Firstly, http://firestorm.staghosting.com/pic.jpg What's happening is, is that when I insert a CD-R, or a CD-RW into either of my drives, and I click on the properties, it claims there is no memory on the disc whatsoever. However, when I insert the disc into our other computers drive, everything is as it should be, ie, 702mb free space, 0mb used. Another thing I should point out, is that it obviously detects there is a disc in, as look at where it says "File System" on the screenshot - it'd normally say "No disc" or something similar if there was nothing in the drive, right? Any ideas as to what's happening? And the thing that really gets me, is that I use Alcohol 120%, and when I access a drives properties through that when a disc is in, everything seems fine - it recognises there's a blank disc in with 702mb. ( http://firestorm.staghosting.com/pic2.jpg ) So please, any help would be appreciated. I've not tried burning anything using Alcohol 120% yet, as it isn't a .bin or .cue file or anything that I want to put onto disc, which is why I'm trying to use XP's disc wizard thingy. Again, thanks. Oh, and it used to work. I dunno what's happened all of a sudden.
An observation - drive f is not a burner according to the drives icon and the 'details' at left, so 0 used 0 free is correct, though it should not say 'raw'?? Only a burner will show 0 used 702 free, and 'raw' if it's unformatted [blank] Seems Alchohol has upset things somewhere, though I have this prog installed on my box and don't show these symptoms, then again, I have 5 other burning progs installed as well, a couple of which also installed an ASPI layer. Maybe installing ASPI or a burning program that installs an ASPI layer will fix the problem.
Ok, thanks. I'm randomly stupid when it comes to things like this. I'll try uninstalling Alcohol 120%. And drive F is a burner - it's a Philips CDRW 1610A. Ta.
Very odd?? Try going to device manager, expand dvd/cd drives, right mouse click each cd drive and uninstall them. Restart the computer, windows will reinstall them. See if that fixes it. To get to device manager, right mouse 'my computer', choose properties then click the hardware tab. If all that still fails, then you may have a hardware problem with one of the drives, which I assume are on the same ide channel [sharing the same ribbon connector]. Try turning the computer off and removing the ribbon plug from one of the drives [the 4 wire power plug can be left in or out] Restart the computer and see if the other drive now works properly. If not, unplug it and plug the first one back in and try again. If that still fails, try another ribbon cable, maybe swap it with one from another computer. Pay attention to which end the red wire connects on the motherboard and drive though. If that fails, try removing the drives and connecting them to another computer. Watch out for master/slave clashes though. Connect the drives one at a time to a ribbon cable that has nothing else on it. Another odd thing I have noticed is that your 'sharing' tab has disappeared. It should be between the hardware and recording tabs.
GRrrrr. The first didn't work anyway. ANother thing is, when I insert a game or something, it's fine - autorun works and everything, and the sharing tab etc are all fine.
Ok, so the drive must be ok if games still work etc. What happens if you put a blank cd-r or cd-rw into one of the drives then drag a file onto the icon. Does it open a window which gives you the option of recording that file to the cd? Also, check the settings in the recording tab [drive e and f properties] In your first pic, drive e seems to be the correct icon for a burner drive, but drive f appears as only a cd reader icon? Are the drives correctly detected and reported in device manager? Device manager should report burners as cd-r or cd-rw or dvd-rw and usually the model number of the drive. If the detection/reporting in windows seems wrong, then you may have to restart the computer and watch the bios boot process to see how they are detected at that level. This can be a bit tricky if it's a fast recent model motherboard. Some bioses get through the POST process so fast that the monitor hasn't had a chance to warm up sufficiently to display a picture of what's happening. One way to get a chance to see whats happening is to start pressing the pause key right from the moment you turn the computer on [do a cold start - power off > power on]. This will pause the boot process at some point. Then as quickly as you can, press the space bar then the pause key again. You can then 'jog' the computer through the POST process repeatedly pressing space > pause. At some point, usually after the memory test, you should see the drives including hard drives being detected. This will only happen though if the bios is set to 'Auto' for drive detection Some OEM bioses also have a 'Silent boot' mode [OEM splash screen like Dell], this has to be set to disabled in the bios. My previous system was doing some odd things with my dvd burner, and I also noticed that the bios was reporting the drive with some odd combination of upper and lower case letters [should be all upper case] + some other extraneous characters. Turned out to be something wrong with the ide ribbon cable. I mentioned the sharing tab as it doesn't appear in your pic?? [drive f properties]
WindowsXP is a quirky OS when it comes to built-in burning capability. Many people claim to be able to burn fine. Many others have problems. Microsoft released an update to the IMAPI (which, FYI stands for Image Mastering Applications Programming Interface); that update can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320174 Furthermore, Microsoft has adressed other burning issues with WindowsXP, see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324129
