Well, it's times like this that I don't feel computer literate. I'm running Windows XP on an HP Pavilion a350n, SP2. I have a regular CD Drive and a HP DVD Writer 300c which is supposed to have CD writing and DVD writing functionality. It's a year and a half old, but I lost DVD writing functionality 6-9 months after purchase (It's been a while so I don't recall exactly). Tried Fujifilm -R's and TDK +R's and neither work. The drive will not recognize that there is blank media in the drive and any program I use to burn anything will request a blank DVD. These are new and in good condition, but it won't detect at all, even DVD Identifier refuses to acknowledge the existance of media in the drive. I still retain CD writing capability in the same condition as when I first bought it, but DVD writing isn't possible. The Driver is version 5.1.2535.0 and I don't know where to look for the firmware version. But I attempted to flash with a new version I found on a site provided on these forums, and when I ran the .exe, it requires that the original DVD writing software be installed and it refers to HP RecordNow (which is installed) or HP MyCD. Is the problem in the hardware? If so, then I'll just buy an external burner for DVD's. But if the problem lies elsewhere, I haven't the slightest as to where to begin to rectify the problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you for your time.
I have the EXACT same problem. In fact, I could've written this message originally! A very similar time frame for having my computer as well. What is wrong here? As I've researched, I've found there are many of us out there with a non-working drive, and have tried multiple things, and it didn't work. We were stupid enough to buy the Circuit City advantage protection plan, where they supposedly fix any problem. Their solution was to overwrite the hard drive and re-install XP and everything else from scratch. NOT A GOOD SOLUTION!! We've tried that solution before, and it didn't help our last problem at all. (In fact, we found another guy who did have this same problem with the DVD drive, went ahead and recovered the computer from scratch, and it didn't help either.) Circuit City says it's always the first step they try before anything else...never buy their plan!! Anyone out there know how to fix this? We've tried reinstalling and updating drivers, searched all over the internet, and re-installing all of several programs we use to write/ read DVDs. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I would try a different burner in the computer, and if it works, the other one may be trash, if you have updated the firmware, and it still doesn't burn.
