DVD/CD Burning Problem - Media Not Recognized

Hi All,

I am stumped with a problem and hope the group may have some answers. In short, the problem is that the 8x DVD+/-RW, CD-R, CD-RW (HL-DT-ST Model GWA-4080N) that was OEM installed in my HP ZD7000 laptop will not typically recognize blank media, making burning data files impossible. I am running XP SP2 and, according to Microsoft's Windows Update, all patches and fixes are installed. Further, accoriding to HP's wite, the firmware in the drive is also "current." All items in the Startup tab of MSCONFIG are unchecked and there are no unexpected "events" appearing in any portions of the Event Log. LowerFilters and UpperFilters keys have been removed from the registry although LowerFilters.BAK and UpperFilters.BAK remain in the registry as I did not know if I should delete them given postings I have seen in other forums.

Here are the symptoms:

(1) The drive is "visible" via File Manger. If no disk is in the drive, the device appears as a DVD/CD drive in the file manager and appears similarly in the window that opens if you click on My Computer where the empty drive capacity shopws 702MB available. The drive can read both DVD and CD without problem.

(2) If I have a piece of blank media in the drive and do a reboot, once the laptop has restarted, the drive is visible (as expected) and the drive shows that it contains a piece of blank media. If I try to write to that media using the Windws CD Writing wizard, I get an uninformative error box telling me that the drive cannot be written to. Once I close out of the XP CD burning wizard, I notice the drive, via cicking on My Computer, simply shows as a CD drive with no capacity details. If I check the properties of the CD, it shows 0 bytes of used space and zero bytes of free space.

(3) If I reboot the PC with this same CD in the drive, it will again be visible and will again show as "empty" with 702MB of available space. If I check this same CD on another PC, it is, indeed, empty.

(4) Without attempting to write to a CD and AFTER a boot cycle with the CD in the drive, if I then eject and reinsert the CD, the drive again shows 0 bytes free, 0 bytes available.

(5) The drive has been replaced and the problem continues with identical symptoms.

(6) The drive cannot be written to with either the basic XP CD burning wizard or with Roxio EasyCD V6

(7) I have made sure that the "make recordable" box in the drive properties "Recording" tab is checked.

(8) I have made sure the reg entries describing the drive also reflect that the drive is a writable device.

(9) HP diagnostics SW says the drive is fine

(10) There are no errors in the device manager for the drive (or any other devices for that matter)

(11) There are no other devices connected to the laptop - no USB, nor Firewire, no IR stuff at all

(12) I have unistalled and reinstalled drive device drivers.

Bottom line, the DVD/CD drive will read disks but I cannot write to them with either the Windows CD burning tools or with Roxio's EasyCD Creator V 6.

I do have ITunes installed and have not tried uninstalling. Since the drive appears to be recognized and functional as a "read" drive, I so not think the Error Code 41 discussions in another thread on this site are applicable.

I have scrubbed the registry and deleted all keys that contained Roxio, EasyCD or Sonic in any portion of the key.

Any ideas on where to go from here? The knuckleheads at HP simply say reinstall the OS.. that seems like the typical Tier Dumb support answer.


Thanks,
MECSFO

MECSFO, welcome to cdfreaks

Have you tried deleting the IDE channel driver that the drive is connected to, usually the Secondary IDE. Use device manager to delete and then reboot your system.

Thanks C0deKing,

Before I try that, may I pose a question first.. Since there are two IDE devices on the laptop - one the HDD and the other the DVD/CD burner-reader, isn't the HDD typically the primary IDE channnel? Shall I knock out the secondary rather than the primary?

Thank you,
MECSFO

If your DVD/CD burner is on the secondary IDE then delete the secondary IDE channel. If your HDD and burner share the primary IDE channel then delete the Primary IDE channel. If it is the Primary IDE channel then you will be forced to reboot after deleting it.

C0deKing,

I checked the IDE/ATAPI Controller section in Device Manager.

Here is what I have found:

three entries: one for Intel 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controller
one for Primary IDE Channel
one for Secondary IDE Channel

For the Primary IDE Channel, clicking on it and selecting Advanced Settings tab, I notice that Device 0 and Device 1 have different setting. In the Device 0 section, the "Device Type" is greyed out and reads AutoDetect. Transfer mode is "DMA if available" and the Current Transfer Mode is Ultra DMA Mode 5

For Device 1 on the Primary Channel, the entries are: Device Detection: "Auto Detect", Transfer Mode: "DMA if available" and Current Transfer Mode: greyed out to "Not Applicable."

For the Secondary Controller, the settings now are:

Device 0, Device Type: greyed out to "AutoDetect", Transfer Mode: "DMA if available", Current Transfer Mode: "Multi-word DMA Mode 2"

For Device 1, Device Type: "Auto Detect", Transfer Mode: " DMA if available", Current Transfer Mode: greyed out to "not applicable"

Since the two different controllers appear to be using using DMA protocols, I am concerned one is the HDD and the other is the DVD/CD drive.. How to tell them apaprt??

Thanks,
MECSFO

The secondary controller is the DVD/CD burner as the HDD will be using UDMA mode 5 (ATA100).

C0deKing,

Thanks.. I will try this when I get home this evening and will report back. I am determined not to simply fix the problem, but to understand why the problem exists and, ideally, how it occured.

Thanks,
MECSFO

Hehe, with MS Windows, understanding why it happened/occurred is not always possible.

C0deKing,

Bad news.. deleted the Secondary IDE Channel.. laptop restarts and finds "new hardware", finds new IDE device, finds the new device.. yet still, multiple different pieces of good, empty media continue to be unrecognized. Further, when the laptop is booted with a blank CD in the drive, the OS no longer even seems to think it is empty with 702MB of capacity (as it did prior to the IDE Channel refresh).. rather it see 0 bytes available, 0 bytes written.

I double checked the Device Manager again to make sure there are no conflicts and that properties are as expected.

This really is a devil of a problem...What's next?

Thanks,
MECSFO

Disable the IMAPI burn engine (also packet writing software) and use a proper burning app instead.

_chef_

Thank you for the assistance. Perhaps I am going about this the wrong way. The problem started when a perfectly functional installation of Roxio EasyCD v6 ceased to be able to recognize disks. After several unistalls and reinstalls and Roxio still being unable to recognize the media, I decided to go back to square one and re-establish burner function via the OS CD writer app... and I have been troubleshooting ever since.

Anyway, if the IMAPI services is not running, will EasyCD function? I had presumed it required that service to run.

Thank you for the help,
MECSFO

It should work because EasyCD normally comes with it's own Packet-writing tools.
That's the reason why disabling the IMAPI burn engine is recommended.
They would interfere each other.

Uncheck that. (Same as disabling IMAPI CD Burning Service, I think)

Yeah, perfectly correct.

Hope that works.