[ronnidonni]

I added an internal Sony DVD-RW to my Dell Dimension 3000 at work today, which already has the CDRW that came with it.
Everything works fine but shortly afterward I discovered I was constantly needing to open My Computer and checking the "record to this cd" box. If I use the same drive all day it's ok, but that isn't why I added it to the computer.
It didn't take much searching to find out XP only allows one burning cd or dvd drive at a time. What kind of shortsighted planning is that??!!.
Morons, whoever wrote the programming.

I need to be able to write to both drives at the same time.... is there any sort of relatively easy fix for this?
I have the same computer at home, Dell Dimension 3000 and have an LG external dvd-ram and tonight discovered the same thing happens in My Computer. I check one and the other one un-checks itself. I've had the external burner and the internal burner on my home computer for over a year but never have had the problem here. I don't use the burn functions at home even a fraction of what I do at work and maybe I've had to re-check the boxes here a few times, I just don't remember.
Mainly, I want to be able to use both burners at work without having the hassle of checking the box everytime I need to burn to a disk.
To be fair I did find a few sites with registry changes. I have made registry changes before and am not scared to do that but I want to see if there is a better way first.
BTW, I set the jumper to Slave, which was the optional setting in the manual with the new burner. The preferred option was to set it as Master so I reset it but then the computer couldn't find the drive. I set it back to Slave.

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You can only have one drive set to use the Windows CD writing at any one time. When the technology was added, most people only had one drive. Many branded computers now still only have one drive. Please remember XP is the best part of seven years old now therefore some of its methods, limitations and ideologies were built around the time of its conception. Bit like a car - Since 1998 every new car in the European Union is required by law to have an immobiliser fitted but you can still buy second hand cars that don't have them as they come from a time before the law was changed.

Nero or similiar software allows you to choose which drive you want before you burn it.

[Neil Jones]

You can only have one drive set to use the Windows CD writing at any one time. When the technology was added, most people only had one drive. Many branded computers now still only have one drive. Please remember XP is the best part of seven years old now therefore some of its methods, limitations and ideologies were built around the time of its conception. Bit like a car - Since 1998 every new car in the European Union is required by law to have an immobiliser fitted but you can still buy second hand cars that don't have them as they come from a time before the law was changed.

Nero or similiar software allows you to choose which drive you want before you burn it.

[ronnidonni]

Thanks. I understand the situation and was hoping some software writer would have developed a program to over come it by now.
It probably isn't a big deal for most folks and I can certainly work with it. One thing I've noticed on my computer at work, running XP Home is that many times when I try to write to the cd it tells me the cd is full, etc.... and can't be written to. When I open the properties in My Computer the recording box is checked, so I un-check it, press apply, then re-check it and it works. However, my computer is close to the same age as XP and I think is due for a format. Lot's of software added and removed on that computer.
Thanks for getting back to me.