CD writing blues!

[mariner_heart]

lately my cd-rw/dvd rom (combo- matshita ujda770) has been giving me some problems.
it reads CDs and DVDs perfectly but it has stopped burning discs.
it makes ticking noises when i try to write a disc. it has stopped recognising blank rewritable discs although it recognises blank CDs.
i have tried reducing burn speeds till 4x but still had no luck.

is there any software which can tell me where the problem lies.
nero gives a "track following error"
NTI gives "hardware error"

can any softeare tell me if the lens is ok (i've tried cleaning that too)
please help me! (or just tell me how much does a new dvd-writer costs for a laptop acer aspire 5500z)
thanks a lot!
:(:(:(:(

[rohitsharman]

Step 1: Start Registry Editor
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK. Registry Editor starts.

Step 2: Delete the UpperFilters registry entry
1. In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
2. Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
3. Expand Control, and then expand Class.
4. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
5. In the right pane (topic area), click UpperFilters.

Note An UpperFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the UpperFilters registry entry, you must click UpperFilters and not UpperFilters.bak.
6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
7. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the UpperFilters registry entry:
Are you sure you want to delete this value?
The UpperFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.

Note Do not exit Registry Editor. You must have this program for the next step.

Step 3: Delete the LowerFilters registry entry
1. In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
2. Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
3. Expand Control, and then expand Class.
4. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
5. In the right pane (topic area), click LowerFilters.

Note An LowerFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the LowerFilters registry entry, you must click LowerFilters and not LowerFilters.bak.
6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
7. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the LowerFilters registry entry:
Are you sure you want to delete this value?
The LowerFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.
8. Exit Registry Editor.

Step 4: Restart the computer


If problem persists, remove and re-install your CD Writing software(Nero), if issue is still not resolved, then there can be an issue with the optical drive itself. How old is the drive ?

[mariner_heart]

sorry friend,i did all what u said but still i have the same problem.
my drive is 1 and a half year old.
but i still have doubts because it can read perfectly
btw thanks for ur help.

[mariner_heart]

dumped that cd drive and got a new sony g520a dvd-writer for my laptop today for us$75.

[rohitsharman]

All right mate, even i wuz about to advise you to get the lens changed:)

[Rudegar]

even thou laptop optical drives are more expesive then desktop ones
i doubt putting too much efford into fixing one would pay off

[scousemartin]

there are two lenses on a cd/dvd writer one for reading and one for writing. Just a fact i wanted to share :D

[mariner_heart]

i think i must have screwed up the "writing" part of the writer!
by the way thanks rohit, rudegar and scousemartin for helping me.

one more thing.
now when i burn dvds using my new writer (using nero)
the buffer level (not on dvd drive but on hard disk) is always less than half utilised whereas the buffer on dvd drive is at 100%
this burner should write a dvd at max 8x but i get a max of about 6x.
is it any problem?

[mariner_heart]

my luck is so screwed up.
today the new sony g520a dvd writer stopped recognizing dvds and is not burning dvds too. although cd read/write is fine.
its been just 3 months and this happened again.
i always write on sony media.

[m3uch4]

Damn, you have no luck

Reminds me of the days when i decided to stop burning discs altogether, buy 4 Seagate 500Gb hard drives and get them in a raid5 array... I had the same kind of issues you have : readers breaking too often, beloved discs unreadable, important data lost...
Hard drives are way safer (get a raid NAS), and cheaper per Go, and faster... i will never burn discs again i swear. :D

[rohitsharman]

RAID can b a good option, but it's not always feasible to buy 4 500 GBs of HDDs :eek:, that too for a laptop. It's not that its gotta b your hardware (DVD writer) on fault. Can b operating system issue as well.

Uninstall and reinstall your burner application(Sonic, Nero), if you are usin' one. Try system restore, if this thing started lately.

Trust me, small simple things work wonders sometimes. Moreover it's NOT RECOGNIZING issue, check and reinstall the drivers, as well.

Good luck, mate.