burning cds/dvds

hi everyone,

am using gateway laptop, athlon64 processor, 1 gb ram, dvd r/w drive.

recently i have been recording cds and dvds (apparently), which are not getting recorded.
was using windows xp home, and nero 7.

the disks are getting recorded. there is this colour change at the back. but when i insert them back into the comp again, the computer doesnt read them, not this nor any other comp.
at first i thought that maybe its the software, so i switched over to vista and nero 7 (again for vista).

same thing's happening. am recording, colour changing at the back. but the cd's blank.

and yeah only thing that seems to be working is nero vision, that actually records and playsback. so its not the hardware/or maybe it is.

what could be wrong here?

First rule of audio visual troubleshooting is to try different media............and make sure it is specified for your kit.

Also, try the stuff on other boxes........ does it even get recognised as media?

sorry, should have mentioned,

have tried different cds/dvds from sony, toshiba,asda and tesco

and nope they dont read on other boxes. even the movies recorded read on some dvd players and on others if gives "currupt disk" error.

tried sonic software too, but wasnt much of a sucess.

tried making image files through nero and recording them through alcohol, again unsucessful.

not sure about nero, but my burning programs offer an option to 'verify data after session recording'. Try this and see what it says when it tries to verify.

Are you getting no errors while burning in nero AND alcohol? or did it say anything unusual?

nothing unsual....

if i have 'verify data after session recording' checked. it recoerds and when it starts to "verify" it hangs.

if i have 'verify data after session recording' unchecked it records everything and in the end says that recording finished succesfully.

and ejects the disk. when i re-insert it. it just keeps spinning and the light on the drive is continously on. but "nothing" happens

by "nothing" i mean, it just doesnt read. the computer DOESNT hang or anything. i can open close any application/program. when i click on the drive, it just show me empty drive.

nero hangs up when verifying data on 0%. doesnt go beyond that.

disk checks show "healthy disk" with no read/write errors

I'd try updating nero that could save you a lot of hassle. The current version is 7.8.5.0.

updated....

was just wondering...if its possible for lens to have gotten damaged from over recording?

the recorder i am using (which came installed) is from toshiba. am still searching the net to find any updated drivers but couldnt find any.

the device manager doesnt show any thing unusual.

that is my last resort before i go in for an external recorder.

OK bagggi,

Let's start with CD as it is older technology and not so demanding?

1. Run a lens cleaning disk.
2. Burn a CD at half speed
3. Copy a data CD at half speed
4. See if you can play them on your drive
5. See if you can play them on another drive.
6. Do the CDs show as having any data, or are the shown as being there, but blank?
7. Try burning them (the failed ones) again (with anything) on a known working drive.........what does the result look/sound like?

At this stage it sounds as if your drive is knackered :(

Record around 2x-4x.

You wont find updated drivers for your burner only firmware and no it wouldnt damage your laser :-)

One thing I forgot to ask....................will it play commercial CDs and DVDs?

yup, it plays both dvds and cds normally.

it all began when i having downloaded tonnes of movies, wanted to free some hard disk space. started recording movies in data format. then made a couple in dvd format (using disk-at-once option) to be played in normal dvd players.

first couple of movies came out ok. then having recorded the dvds, some of them didnot play in the player. so i put them into the comp to check if the recording was ok. the comp just kept them spinning but nothing happened. by this time nero-burning-rom started crashing on me and shutting down the computer half way through the recording.

i contacted nero people. they informed that nero 7 was having some issues and might be conflicting with some drivers onboard. they gave me some nero-driver-checker and nero-registry cleaner. now the damn thing was not shutting down.
now it records everything, but i cant play the recorded stuff anywhere

then i changed from nero to sonic and suffered the same problem

contacted gateway, they sent some registry values that should be there (regedit). thats all fine there.

am having this gut feeling that recorder might have burned out on me. but surprisingly it records and plays-
1) using "real player" converting mp3 to audios (which plays in pioneer in the car)
2) using "nero recode" converting avi to vob (only using disk at once option)

both these at the lowest speed settings

other then that it just records and says everything done ok, but nothing shows up later.

windows media player 11 doesnt even try to record. it shuts down.

Hi bagggi,

Howze ya keepin mate? :D

This is a weird one.................. at first I would have said that your hardware was on the way out, but now I am not so sure?

1. It reads commercial stuff OK.
2. It will burn stuff then read it.......... but only where you are doing file conversions?

3. It appears to burn, but cannot replay, and cannot be replayed on other devices?

4. Do other computers actually detect that there is media there?
or do you get the "insert disk" type message? I am talking windows explorer here.

5. If you know someone who has an older version of Windows (98, 98SE, ME) what do you see if you run Winfile.exe? .............. yerrrrr the old 16 bit DOS file manager :D .............. helped me many a time.................

6. If you burn one of these "unplayables" can you burn onto it on another machine? ............ Like did it really burn the first time?

Hey is youze still drunk in charge of oil tankers and such?..............next time youze pass Bridlington Bay, just pull in and toot ya horn :drink:

yo nihil,

its been couple of months, was on a gas carrier, carrying lpg from Fawley and Milford haven for Tunisia and Morroco. even made a trip down to Chile, Megallen staits (beautiful place). just got back a week ago.

as for the dvd rom,
1) yes
2) yes
3) yes
4) other computers also dont show the files recorded. when i open, using windows explorer, it just shows blank disk, and windows asking me, if i want to burn files into it.
5) not tried yet, almost everyone i know have win xp (had installed xp on half of them myself).
6)it appears to burn, but when i reinsert them it says that its blank, even when there is a colour change at the back.

and it can record over it just like the first time and still say its blank the second time i insert them. (crasy isnt it)

thats what is confusing. i cant record data file, iso image files, any backup files, cant make a mp3 compilation on the disk. in other words if i want to make a backup of "my documents", i cant do it.

have already started looking for external usb dvd writers (i omega), there is another one in the market (lacie) which is the cheapest of the lot. but keeping them as a last resort.

A wealth of knowledge can be found at www.cdfreaks.com where the art of burning is as sacred as security is here.

alright then,

couple of days back, formatted the comp. and it wont boot off the cd rom. checked if there was any usb boot option in the bios. found that the "32 bit I/O data transfer" to the rom drive was turned off. i enabled it.

then suddenly everything started working. cd was working. dvds started getting recorded. and everything was in order.

funny part is that i didnt change anything in the bios before, thats why i didnt check it in the first place. so why would it change?

anyway, am posting this to let the readers know that all's fine now and bios should also be checked, if the dvd/cd recorder should stop working anytime..

cheers