Hi. I have a Liteon DVDRW model SOHW-812S burner. I can burn to blank CDs and DVDs but it will no longer recognise CD-RW. If I put a disc in the drive it won't open it and says there is no disc in there, even if it has something on it. I can put it in the regular CD Rom drive and there is no problem. I would really like to be able to burn things to CD-RW on this computer but is no longer possible. I can put those discs in the other computer and burn to them no problem so I know it isn't the discs themselves. Also, I use to be able to right click on something and sent it to the burner but that no longer happens either. Can anyone make any suggestions for me? Thanks.
The SOWH-812S is no longer recognizing the ATIP on the CD-RW. This could be for a number of reasons: 1) it was corrupted by different formatting software on another drive; 2) it was rendered illegible when a second CD-RW drive overwrote the area (different laser light patterns applied multiple times can reduce the contrast on rewritable media to a "haze"); or 3) the Lite-on drive is having some problem of its own. Generally reasons 1 and 2 are the most common. You should decide which drive will read and write the CD-RW most often. Copy the data to your hard drive from a CD-ROM drive--they cannot access the ATIP area and will not have a problem getting the information. Then fully erase the CD-RW on the drive you will use most often. This may have to be the other drive you have since the Lite-on no longer sees the disc. You can then copy the data back to the CD-RW. If you use the disc to read data on the computer with the Lite-on drive in it, only use the CD-ROM drive in that computer to read the disc. Putting the CD-RW back into the Lite-on will allow it to access the ATIP once again and start the corruption process all over.
Thanks very much for your response. I didn't understand a word of it but thanks anyway. I'll have a look and see if I can understand what you're saying.
CD-Rs and CD-RWs have a section on them called the ATIP (Absolute Time In Pre-groove) that tells recorders what kind of disc it is, how much capacity it has, how fast it can be recorded, and what laser power settings to use when recording. Players can't read this section, and it doesn't matter to them. Rewritable discs can be changed, and CD-RW drives often write a notation in this section regarding time of recording, drive used, and so forth. All rewritable media have formats recorded on them which are simply file systems telling drives what files are where, how many there are, and so forth. If a file is erased, more room is available where it was. Diskettes were simple: only two incompatible file formats, IBM and Apple, and the two rarely mixed. CD-RW media have multiple incompatible formats. What may have happened in example #1 below is that, for example, a CD-RW with Nero's format was put into a computer with Roxio's format. Roxio starts to leave its notations, realizes too late that it does not recognize the format, and leaves the disc with information on it that Roxio can't read and now even Nero can't recognize. Nothing has changed on the data; but now neither computer can read the disc. Example two is a bit like the first except that it is the different drives that are causing problems. Drives leave data on rewritable discs by making non-reflective spots in the shiny surface. The shape of the spots is affected by the beam pattern of the laser being used: some are perfectly round, some are oval. If a disc has been moved from one oval to round to oval to round pattern several times, the marks can become hazy instead of sharply defined. Then one or the other or both drives have a hard time reading the disc. Example three just includes the possibility that there is something wrong with the Lite-on drive itself. This is the least likely cause. My suggestion is that you only use one drive to record onto the disc. If it has to go into another computer, just use the CD-ROM drive to ready the CD-RW because it can't change anything. Before you do that, copy all the files on the disc to your hard drive so that you can record them later to the CD-RW or to a CD-R. Then completely erase the CD-RW on the drive that works in order to restore it to its "blank" state. That should salvage the disc.
