CD burner problem

For the past month or longer, I've had a hard time burning any CD.

I thought maybe my discs had gone bad from leaving them in the sun too long,
but now I have a new set and they won't work either. It never gets past 3%
completion under Nero; while HP Record Now, CDRWin, and the CD wizard built
into XP can't even get that far. All I ever get is error messages.

I thought maybe the new CDs were defective or something. Then I tried one
of the old "ruined" CDs and it worked. 100% completion. It seems like I've
just got a %5 chance of burning a CD or something.

I had tried using one of those CD drive cleaner discs, and reset the
computer just before burning, and shut down all background operations. None
of that seemed to help.

I thought maybe it was due to a low power supply, but I'd installed my new
hard drive several weeks before this happened.

Could the CD-RW drive just have slowly died on me, or is there something I
can do to get it burning again? It's just a 12x hp cd-writer, the one that
came with the macine, but I never had any problem with it before this
happened. I'd hate to buy a new one if I don't need to.

Thanks.

"Andy Foster" wrote in message
newsan.2003.09.13.23.36.18.127931@FirstnameLastn ame.com...
On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 20:50:10 +0000, ROTC Jeep List wrote:

For the past month or longer, I've had a hard time burning any CD.

I thought maybe my discs had gone bad from leaving them in the sun too
long,
but now I have a new set and they won't work either. It never gets past
3%
completion under Nero; while HP Record Now, CDRWin, and the CD wizard
built
into XP can't even get that far. All I ever get is error messages.

I thought maybe the new CDs were defective or something. Then I tried
one
of the old "ruined" CDs and it worked. 100% completion. It seems like
I've
just got a %5 chance of burning a CD or something.

I had tried using one of those CD drive cleaner discs, and reset the
computer just before burning, and shut down all background operations.
None
of that seemed to help.

I thought maybe it was due to a low power supply, but I'd installed my
new
hard drive several weeks before this happened.

Could the CD-RW drive just have slowly died on me, or is there something
I
can do to get it burning again? It's just a 12x hp cd-writer, the one
that
came with the macine, but I never had any problem with it before this
happened. I'd hate to buy a new one if I don't need to.

Thanks.

Remove all CD recording software other than Nero and try burning again.
If that doesn't help, try remove ing the drive from device manager,
uninstalling nero, reinstalling the drive and nero.
If that doesn't work, post the bloody error messages next time.

HTH

Andy

Thanks. I'll try that.

I tried to follow-up with the erorr messages, but it looks like it didn't go
through...

Re-post from 5:30 PM:

I may have forgotten something important...

It's a Phillips CDD4851 -- purchased in July 2001.

XP tells me that everything is okay, and it reads CDs without any problems.

Also, I tried burning at 8x instead of 12x, with the same results.

Just now, I tried burning at 4x and the only difference was that the
"recorder buffer level/state" went up to 90% before it failed. The error
message read....

power calibration error

(The help file reads -- These are really bad hardware errors. Maybe using
another brand of CDRs could help. If this doesn't help, then you'll probably
need to have your recorder repaired.)

invalid write state
could not perform end track

_

It's funny how the obvious answer always reveals itself right when I've
given up and asked for help.

The burner is history, right?

Thanks again.

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 20:50:10 +0000, ROTC Jeep List wrote:

For the past month or longer, I've had a hard time burning any CD.

I thought maybe my discs had gone bad from leaving them in the sun too long,
but now I have a new set and they won't work either. It never gets past 3%
completion under Nero; while HP Record Now, CDRWin, and the CD wizard built
into XP can't even get that far. All I ever get is error messages.

I thought maybe the new CDs were defective or something. Then I tried one
of the old "ruined" CDs and it worked. 100% completion. It seems like I've
just got a %5 chance of burning a CD or something.

I had tried using one of those CD drive cleaner discs, and reset the
computer just before burning, and shut down all background operations. None
of that seemed to help.

I thought maybe it was due to a low power supply, but I'd installed my new
hard drive several weeks before this happened.

Could the CD-RW drive just have slowly died on me, or is there something I
can do to get it burning again? It's just a 12x hp cd-writer, the one that
came with the macine, but I never had any problem with it before this
happened. I'd hate to buy a new one if I don't need to.

Thanks.

Remove all CD recording software other than Nero and try burning again.
If that doesn't help, try remove ing the drive from device manager,
uninstalling nero, reinstalling the drive and nero.
If that doesn't work, post the bloody error messages next time.

HTH

Andy

"ROTC Jeep List"

a wrote in message news:6qL8b.436471$o%2.198045@sccrnsc02...
For the past month or longer, I've had a hard time burning any CD.

Uninstall ALL burning software that you have installed. Once you've done
this and rebooted the system, run the system file checker (Start-Run- SFC
/SCANNOW). Once this is done, XP should be able to burn CDR as it used to.

"ROTC Jeep List" wrote in message et...
snip

It's a Phillips CDD4851 -- purchased in July 2001.

XP tells me that everything is okay, and it reads CDs without any problems.

Also, I tried burning at 8x instead of 12x, with the same results.

Just now, I tried burning at 4x and the only difference was that the
"recorder buffer level/state" went up to 90% before it failed. The error
message read....

power calibration error

(The help file reads -- These are really bad hardware errors. Maybe using
another brand of CDRs could help. If this doesn't help, then you'll probably
need to have your recorder repaired.)

invalid write state
could not perform end track

_

It's funny how the obvious answer always reveals itself right when I've
given up and asked for help.

The burner is history, right?


Sounds likely. Not the end of the world though - 48x burners are cheap
as chips, and now you have the ideal excuse to upgrade.

"Andy Foster" wrote in message
newsan.2003.09.13.23.36.18.127931@FirstnameLastn ame.com...
On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 20:50:10 +0000, ROTC Jeep List wrote:

For the past month or longer, I've had a hard time burning any CD.

I thought maybe my discs had gone bad from leaving them in the sun too
long,
but now I have a new set and they won't work either. It never gets past
3%
completion under Nero; while HP Record Now, CDRWin, and the CD wizard
built
into XP can't even get that far. All I ever get is error messages.

I thought maybe the new CDs were defective or something. Then I tried
one
of the old "ruined" CDs and it worked. 100% completion. It seems like
I've
just got a %5 chance of burning a CD or something.

I had tried using one of those CD drive cleaner discs, and reset the
computer just before burning, and shut down all background operations.
None
of that seemed to help.

I thought maybe it was due to a low power supply, but I'd installed my
new
hard drive several weeks before this happened.

Could the CD-RW drive just have slowly died on me, or is there something
I
can do to get it burning again? It's just a 12x hp cd-writer, the one
that
came with the macine, but I never had any problem with it before this
happened. I'd hate to buy a new one if I don't need to.

Thanks.

Remove all CD recording software other than Nero and try burning again.
If that doesn't help, try remove ing the drive from device manager,
uninstalling nero, reinstalling the drive and nero.
If that doesn't work, post the bloody error messages next time.

HTH

Andy


It worked.

Looks like some program just screwed up a registry key. Had that happen
once before, with video players not working. I never would have thought a
hardware problem could be so simple. Guess it wasn't a hardware problem at
all, though.

Thanks. I really appreciate your help with this.