CD-RW drive will only recognise CD-R as CD-RW

[Guest]

Details of my system:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4A, 2400 MHz (18 x 133)
Motherboard Name Asus P4B533-VM (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 DIMM, Video)
Motherboard Chipset Intel Brookdale-G i845G
System Memory 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Modular (05/07/02)

IDE Controller Intel(R) 82801DB Ultra ATA Controller
Disk Drive WDC WD1200JB-00CRA1 (111 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive GENERIC CRD-BP1700P (40x/12x/40x CD-RW)
Optical Drive LG DVD-ROM DRD8160B (16x/48x DVD-ROM)
Optical Drive PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-104 (DVD:2x/1x/6x, CD:8x/4x/24x DVD-RW)

When I insert a CD-R into the generic (Sanyo) drive, the icon to represent
the drive changes from CD-RW drive to a large disc icon with a CD-RW tag on
it. When I try to format the disk using VOB Instant Write, an error is always
reported. I assume this is because the disc is showing up as a RW disc.
However, when I place the same CD-R into the DVD-RW drive, its icon changes
from DVD-RW drive to a large disk icon but this time with the correct CD-R
label. This same disc can then be formatted using Instant Write. This means
that when I want to burn CDs, I have to use the slower DVD burner. I’m not
sure if this is a hardware or a software problem. Can anyone please help?

I’ve tried a few things. As I have been unable to gain access to the VOB
site, I decided to uninstall Instant Write and try a different CD burning
programme. This did not solve the problem. When a CD-R was inserted into
the CD-RW drive, Windows explorer showed up the disc to be a CD-RW rather
than a CD-R. XP Burner Pro 3 also detected the disc as CD-RW when it was in
the CD-RW drive. When I inserted the same disc into the DVD-RW drive, XP
Burner Pro 3 detected it as CD-R but it wouldn’t allow access to it. I use
Music Match Jukebox to burn music CDs but when I tried to do so after
uninstalling Instant Write and installing XP Burner Pro 3, Music Match
Jukebox reported that no CD/DVD drives had been detected and so I had to
restore XP to the state prior to uninstallation.
At least now I can use my DVD-RW to burn CD-R discs but my CD-RW has become
redundant. Although CD-RW shows up correctly, whenever I try to format it, I
always get the ‘an error occurred during format’ message. If I have a CD-R
in the DVD-RW drive (bear with me, I know this is getting confusing) and then
insert a CD-RW disc into the CD-RW drive, nothing is detected. Windows
simply reports ‘please insert a disk’. If I insert a CD-R disc into the
CD-RW drive, while there is a CD-R disk in the DVD-RW drive (correctly
recognised), then the CD-R disc in the CD-RW drive is recognised as a CD-RW
disc, which means that I won’t be able to format it. Fortunately, the DVD-RW
drive still recognises DVD-R and DVD-RW correctly, although the DVD-RW drive
icon in Windows explorer changes to a CD drive icon with a DVD-R tab on it.
When I disable the DVD-RW drive, I still get CD-R discs showing up as CD-RW.
When using MM Jukebox Plus to burn a music CD, the media type for a CD-R
shows up as CD-RW.

I’ve tried http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316529 and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321641, without success.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

This shouldn't really make a difference because you are using third party
software but right click the drive, select properties, go to the recording
tab, if "Enable recording on this drive" is not checked, check it click
apply, close Explorer, open it and see if it makes a difference. You might
have to first open and then close the drive with the disk in the tray.
Conversely, if it is enabled, try removing the check and the same procedure
as above. Some third party software as well as some drives don't always
work as expected within the XP settings.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion. However, when I right-click on my 'disks with
removable storage', and choose 'properties', I do not get a 'recording' tab.
Should it be there? I don't have this option for the DVD-RW drive either but
that does work.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

Yes, it should be but it just dawned on me that one of your burner sis also
a DVD burner and since there is no DVD recording function native to XP,
that's likely the reason why it doesn't show up.

What's going on here, I believe, is that XP's burning function will only
recognize one burner on the system and since it's recognizing the DVD burner
which, apparently, you can use to burn CDs, the other drive is not being
recognized.