HELP! CD-RW will read, but won't write!

[ND4SPD]

Hi All,
Having a rather bizarre problem with a computer system here. The specs are as follows (everything is brand new):

MSI 865PE Neo2 Motherboard
Intel P4G 2.4 Processor
Kingston PC2100 512MB RAM
MSI Ti4200 8X AGP GC
MSI 52x24x52x CD-RW (using Nero 5)

The problem is this: the CDRW reads just fine, but when I try to burn anything with it I get a "session fixation" error in nero. It doesn't even write to the disc, it just bombs out after a few seconds. I've had this problem once before when I mistakenly hooked a CDRW up to an ATA66/100 cable, but after I switched to a standard IDE cable it worked fine. Well, *initially* this was the case, so I switched the CDRW over to the secondary channel with a standard IDE cable. Same problem occured. This MB has S-ATA, so I was wondering if that might have anything to do with it, but I don't think the SATA is enabled. I've also tried a different drive (A Samsung 52x24x) and the system wouldn't even recognize that drive as a CDRW (again read just fine). I've got a tech-support e-mail into MSI, but who knows how long it'll take them to get back to me. Anyone experience this before? Ideas would be fantastic.

Thanks,
Wes

[stroyal]

I had 2 CDRW stop working after running Windows update.
I had to then update the burner programs to get them to work again

[JPMiller]

there is a patch that can be downloaded from Ahead
This may fix

[Foggy]

You could try going to safe mode and removing all your cd roms/burners, reboot and let what ever OS your using reinstall the drivers, also you could uninstall nero and reinstall or try another prog. Easy CD Creator comes to mind, good luck.

[CatScam]

This just happened to me as well, after a clean windows install Nero was having fits with my CDRW.
But for some reason CD-Mate, a Nero clone worked just fine. Give it a try & see if it works for you.

CD-Mate (30 day try, Shareware)
http://www.cd-mate.com/

[ND4SPD]

I haven't had a chance to try anything else with this PC, but there are some things I left out of my original post.

First of all, the drive refuses to write properly with *any* software. The integral Windows XP writing, Nero, and Alcohol 120% all failed to work. That tells me that it is not a problem with Nero.

Second, apparently due to the arrangement of the drives on the IDE channels during installation the primary hard drive was given the drive-letter E:. There is a 100MB zip drive that ended up with C:, and the CDRW was of course D:. I have a hard time believing that this would create a problem like that, but who knows.

The fact that the Samsung drive didn't work either seems to point to either an OS problem, or a MB problem.

The problem with this whole deal is that the computer is a 6 hour drive away, so I can't just pop over and try stuff. I have been doing most of the work on it through a combination of phone support and remote control. I will be meeting them 1/2 way later on tonight to try and work on it some more. I really hope it isn't a bad MB problem.

Wes



Wes

[JPMiller]

Try replacing the cable.
try removing the Ide drivers and rebooting and reinstalling them.

[ND4SPD]

Alright,
Fixed the problem, but I don't exactly know how I fixed it. For some reason, when I had the Zip drive and the CDRW both jumpered as "CS (cable select)" (tried both modes of CS on the zip drive) only one of the drives would show up. But if I unplugged either one, the one that remained plugged in would show up so that ruled out either of the master/slave channel being non-functional. So, changing the jumpering so that the CD-RW was master and the Zip drive as the slave seemed to fix the problem where the CDR wasn't always being detected by windows as a writeable drive. But, I found that a few other things in Windows were hosed, so I decided to do a complete re-partition/re-format/re-install (the "Shotgun" fix as I like to call it... blow everything away and start over). Nero worked right off the bat after I did that so I am thinking that maybe one of the XP updates I installed must have messed something up. Nothing like Microsoft fixing bugs by creating new ones.

Wes