[Ganymede]

Something seems to have happened to Windows XP in the past day or so so that it doesn't know when there is a disk in either my CD or DVD burner. For example, if I want to copy files to the CD or DVD, a dialog box comes up and says "Insert a disk in drive x". I put a disk in the drive but the dialog box never goes away so I can't proceed with copying the files. Even if there's already blank media in the drive, XP still asks me to put a disk in the drive.

Another indication that something is amiss is that when I insert disks that normally autorun, they don't anymore. I have to start them manually. When I insert a DVD into the drive, normally Windows Media Player automatically comes up and starts playing the movie. Now that no longer happens. I have to manually bring up WMP and manually start the DVD.

I'm really puzzled by this as everything was fine until yesterday. The only thing that happened yesterday is that I uninstalled the Comcast Security Manager but I don't see why that would affect XP recognizing that there's a CD/DVD in the drive. HELP!

P.S. Oh, yeah, I can burn DVDs or CDs using Nero or Movie Factory. That isn't affected by the above problem.

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Sounds like a driver problem. Nero can probably burn because it probably came with your burning rom and is compatible with it. I suggest checking the Brand and Model of your cd-rom and checking the Manufacturers website for drivers and driver updates, and reinstall them. You can also go into control panel, performance and maintenance, system, click the "hardware" tab, click device manager, and look for your cdrom in the list. Double click it, click the driver tab at the top and click update driver. this may also work. When you first double click it does windows say this device is working properly? To fix the autoplay, double click "my computer" righ click your cd-rom and click properties. There is an autoplay tab at the top where you can customize the settings.

-=jonnyrotten=-

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

Sounds like a driver problem. Nero can probably burn because it probably came with your burning rom and is compatible with it. I suggest checking the Brand and Model of your cd-rom and checking the Manufacturers website for drivers and driver updates, and reinstall them. You can also go into control panel, performance and maintenance, system, click the "hardware" tab, click device manager, and look for your cdrom in the list. Double click it, click the driver tab at the top and click update driver. this may also work. When you first double click it does windows say this device is working properly? To fix the autoplay, double click "my computer" righ click your cd-rom and click properties. There is an autoplay tab at the top where you can customize the settings.

-=jonnyrotten=-

[Ganymede]

Jonnyrotten,

Thanks for your suggestions which I followed through on with some success. My DVD burner is a Pioneer DRV-105 so I went to their web site and found a new firmware update and installed that. I also made some changes after clicking the Autoplay tab. As a result of the latter, discs that used to autoplay now do so. Windows Media Player also now comes up when I put a DVD movie or SVCD disc in the drive. So that's good. However XP is still having problems recognizing when there's a blank DVD or CD in the drive. When I try to copy files to a DVD or CD, even though there's a blank disc in the drive, XP still asks me to insert a disk. Sometimes I'll open the drive and close it again but it makes no difference. The dialog box requesting a disc never goes away and the operation can not proceed. This problem also affects my backup software. Once I type in the backup path, the same dialog box comes up asking that I insert a disk in the drive whether a disk in already in the drive or not. By the way, when I right click on the DVD drive properties, XP says the device is operating properly.

This is really frustrating! In the worst case scenario I can always reinstall XP but that's not a very pleasant thought with all of the updates and service packs. I really hope someone can come up with a solution.

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

First try removing the cd-rom and reinstalling the hardware again. Right click on the cdrom in device manager. Click uninstall. Reboot the computer. Windows should automatically detect your cdrom or you can click control panel and go to back to system and click the add hardware wizard button on the hardware tab. If that doesn't work, we'll have to figure something else out to try before reinstalling windows. "Last resort".

-=jonnyrotten=-

[Ganymede]

Hi,

Just followed your suggestion and uninstalled the DVD drive. Windows did immediately recognize it when I rebooted and it was reinstalled. Sorry to say the problem is still present. XP is still asking for a disk to be inserted when one is actually in the drive!! It just doesn't seem to recognize blank media. Just in case I had a bad disk, I've tried four different brands of blank media (Fuji, Maxell, Verbatim, Memorex) in the drive and XP doesn't recognize any of them if they're blank. But as I said before, Movie Factory 2 has no problems burning DVDs or CDs.

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

What about disks that have stuff on them? Make sure you have all windows updates too.

-=jonnyrotten=-

[Ganymede]

No problem with discs that have something on them. In that case, either a window opens to show what's on the disk or a dialog box comes up giving me a choice of what I can do such as copy images, print pictures, etc. It's only disks that are blank that cause problems and, as I said earlier, this all happened Sunday or Monday. Before that, this wasn't a problem. And yes, I have all of the updates. Windows update is enabled on my system.

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

Were you able to get 'new updated' drivers for the device. Alot of times when windows updates, it makes the old drivers not work correctly and you need to update them either from microsoft, the manufacturer, or both.

-=jonnyrotten=-

have you tried cd-r and cd-rw disks?

[Ganymede]

I did obtain a firmware update from Pioneer. The original driver was from Microsoft and it is the latest one they have. I tried to update the driver but was told the current driver is the most recent.

Yes, I've tried all types of disks, both CD-R and CD-RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW, all with the same results. If they're blank, XP doesn't recognize them.

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

hmmmmmmmmm, that's strange, let me find out more.

-=jonnyrotten=-

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

Click start, run, type sfc.exe /scannow

Make sure xp disc is in drive. It will check all your critical windows files.

when finished reboot and try again.


-=jonnyrotten=-

[Ganymede]

OK, I ran sfc.exe /scannow but it was a very slow process. I kept getting messages from XP to put my Windows XP CD in the drive. It was already in there, of course. But what else is new!! The progress bar finally reached 100%. The Windows XP CD was read very few times so I don't know whether what was supposed to happen was accomplished or not. But the bottom line is that the problem remains.

I"m beginning to think that there's no solution to this problem and that I'll have to reinstall XP, something I don't look forward to.

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

If you have to reinstall try booting with the cd in the drive and when the setup screen appears press R to run a repair install. You will not lose saved data, but you will lose window updates. No big deal to reinstall them though right. This install compares your windows files to the ones on the disk and replaces any that are different.

-=jonnyrotten=-