it says "0
Bytes". So it thinks nothing is in the drive.

When I insert the blank dvd the drive description also changes from DVD-RW
Drive (E:) to CD Drive (E:)

When I double click on the E: drive it pops up a warning box and says
"E:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function."

What's interesting is at the top of the warning window it says D:\ like it
thinks the E drive is the D drive. Windows XP Pro is confused!

What I tried this weekend.
1. Started in safe mode. Uninstalled the dvd drives. Shut down. Swapped
them. Set one as master one as slave (where before they were cable select).
This did nothing.
2. Tried Microsoft's CD-R fix (MSFT article 316529). This also did nothing.
3. Disabled IMAPI CD burning
4. Reloaded Pinnacle Video editing software... and the dvd decoder. Still no
success.

Any suggestions? Ideas? Help! Thanks :)
Click to expand...
 
What files get corrupted in this type "update". I have the same problem
except my DVD/CD writer will load any disk, even the XP reload disk. I have
a third party DVD player, VLC, that will play a DVD movie if you force
recognition by going to the disk menu. Windows explorer will then see the
DVD files. There must be a series of .dll files that are missing or corrupt.
 
mike191 said:
What files get corrupted in this type "update". I have the same problem
except my DVD/CD writer will not load any disk, even the XP reload disk. I have
a third party DVD player, VLC, that will play a DVD movie if you force
recognition by going to the disk menu. Windows explorer will then see the
DVD files. There must be a series of .dll files that are missing or corrupt.
Click to expand...
 
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