[Janos]

Once again I have to rely to know-how that is known as HLP.

DISCLAIMER: I know absolutely nothing of computers. I've always been happy if they just work and let me play Civ3, Soldat, FS1/2, OFP:R and so on, everything else is ancient russian to me. So, please, if you can lend me a hand, try to make it so that even the gigantic retard like me has a chance to understand. Thank you.

First, short stats of the ancient piece of **** I call "the goddamn machine":
Win XP Home
256 Mb RAM (yes, I know... )
1,66 Ghz AMD Athlon
80 Gb HD
+ NERO 5.5.10.58, Acoustica CD Burner,  AdAware 6, Spybot Search & Destroy, some other minor programs, so on. Ask me, I'll tell you.

I am so goddamn angry. I just tried to burn an audio CD with Nero, it had been over 2 months since I last made CDs to torment people around me. So I pick up a playlist, open up a brand new packet of Memnorex CDs (which have always been really good to me) and decide to burn.

"Please insert an empty disk."

Oh, a bad CD, nothing new here. I insert a new one.
And a new one.
And a new one.
After 23 CDs, all straight out of packet, I give up. "**** you, Nero, I'll try Acoustica instead."
Same thing, except:

Acoustica: "Please insert an empty medium into CD drive."
Me: Oh, fine, cancel operation.
A: "Hey, your CD is still empty, would you like to burn stuff in it?"
Me. "Hell yeah!"
Acoustica: "Please insert an empty medium."
Me: :angry:

So, all in all, my CD now refuses to identify empty CDs.
HE;LP, what in the name of Christ am I supposed to do?

[Fury]

In short: you have two different brands of CD-R discs, neither are recognized by the drive?

Sounds like a faulty drive. Does normal audio and data CD's still play normally? If yes, you should try a firmware upgrade for your drive, which will reset laser adjustment and in so doing, might fix the problem.

To find a correct firmware upgrade to your drive, you need to know exact model of your burner. If you have no idea what it is, go to Control panel > System > Hardware > Device manager > double click on DVD/CD-ROM drives and there it should be mentioned if you're lucky.

[Taristin]

Yeah. I used to have trouble knda like that with my old drive... When it goes, it gives errors like that. Probably easier to just buy a new drive...

[Janos]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury
In short: you have two different brands of CD-R discs, neither are recognized by the drive?

Sounds like a faulty drive. Does normal audio and data CD's still play normally? If yes, you should try a firmware upgrade for your drive, which will reset laser adjustment and in so doing, might fix the problem.

To find a correct firmware upgrade to your drive, you need to know exact model of your burner. If you have no idea what it is, go to Control panel > System > Hardware > Device manager > double click on DVD/CD-ROM drives and there it should be mentioned if you're lucky.

Thanks, will try. Yep, I have now tried 3 different brands of CD-Rs. Oh, and it doesn't want to erase CD-RWs either. I think I'll buy a new one. CDs play almost without problem, but the drive seems now to be malfunctioning in hardware ways (refuses to open, makes weirdo sounds and so on..)

Yep, and now I have the .bin you suggested me to aquire. Ummm... What do I do with it?

[Thorn]

Lens is probably dirty.
If you feel like you can handle taking out your burner and taking off the cover I could tell you how to clean the lens...

[Janos]

Originally posted by Thorn
Lens is probably dirty.
If you feel like you can handle taking out your burner and taking off the cover I could tell you how to clean the lens...

Hmmm.

Just use alcohol/isopropanol/lens-cleaner and lens-cleaner tissue? If so, then I'll propably give this one a shot tomorrow, when I get my friends who know a tad more about this stuff to get their lazy arses over here.

Thanks for the tip!

[Fury]

You should just clean it with a moist cloth and let it dry several hours just to be sure.

About the .bin, I take you mean firmware? There should be instructions how to use it somewhere in the site you got it from.

[Thorn]

Originally posted by Janos
Just use alcohol/isopropanol/lens-cleaner and lens-cleaner tissue? !

Yep. If you dont have any of the lens cleaner tissue, a Q-tip will work in a pinch. Just wet one end with the alcohol/etc., wipe the lens gently with it and dry the lens off with the other end of it.
I cleaned mine the other day because I could only burn at half speed. If I tried to go higher it would burn a coaster. Cleaning it fixed it.

[Nix]

I have a suggestion that's real technical, and potentially dangerous. This sorta thing happened with my Yamaha F1 burner recently, it wouldnt acknowledge that there was a disc in the drive.  I tore the drive apart anf cleaned everything, and had no luck.  I found on the laser assembly or the circuit board nearest the laser assembly, there's some sort of screw-type adjustment.  I fiddled with that, turned mine about 1/8th of a turn counter clockwise, and the drive fired up like it was brand new again.  Of course, I made this adjustment while the PC was OFF.  It would burn discs at 44x, recognize discs that were thought to be bad and such.  So if you have anyone who's willing to do that, then there you go.  Only problem with that is it could potentially destroy the drive if you juice it too much or not enough.  

Which brings me to the first thing I said, you might not want to try this at all and just try cleaning it.
If that doesnt work, this *might* but it's hard to tell.  

I've done this on OLD CD players that couldnt read CD-R discs though and have made it so they can read the new CD-R discs.  all I can figure what it is, it must be some sort of power regulator adjustment or something.  I've asked a lot of people and got noting but shrugs.

[Lonestar]

Hint: never use burners to play CD's, use a DVD drive to play CD's and only burn with a burner. Lasers on burners tend to wear out quickly when using them as play drives.

[Setekh]

Wow, I didn't know that Lonestar. Pity my laptop only has one drive.

Btw, if you haven't given it a shot, see if the WinXP home built-in burning from the Explorer shell works.

[WMCoolmon]

Originally posted by Lonestar
Hint: never use burners to play CD's, use a DVD drive to play CD's and only burn with a burner. Lasers on burners tend to wear out quickly when using them as play drives.

How come?

[mitac]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
How come?

The explanation is quite simple, as far as I know it. Fact is that the read/write head of any cd-drive moves, so that it may reach every part of a cd - inner parts as well as outer parts. Yet, the read/write head of a burner is heavier, thus movements puts more stress on the moving parts. That's why it may de-adjust a lot faster than in a read-only device, unlike a dvd-rom drive, which is bulit just for reading.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Go on, destroy my illusions.

[Vertigo1]

Dude, you're talking about a difference of a couple of grams at the most.  I have never seen any evidence to support your claim Lonestar so would you mind backing that up?

I've got an old HP 2x2x6 that has been used as a read/write drive for years and its still going strong.  Same for the 12X NEC in my mother's computer and the 32x in my father's.  Hell, the 40x burner in my computer is 2 years old and it runs like the first day I bought it.

[Darkage]

Originally posted by Nix
I have a suggestion that's real technical, and potentially dangerous. This sorta thing happened with my Yamaha F1 burner recently, it wouldnt acknowledge that there was a disc in the drive.  I tore the drive apart anf cleaned everything, and had no luck.  I found on the laser assembly or the circuit board nearest the laser assembly, there's some sort of screw-type adjustment.  I fiddled with that, turned mine about 1/8th of a turn counter clockwise, and the drive fired up like it was brand new again.  Of course, I made this adjustment while the PC was OFF.  It would burn discs at 44x, recognize discs that were thought to be bad and such.  So if you have anyone who's willing to do that, then there you go.  Only problem with that is it could potentially destroy the drive if you juice it too much or not enough.  

Which brings me to the first thing I said, you might not want to try this at all and just try cleaning it.
If that doesnt work, this *might* but it's hard to tell.  

I've done this on OLD CD players that couldnt read CD-R discs though and have made it so they can read the new CD-R discs.  all I can figure what it is, it must be some sort of power regulator adjustment or something.  I've asked a lot of people and got noting but shrugs.

Those screw-type adjustments are potentiometers. With those you can adjust the focus of your lens.