Impossible to successfully burn a CD!

Previously on my computer, I was using and old version of Roxio Easy CD Creator. Because of all of the hype that I was hearing, I decided to install Nero. Once I did this, I uninstalled my old version and tried to burn a CD with my new program. After ruining about ten CDs, I figured that it was a problem with my Nero program that I installed.

So, I tried to go back to my old version of Easy CD Creator and it told me that it was unable to recognize my CD drive...strike two...

So after all of this, I finally got myself a copy of Roxio's Easy Media Creator, hoping that it would solve all of these problems and ease my frustration. After getting the program installed, I realized that this program also has frequent errors like Nero did.

I have yet to successfully burn a CD and it is getting quite frustrating seeing that I have blown about 10 dollars on wasted discs. If you have any advice for me PLEASE help! Thanks a lot.

Welcome to the forum.

Can you give more informations about hardware, which burner, what media, etc?

Hmm...well I'm not too keen on all of the hardware stuff...
How could I find out what type of burner I have?
I know my max speed is 48x and that the burner came stock with my Emachines PC, but that's about all that I can tell you offhand.

Right click on "my computer" ->properties->hardware->device manager->
Under DVD/Cd-ROM section you will find your burner.

Tell us what it says



I'd also suggest that until it's working, you use a CDRW disc instead

What version of Roxio did you start with? This is a known issue with older versions that requires a registry cleaning. Also be sure you uninstall DirectCD before installing Nero.

Disable the IMAPI Burn Engine (coming with the OS).
Uninstall all burning apps, especially all Packet-Writing tools (InCD, DLA...).
Open Devicemanager, delete both channel entries under IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS and delete the drive entry in DVD/CD-ROM Drives.
Then reboot.
Install ONE burning app, latest version. Try again burning a CD.

Alright, under the device manager it says that I have a "HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4481B". (translation please?)

I was using the most recent version of Nero, but like I said, I am starting to think that it's a hardware problem seeing that it did this with both the new Nero and the new Roxio.

I am going to attempt your advice _chef_, but I am slightly confused on the first step that you listed. Could you elaborate?

Thanks!

HL = hitachi-lg , DT = data, ST = storage, GCC = no idea but it in general all of lg combo drives have GCC in their model name , in 2000 hitachi & lg established a joint company for optical drive manufacturing see this article
http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/E/2000/1005/
you can see various info on the drive with nero infotool at "drive" tab

i wouldnt be so sure there could be other reasons,dma matters see this guide http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=101616 also its important not to have the hard drive connected along with the burner on same ide cable ,anyway all burners are compatible with certain mediacodes not all of em maybe your burner simply dont like the mediacodes your blanks have put a blank cd in and run nero infotool get into "disc" tab take a screenshot and upload to www.imageshack.us so well know whats this media all about, in some cases firmware updating will resolve a mediacode compatibility issue , and incase you arent aware most media brands are just brands they arent manufactured by the brand they are manufactured by various optical media companies like mcc/taiyo yuden/ritek/cmc/prodisc etc

to make it brief goto start>>run type cmd and press enter put this to disable the service and press enter
sc config imapiservice start= disabled

anyway after youll remove all of the burning softwares also remove the lower/upper filters as described in this article
http://support.microsoft.com/default...#91;LN];314060 ,
chef you got a bit confused bout the device manager removal let me correct you , after uninstalling the ide channel the drive entry from dvd/cd-rom drives will be automatically removed

EDIT try another media brand if you have , anyway you can get taiyo yuden cdrs from www.rima.com if your from the us they are high quality and have great compatbility among burners

Right Click "My Computer"->Manage->"+" Services->Services

Find "Imapi CD Burning"
Double click -> Set to disable.


This will disable WINXP's internal Roxio/Adaptec burning engine


Unfortunately there is also one thing which you have not yet tried.
Downoad the latest version of the program called "Forceaspi" and run it.

Although nothing uses the aspi layer anymore, and hence it's defunct, it still causes issues to this day. Running force aspi will repair it with a complete aspi layer. It's just the device comms layer between the OS & SCSI devices which M$ gutted for IDE devices.

Alright, well I just tried all of the advice that I received and I am still experiencing the same problems...

I did just successfully burn a CD, but I had to set the speed to 16x. This is pretty inconvenient seeing that my burner is 48x.

Does anyone have any other advice at all?

Really? That's an Laptop Combo, it should have come with a Laptop machine.

Can you post the firmware currently on the drive?

I'm not quite sure how to obtain the firmware on my drive. I've never really done anything hardware related, so please bare with my lack of experience.

I did notice though, when browsing through Nero Infotool that DMA is off on my secondary IDE channel under my drive. Could this possibly be a problem?

It will greatly reduce the maximum speed you can burn at.

Since the majority of burners actually don't perform the BURN-PROOF actions wholly within themselves, but rely on software to switch ir on and off, yes.

Working in PIO mode will cause coasters, as Nero can't turn burn-proof on and off fast enough.

Well, I just went to enable it. I have the secondary drive set on "DMA if available", but the Current Transfer Mode is stuck in PIO and I am unable to change it.

Are there any other devices on the ide chain?

In device manager -> delete the IDE controller & reboot your PC.
Check your bios to ensure that DMA is enabled for all devices

Then when you boot into windows, it should recognise everything & run at the proper speed.

Alright everyone, so here's the deal...

I took debro's advice and figured out how to enable DMA on my secondary IDE channel. After doing this and restarting my machine, I attempted to burn another disc. Unlike the others, this disc looked as if it was going to complete burning at 48x, which was absolutely impossible to achieve earlier. Well, the CD got to 91% and Nero froze up with a Not Responding dialouge.

I restarted my machine and again attempted to burn another CD. Unlike the last one, this one had a write error fairly early in the burning process, similar to the other CDs that I had trouble with.

So after all of this, I decided to try to decrease my write speed to 40x and disable read buffer underrun (this is where Nero froze up during the first burn). I also ran a speed test during this CD. To my surprise, Nero informed me that I could only write to this CD at a maximum of 16x, rather than 40x (any ideas why?). So I proceded to burn at this speed and successfully completed this CD.

What confuses me about all of this is that my burner should be able to burn at 48x, at least as far as I know it should. Nero wouldn't allow the possibility to burn at a speed higher than my burner is capable of, would it? I think that the DMA issue has resolved a few of the causes, but it would still be nice to be able to burn at my writer's max speed.

Thanks in advance.

as i alredy said you cant expect it to support every media no burner does that they all are limited to only certain mediacodes , your burner likely dislike that media and dont allow more then 16 cuz its the max for that mediacode in firmware or its a limit of the generic write strategy, use another brand and it might be just fine have a look at the last 3 lines of my previous reply , anyway disabling buffer underrun is not a good thing it may lead to coasters , no not nero and not any other program will allow you to burn at higher speed then your burner is capable of , i bet when you tried that 40/48x speed you selected the speed and clicked burn and then inserted the media right ? thats the only reason it allowed it,when inserting media before starting the burn process nero reads the mediacode rated speeds from firmware

Actually, I inserted the media prior to starting up the software.
Also, when I use the Nero Infotool, it tells me that my burner's max write speed is indeed 48x.

You could very well be right about the media type, so I suppose I'll have to burn at 16x until this stack is out.

okay, I lied.
I just tried to burn a CD at 16x and it errored on me again.
Does anyone have any more advice for me? this is getting quite frustrating.

Have you tried using a CDRW?

Might stop you from wasting perfectly good cd's.

Sounds like the drive is still in PIO, or the hard drive is.

How exactly can I check and/or change this?

Right click "My Computer" ->Properties->HARDWARE (tab)->Device Manager->IDE ATA/ATAPI Devices.

*NVIDIA motherboards with NVIDIA IDE drivers have Main, Primary & Secondary drivers under the same device, you will need to select relevant tabs to find/change information

Right Click "primary channel"->Properties->
All CURRENT transfer modes for BOTH master & slave should say UDMA 2/34/5/6
(ultra ata 33/45/66/100/133)

Right click "secondary channel"->propeties
All CURRENT transfer modes should say UDMA 2/3/4/5/6
If not all UDMA, there is an issue.

Select "UDMA if available" for all devices & reboot.


If the problem still exists after a restart, Attempt to remove the Main IDE device controller & restart windows (immediately).
(the primary & secondary channels are controlled by the main IDE controller, except NVIDIA )

If the problem still exists after you reboot windowsXP, then you will need to either:
a) Update to the latest version of your specific IDE drivers
b) Install drivers that are "Standard microsoft PCI IDE controller" drivers and try again.


If all this still doesn't work, download "Force Aspi" (I believe cdfreaks has a copy cached locally) and install it, reboot & try again.



If nothing works, you will need to shuffle your drives around on the ide chain, or perhaps replace your IDE cables.
At the very least, pull the connectors out of the drives & motherboard & then plug them back in again. It might be a loose cable

I had this problem once before and asked for help on these forums. I could not get the drive to operate in UDMA, it was stuck in PIO mode I finally realized I forgot to install the Intel chipset drivers for my motherboard.

Check the CDs that came with the system or the eMachines website. VIA is the most common chipset, and if that's what your motherboard has you'll be looking for "VIA 4-in-one drivers."