CD/DVD Drive not recognised.

[Raver]

Its pretty obvious what my problem is form the title. Ill go into a little more detial though:

Neither Windows explorer nor WMP11 will recognise the fact that this computer has a CD/DVD drive. Disks with content (content being files) are recognised but what I want to do is BURN content ONTO some disks.

Now I know some people will probably saw 'you dont have a burn compatible drive' or something along those lines, but I do, I have another very basic program which I have restorted to, to burn a couple of audio disks so it DOES burn. I have tested different sorts of re-writable disks and none of them work, so its not something to do with the brand os CDs in using.

Im trying to backup my music, phot and video collection because it looks like this computer is about to die, and the only external HDD available to me is not easily accessible at the moment. I want to keep these files backed-up but I cant do that unless either I have my external HDD which I dont, or I get the CD/DVD Drive working.

DO any of you have any suggestions as how I could fix this?

[mailpup]

I presume you are talking about burning CD's and not DVD's. The CD's burn speed might not be compatible with your burner, especially if your CD drive is old. For example, if your CD-R or CD-RW disks are 1X-4X speed, you should have no problem. But are you trying to use 8X or 12X CD's? Those won't work on older, slower CD burner drives.

[Raver]

Im using DVD disks because they have a higher storage which means less disks which I could loose. But I have tried regular CDs and it doesnt recognise them either. It doesnt even seem to know it has a CD drive half the time, well thats the case with WMP with 'connect a burner' plastered all over the screen.

I got this computer about 6 months ago. Due to some retarded thing Dell did to it, I had to reload them entire OS (Windows XP Pro) the second day I had it, its been like this since. Thats probably had something to do with it, I just need to know how to fix it.

[Rafta]

Windows and BIOS recognise your burner?
Reinstalling windows shouldn't cause problems with burners in general.

[Raver]

Well Windows Explorer doesnt, does that mean Windows in general doesnt? And BIOS?

[Rafta]

I think so.
Are you sure the master/slave switch on the back of your cd burner is set to the right setting?
Maybe the IDE cable has loosened itself. Open your case and check that I would suggest.

Edit: But you said you burnt some cds once. Was this before or after it refused to work?
Because if you still can burn with this one program the problem may be different although Ic an't believe that a program is able to burn with the burner not recognized by windows.

Please watch your boot up for hardware details (if BIOS sees the burner).

[mailpup]

Check the Device Manager and see if any devices, particularly the optical drives, have any yellow symbols next to them. Also in Device Manager, check under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers and check the channels the optical drive or drives are connected to and see if any of them show they have reverted from DMA (or UDMA) to the slow PIO mode.

[PULSTAR]

Do you have a CD/DVD from Dell that has the computer's original device drivers and software on it? It's possible that (being a corporate-made machine) the drive requires some special Dell driver to work.

[Raver]

Okay, when I try and access the CD drive with a blank disk inside it, so I can burn content onto it it says 'insert a disk into drive D:' . In WMP is says 'connect a burner'.

I have a Creative mp3 player which came with its own software, this software however burns CDs, I use that sometimes, but alot of the time I find myself wanted to burn data CDs not just audio.

Its a Dell yes, the OS crashed the second day I had it (Im very good with computers, also my dad is a system and email admin for a major australian uni, and neither of us did anything to it to make that happen, or know why it happened).

Next time i turn it on Ill watch to see if its 'noticed' by BIOS, but is there anything else you guys could suggest I do?

[Evaders99]

In the device manager, what is the actual model that windows detects for the DVD/CD-ROM drives? For example, mine is the Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-K06RS

Maybe we can search for a firmware update or something else

[Raver]

Tried that, doesnt work.

[Mas]

Had a similar problem with mine, check the jumpers on the back of the drive make sure they're set to Master.... or Cable Select with the right cable, sorted mine out fine.

Mas,