[Big Mark]

Hello all
When I put a blank cd in my cd rw it would not copy anything that includes music or documents so I bought a new dvd rw and installed that and that dvd rw carried on the same way so I tried to system restore but my PC would not restore to any date I picked. I thought my coping would have been sorted out when I fitted a new rw but no can anyone help me with this
Regards
Big Mark

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did you install the drivers for the new drive?
and is the drive showing up under my computer and/or device manager?
also, what OS are you using?

[audioboy]

did you install the drivers for the new drive?
and is the drive showing up under my computer and/or device manager?
also, what OS are you using?

[Big Mark]

yes
yes
and XP

[audioboy]

OK, if you put a disc in the DVD, can you see whats on it (does the disc read correctly)?

next under my computer, right click on the drive, select properties, then the hardware tab. under device properties is should say the device is working properly.
then under the recording tab, make sure recording is enabled for the drive.

also, is the drive recognized by your burn program?

[Big Mark]

No you can not see what is on it when you put a DVD in it.
Yes it does say the device is working properly and recording is enabled. and the drive is recognized by your burn program. It is really a very strange. I really appreciate you helping me here in Ireland.

[audioboy]

is this a dell or compaq PC? sometimes they can be finicky...
lets try this. go to control panel, add remove hardware, and remove the DVD drive. then reboot the PC, the add new hardware wizard should pop up. if you have any driver discs that came with it, use them.
windows may also just automatically recognize the drive and install it, but it should still give you a little message telling you its doing that.
then see if you can read a disc from the drive.

I'm happy to help out...I'll be even happier when we get this working for you!
I will be back on the forums in a few hours. let me know how it goes.

[Big Mark]

Hello again. I gave the task trying to fix the PC to my son, as he is far more technically skilled than i am. But even he cannot fix it. We will take the PC to a shop to have it looked at. I was wondering if you would be able to help me with something else? I would like to reinstall Windows XP on the computer, but i have been told numerous times that i need a Windows CD to do this. I did not recieve one with the computer, and was told that there is a hidden partition on the computer that has all the data. How can i access this, and how then can i use this data to re-install windows?

Much obliged for you help

Mark

Edited by Big Mark, 07 May 2005 - 09:05 AM.

[Samm]

Some systems built by the large manufacturers place whats known as a system or restore partition on their hard drives.
Depending on the manufacturer, this partition allows you do do things like run hardware diagnostics, restore software etc. It is usually accessed by pressing a special key on boot up, but again this varies from one system to another.

What computer do you have?

[Big Mark]

Hi Samm
Thanks for your reply
Over here we cannot vote for any of the British Parliament we have the dinosaurs lead by Ian Paisley. But anyhow I found the master boot disk and I have rebooted the pc back to when it came out of the box but I still have the original problem I started with do you think it could be a faulty IDE cable I have tried everything else
Regards
Big Mark

[Samm]

Hi Big Mark

Could be one of several things, I need to know the folllowing info :

1. When you installed the drive, did you configure the jumper on the back to Master, Slave or CS? Also, is it on a cable on it's own?
Also, are you using a 40 wire or an 80 wire ribbon cable for it?

2. Does it read normal CDs & DVDs. ie not blank & not copied ones?

3. What burning software are you using?

4.Can you tell me what make & model of computer you have so I can check on any known issues with it?

And yes the IDE cable could be the problem but I'll get a better idea about that once I know the above info.

[Big Mark]

Hi Samm

No 1 Master and no it shares with a dvd player and I think it is 40 wire
No 2 No it reads nothing but if I put in a dvd into the player above, that plays
No 3 Nero
No 4 Packard Bell Pentium 4. 1.50Ghz . 512 mb ACPI uniprocessor PC

I also checked the Device Manager and in Properties it states Working Properly

Kind Regards
Big Mark

[Samm]

Ok, the configuration seems fine. Do you have the DVD drive attached to the end of the ribbon cable or to the middle connector?

Can you try a couple more things a minute :

1. I don't know how much info is displayed in a Packard Bell Bios but try this anyway : Reboot the system & go into the bios - usually by pressing the F1 or the F2 key a few times a couple of seconds after the system powers on.

2. In the bios, there should be a list of all the installed drives. Make sure that the DVD drive is in this list & let me know what the settings are for it (if any). Failing that, run the auto-detect drive option if there is one.

3. When you've done that, exit out of the bios & boot windows in safe mode - press F8 key several times just before windows starts to load. This should bring up a boot menu - select safe mode from the menu & press Enter.

4. When windows has loaded, go into device manager, & look in the CD section. If any of the CDROM/DVD devices appear more than once, then delete all of them. If they only appear once, then don't delete. If there are any devices listed that are no longer installed on your system, delete them also.

5. Reboot the system normally. If you did delete all the CD/DVD devices, then they will be reinstalled on reboot.

Let me know what happens.

[Big Mark]

Hi Samm

Just in from work

I did all of the above and nothing changed
In BIOS
LBA Mode :on
Block Mode : off
Fast programed I/O modes :4
32 Bit transfer mode : on
Regards
Big Mark

[Samm]

OK, check the following for me :

1. Is the DVD Reader set to slave?

2. Is the DVD Burner on the end of the cable, with the DVD reader in the middle?

3. If the answer to 1+2 is yes, swap the drives around on the cable & set the reader to master & the burner to slave. Go back into the bios & run autodetect again.
Then tell me what the bios config settings are again, but this time give me the settings for both optical drives.

4. Out of interest, you mentioned in an earlier post, that Nero recognises the DVD writer correctly. Does Nero recognise the contents of a normal (ie non copied) (1) DVD (2) CD when placed in the DVD writer?
Also, does Nero recognise the disc correctly when you insert a blank DVD or CD ?

[Big Mark]

Hi Samm
A friend of mine called and he brought with him a dvd rw he had at home and we fitted that one and it worked just fine. The new one i had bought must be faulty so i am returning it to the company.
Thank you so much for your help I can say now i Know a lot more about the computer after following your instructions.
Keep up the good work there are a lot of people out there that need people like you
Kind Regards
Big Mark