NEC ND-2500A: Lost its CD burning mojo, DVD burning okay...

Hi,

My NEC ND-2500A has been a pretty consistent DVD burner for the year or so that I've owned it. In recent weeks I've tried burning some CDs with it (after not having attempted any CD burns for some months), and I can't get it to recognize any blank CD media that I put in there: various CD-R or CD-RW.

It's also become extremely bad at reading burned media: CD-R, CD-RW or any kind of burned DVD... it can burn great, but it can't really see anything that has been burned.

Between the last time I burned a CD sucessfully and now I have updated the drive firmware to the manufacturer's version of 1.09. Is this new firmware known to screw up CD burning ability?

Right now I'm trying to make burns with some Memorex CD-R -- a 50 pack that I got at Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, I can't use DVDInfoPro to find out who really makes them (ie - CMC, etc.) to ensure that they're supposed to be compatible with the list provided here:

http://www.nec.it/documenti/informatica/download/1579_Media_List_for_8x_DVD_Writer_(1.07).pdf

So, I guess I have a few questions:


1) Anybody know who manufactures Memorex 52x CD-R disks that come in the 50 pack at Wal-Mart?

2) Are there any custom Dangerous Brothers, Herrie, etc. firmwares available designed to give improved CD burning abilities?

3) Any suggestions on how to improve reading performance?

4) Anybody want to buy an excellent condition ND-2500A so I can get a new drive? (Just kidding!)

Thanks for any info or guidance!

Sounds like the cd-r part of your dvd burner is getting bad.It is possible for a dvd burner to stop buring cd's and still burn dvd's like a charm. I'm still using herrie's 1.07v2b5 version to burn everything. Only problem I had with a certain cd brand was that it didn't burn at fast speeds. Had to set it to 8 speed to stop getting coasters. About your problem of the drive not even detecting blank cd's is severe. Really sounds to me like a hardware problem. Can't believe it's the cause of using bad media, at least I'm not familiar with Memorex selling bad stuff.

i am. the last 2 spindles have been crap BUT if you cannot even see them that is not a good sign. i would try reading cds first and see if it can do that. then i would try another media

I would say the 50 packs in North America (the 52x rated ones with the newer stylish label side) are Prodisc manufactured; any such ones I've bought in Canada have been Prodisc, haven't seen CMC much at all from Memorex lately.