OverCoat Posted November 14, 2007 Share Posted November 14, 2007 This is a hard problem to google solutions for, and kind of an odd one to explain, so I'll leave the comprehension up to human understanding instead of some keyword-based chaotic sentence. Okay, so I've had this fancy shiny useless 16x dual layer DVD-RW drive for a few years, and I'm finally fed up with it and I want to either get it replaced or fix it. The problem is as follows: Watching "My Computer" as I insert a disc. With no disc in the drive, it displays correctly as a DVD-RW. Once I actually insert a DVD-R disc in the drive, it suddenly changes into a CD-ROM drive, therefore confusing the fuck out of both me and Nero. The history of this drive is a weird one. I've had it since 2004, and it's never been able to burn anything. Not even a CD, though I have burned a few movies with a strange trial version of NeroVision a few times, though it would have a lot of errors and I'd go through a few discs before a successful burn. However, it does play back both CD and DVD formats. It's a "Philips DVD-+RW DVD8631," and a quick google search registers complaints for this shitty drive all across the board. As a temporary solution I've been burning files to DVD across the network on another computer. HOWEVER - and this is what confuses me - the owner of this computer [my mother, of course] got rid of the software I was running [legal copy of Nero 5.5... they won't let me upgrade to 7 for some reason, but that's another story] which did actually work before, and then she replaced it with a fucking trial version of 7... which I ended up not really liking, though she needed it for some damn thing... anyway, the trial version dried up, so I tried reinstalling Nero 5.5. Installation successful, but then that schizo drive issue started happening with her computer! So now I'm stuck with no DVD burner at all, so I can't fucking back up my files for the foreseeable future. My question is: Can I get WinXP to stop changing the drive functionality? I'm not sure when it started, and I'm thinking it could be some Microsoft-injected anti-piracy method gone horribly wrong. I wonder if I can burn DVDs under Ubuntu. But then again, how would I get the files off an NTFS drive without leet linux skills? Please help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted November 19, 2007 Author Share Posted November 19, 2007 Okay, I did a little more digging on my own [thanks for all that wonderful help, guys!]. I upgraded to Nero 8, which doesn't need you to insert discs to get info on your drives, and the software does indeed know it is there. Once I start burning a data DVD though, it starts to prep the disc, then it just spits it back out with a generic "something went wrong" message. Apparently the fact that I have a dual layer DVD-RW drive causes some sort of bug in winXP, and there are a few "fixes," one being messing with the DMA on the drives, though DMA is definitely ON. I even flashed the BIOS with the newest revision, and I actually updated the firmware on the drive a few years ago, thinking that would work. There's some other ones but I don't want to risk breaking something, or reformatting anything, making me lose all the important data that I needed to back up in the first place! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schwaltzvald Posted November 19, 2007 Share Posted November 19, 2007 Could have replaced the DVD-+RW burner..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted November 21, 2007 Author Share Posted November 21, 2007 Could have replaced the DVD-+RW burner..? I probably should have. But I dunno if getting another one would fix the problem. Either way it's too late to replace now, so maybe I can ask the guys at the computer store what I need to do. Maybe they'd know. Maybe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schwaltzvald Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 Unless you've somehow soldered the burner to ur PC it's never too late... Just open ur case and take it out, replace it with a new one that fits within the case and voila. Just need to make sure you've removed any unecessary drivers/software... Look on the bright side of this... At least you're not running Vista, where as if you did it would have cried "FOUL" if you replaced the burner. Correct me if I'm wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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