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Comment:
I have this ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... ) NEC CD/DVD RW drive I got brand new off of Newegg, and installed into my computer about 6 months ago. It's the only external media drive currently connected to anything in my computer. However, Windows doesn't detect the drive as a combo RW and I can't use this drive to burn anything. Under My Computer, it says I have TWO drives, CD Drive (E:) and DVD Drive (G:). The firmware is up to date and Windows can't find any better drivers.
Unlike this guy ( http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/... ) I don't have any Roxio software or Nero installed.
I'm just trying to burn using Windows Media Player, which I thought would have the least compatibility issues. Ripping works fine. Windows denies that I can burn ("No CD or DVD burner has been detected"). Device Manager lists it as a DVD/CD-ROM drive.
Does XP have a native inability to use DVD-RW's?
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Motherboard: ECS RS485M-M (MicroATX)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 Dual Core 2.8 Ghz
RAM: DDR2, 500MB x 2, dual channel
Vid Card: ATI Radeon X1900 XTX
HD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard DriveI really don't think I have hardware conflicts aside from this drive.
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This has probably been asked...have you tried with the bundled software that came with the burner?
Has the burner ever worked as you said you've had it for 6 months already?
Some HELP in posting on Cnet plus free progs and instructions Glad to Help!
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Does XP have a native inability to use DVD-RW?
Yes. XP by itself doesn't recognize DVD (other than CD) nor will it write to any rewritable discs for burning sessions. Windows Vista corrected XP double "native inability" (or deficiencies).
i_Xp/VistaUser
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"Does XP have a native inability to use DVD R/Ws"?
I believe that XP can burn CDs but cannot write to DVD drives. I think you have to use the software that came with the drive (like XpUser4real said) or a program like Nero.
(edit) Ooops, a little late on that one.
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It's never too late for any postings. A lot of us overlap someone else from time to time but it's always good to have a different angle to the same issue :-)
i_Xp/VistaUser
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One other point worth mentioning is that to properly use that drive you need an 80 wire IDE cable. 80 wire and 40 wire are physically interchangable but the 80 wire uses finer wires and has colored connectors. The MBoard connector is usually blue but can be yellow or red. If all the connectors are black you have a 40 wire cable.
Watch the startup screens to see if the drive is identified by model number, as it should be.
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Both the things OtheHill has mentioned will affect whether a burner drive is detected as a burner drive in Windows - the main chipset drivers must be loaded in order for the drive controllers to be recognized properly, and your particular drive requires an 80 wire data cable connection.
The drive must be detected as running in a mode other than PIO - it should be running in Ultra DMA 4 mode in your case.
See this:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devic...
If the drive connection the burner drive is connected to is in PIO mode, try setting it to DMA if available, save settings, go back in and see if that has changed to something other than PIO.
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I am using Nero Express ($$) and Burn4Free (free). Both are OK. Nero is quite a bit faster.
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Thank you everyone! I didn't have the mobo drivers installed, and the drive didn't come with any software itself. So I did that and switched out the cable--and voila! It works! Thank you so much for the help, guys!
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