I have an MSI6191 motherboard with AMD 750/756 chipset running at 700mhz. (AGP,PCI,ISA,USB bus's), Nvidia Riva TNT2 model 64 graphics card and Creative Soundblaster 128 (ES1373) sound card. The PC is an OEM from Time Computers in the UK. The hard disk is IDE with AMD IDE drivers. I have two Samsung CD-ROM drives attached both on the same IDE cable. The master is a Samsung CDR SC148F and the slave is a Samsung Combo SM304B. A while back I had to format my hard disk and reload the OEM version of Windows 98SE, but since then the Combo drive has not recognised ANY blank disks inserted. I've tried different disk manufacturers to no avail and I have tried removing the drives via device manager then rebooting .... again with no luck. The 'Start Drive letter' and 'End drive letter' on settings is currently set on blank although I have tried both with their respective drive letters inserted. I have messed about with MSCDEX and tried out a ton of different CD-ROM device drivers ...... but all to no avail!! My Combo drive will play DVD disks and disks with auto menus. The only thing it will not do is recognise blank disks. I use (or rather would like to use!!) the latest version of Nero but always, Nero tells me 'there is no media present'. The blank disks whiz (slowly) around in the drive with the light blinking until eventually the light goes out and nothing else happens. I have either got a communication problem between computer and Cambo or a broken drive, but I don't know which. Can anyone help??? Please !! Ian

You say it worked fine before the format, but stopped straight after? If so I'm not too sure whats wrong. Too me it sounds like a broken drive or dirty laser or something. Try a cleaning CD. As you say it will read DVDs fine, I dont expect that it is a loose cable or anything. Good Luck David

Have you found an answer yet? I have the exact same problem. I am running Windows XP Pro, so I don't think the OS is the problem. I have also upgraded the drive firmware to the latest. Once in a while it will recognize the media, but then it won't let me copy. If you've solved your problem, I would appreciate it if you could let me know. Thanks.

I have the same problem, the Combo SM304b work fine for DVD but it doenot recognize any blank CD or data CD, and it was working fine undes Win 98 (even under Win Me). Can somebody help me to solve this problem?

same problem or at least similar.cannot get "hypermedia"cdrs to work but at least an other does work. "prime peripherals". i ran out and got the hypermedia which do not get recognised.