I recently purchased an NEC 3520A DVD R/RW, 50 Verbatim DVD-R's, and a copy of Nero from Newegg. I have updated the firmware to 1.05 and ran Nero Infotool to be sure that the DVds I purchased are compatible. In Infotool, DVD-R is checked, but whenever I put one of the discs in and attempt to burn it, the disc gets ejected and I get a msg saying "Please insert an empty disc to write to". What do I need to do in order to get my DVD burner to write to these discs? I updated the firmware as was suggested in other forums but it is still not working.

Dumb question - why did you immediately flash the firmware on a brand new burner? Do you have it configured as the 2ndary master & NOT paired up with another optical drive? ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

I didn't immediately flash the burner. I flashed the burner after it was not working using the 1.01 firmware that it was originally configured with. 1.01 does not support DVD-R. NEC didn't add DVD-R to their firmware until 1.04 was released in May. Yes, it is configured as the secondary master. It is the only optical drive currently in my PC. It reads fine, it just won't burn.

I am confused. My NEC 3520A was manufactured in Dec 2004 and came with firmware 1.04. I had support for both - and + media. The latest version of the firmware is 3.05. I have never had any problems with Verbatim - media. I tend to think that you may have a problem other than firmware.

It sounds like you have the 'baffling' audio track syndrome. This is a windows bug that causes blank DVD discs to be detected as having a single audio track. If you look at it with My Computer it shows a single '.CDA' track. This problem comes and goes. 'Sometimes' a reboot will get rid of the problem temporarily.

But the blank DVDs aren't being read at all. When I put one in my RW drive, and click properties, I get Used Space 0, Free Space 0. Before I flashed my drive, the program had listed the firmware version it was currently using. My firmware was 1.01. I have no idea why it was 1.01 and not 1.04 or 1.05. Maybe it was an older drive that had been sitting in the warehouse for a couple years. I dunno. But the firmware was 1.01. If it was 1.04, I would not have flashed the drive because I likely would not have had any issues with it. I have tried rebooting. I tried rebooting, several times, before I flashed the drive and nothing changed. Reboot is always my first response when I have PC issues. If that does not work, I troubleshoot, starting with whatever info I can dig up on Google. Several websites, including reader reviews of this drive in Newegg, said it worked fine after firmware was updated. Well, I updated my firmware and still have issues. Since the firmware is updated, then my problem must be somewhere else. I tried burning other DVDs from my 50 stack and got the same result, so it's not an issue with a singular coaster.Can anyone please point me in the right direction? I might try calling NEC tomorrow, but somehow I doubt their lines are open on the weekend.

Ok, scratch that, it's not reading correctly. I just tried my Morrowind disk and it didn't autorun like it should have. So what do I need to do to re-flash the drive? I followed the instructions to the letter - was in safe mode, wires disconnected, the whole bit, and it's still not reading.