OT: For the DVD Computer Geeks

Westie said:

The DVD+RW drive in my 2 year old Dell is having problems and I wonder
if I should get something new or if it is a driver conflict. Quite apart
from difficulties in finding the DVD+ or the now non-existant CD+ media
in my part of the world, it seems to have problems burning.

It reads fine with anything - no problems there. It burns fine with DVD
Decrypter. But that's the only thing that will burn to it.

I can't get it to copy stuff from Windows like it used to. I'm trying
to back-up folders of photos by using the ol' "Send to D:" from the
context menus, or dragging and dropping in Explorer. I use a DVD+RW. It
tells me that "Windows does not support this CD-R format. To use this
disc, please choose the task "Erase Disc"". I try to erase it and it
starts the erase wizard and then immediately tells me that "Windows
cannot finish erasing this disc and has stopped the process. Please try
again." I close that window and then Windows often responds like I've
just inserted a disc into the drive - bring up the dialog asking me what
I want to do with the disc.

Sometimes the drive locks up, keeps spinning, and won't respond to an
eject command. I have to shut the system down. Sometimes I poke the
drive door open with the ol' paperclip and the disc shoots out still
spinning....

I'm stuck. I've tried different programs, I've tried restarting. I've
tried different discs, both CD and DVD. I've tried all sorts of things....
Any thoughts?
--
Westie

It sounds like you are trying to use Windows to do all the CD/DVD
writing tasks. I have never been a fan of this. Althought Micro$oft
will have you believe windows can do it all, it can't. My suggestion is
to get a program like NERO to do all the work. You can download it
right from their site and it's not very expensive and of course there
are other ways to register it, but it's worth the small price they charge.

If you are set on using Windows to do the burning tasks, then as a last
resort (and as long as you have driver disks laying around) you can go
into the control panel (under printers and Other Hardware, then system,
then hardware, then device manager) and delete the drive from the
system. Then do a scan for new hardware and let it reinstall the drive.
This usually cures 75% of windows hardware problems without totally
[censored] up your system.

Why is it so hard to find CD/DVD media in NZ? The [censored] all comes from
Aisa and your not that far away from there.

--
o-o-o-o Ride-A-Lot o-o-o-o
www.schnauzers.ws

Quoted message said:

I'm stuck. I've tried different programs, I've tried restarting. I've
tried different discs, both CD and DVD. I've tried all sorts of
things....
Any thoughts?
--
Westie

In addition to Mitch's good suggestions, if you don't find any
satisfaction, you could try posting your problem in 24hoursupport.helpdesk
ng. There's some really helpful super-geeks there, but there are also....
well, you'll find out.
--
Slack

while we are doing the OT geek thing... I just got my son a 160 GB hard
drive ( he just got his eagle) and he wants to give me his 80 gb drive. No
known issues, I know he's refomatted it a few times just because that's what
he does, any reason NOT to take it, it's about 2 years old.

tia

Penny

small change said:

while we are doing the OT geek thing... I just got my son a 160 GB hard
drive ( he just got his eagle) and he wants to give me his 80 gb drive. No
known issues, I know he's refomatted it a few times just because that's what
he does, any reason NOT to take it, it's about 2 years old.

tia

Penny

At two years old, don't make it your primary drive. I have a 250GB
firewire drive I use on my workstation for the videos and such. When
I'm not using it, it's turned off (which is most of the time). My
computers stay on all the time (well, the server has to). As long as
you don't power up and down a million times a day, the drive should last
you at least a few more years.

--
o-o-o-o Ride-A-Lot o-o-o-o
www.schnauzers.ws

Ride-A-Lot said:

small change said:

while we are doing the OT geek thing... I just got my son a 160 GB
hard drive ( he just got his eagle) and he wants to give me his 80
gb drive. No known issues, I know he's refomatted it a few times
just because that's what he does, any reason NOT to take it, it's
about 2 years old.

tia

Penny

At two years old, don't make it your primary drive. I have a 250GB
firewire drive I use on my workstation for the videos and such. When
I'm not using it, it's turned off (which is most of the time). My
computers stay on all the time (well, the server has to). As long as
you don't power up and down a million times a day, the drive should
last you at least a few more years.

OK, that answers that. I'll donate it to the extra part bin. At 20 gb, I've
been wanting bigger but I think I'll wait and get a newnew one. I usually
just turn the system on in the morning, off in the pm.

thanks

Ride-A-Lot said:

Westie wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm stuck. I've tried different programs, I've tried restarting.
I've tried different discs, both CD and DVD. I've tried all sorts of
things....
Any thoughts?
--
Westie

My suggestion is
to get a program like NERO to do all the work.

OK, Sounds like a plan. I'll check it out. Thanks.

Quoted message said:

If you are set on using Windows to do the burning tasks, then as a last
resort (and as long as you have driver disks laying around) you can go
into the control panel (under printers and Other Hardware, then system,
then hardware, then device manager) and delete the drive from the
system. Then do a scan for new hardware and let it reinstall the drive.
This usually cures 75% of windows hardware problems without totally
[censored] up your system.

Quoted message said:

Why is it so hard to find CD/DVD media in NZ? The [censored] all comes from
Aisa and your not that far away from there.

I suspect it's because we're a small population of 4 million. Now that
virtually any drive will burn to - and + I guess the electronics stores
just don't want to carry extra stock of + when - will suit 90% of
people, and they can sell a new +/- drive to the other 10%. As I recall
I got my Dell during that short time that most drives were one format or
the other and not a combo. I don't want to get another optical drive
unless I have to, and then I'm trying to hang out until I know what
blu-ray and HD-DVD is doing....

The - format has won the betamax/VHS war here in New Zealand.
--
Westie

small change said:

while we are doing the OT geek thing... I just got my son a 160 GB hard
drive ( he just got his eagle) and he wants to give me his 80 gb drive. No
known issues, I know he's refomatted it a few times just because that's what
he does, any reason NOT to take it, it's about 2 years old.

tia

Penny

Could be a handy back-up drive to store stuff on.
--
Westie

small change said:

OK, that answers that. I'll donate it to the extra part bin. At 20 gb, I've
been wanting bigger but I think I'll wait and get a newnew one. I usually
just turn the system on in the morning, off in the pm.

You might want to consider using it as a second drive. You should be able
to find backup or sync software so you can have two copies of anything
important. That's what I did...I just never have anything important at
home to back up!

--
-BB-
To e-mail me, unmunge my address

BB said:

small change said:

OK, that answers that. I'll donate it to the extra part bin. At 20 gb, I've
been wanting bigger but I think I'll wait and get a newnew one. I usually
just turn the system on in the morning, off in the pm.

You might want to consider using it as a second drive. You should be able
to find backup or sync software so you can have two copies of anything
important. That's what I did...I just never have anything important at
home to back up!

As long as you have a partition the same size as your primary drive, you
can use the mirroring utility built into Windows XP and 2000:

To add a mirror to an existing simple volume
Using the Windows interface

You can mirror volumes only on computers running Windows 2000 Server,
Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.

Open Computer Management (Local).
In the console tree, click Disk Management.

Computer Management (Local)
Storage
Disk Management

Right-click the simple volume you want to mirror, click Add Mirror, and
then follow the instructions on your screen.
Notes

To open Computer Management, click Start, and then click Control Panel.
Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then
double-click Computer Management.
You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the
Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your
computer is connected to a network, network policy settings might also
prevent you from completing this procedure.
Any existing simple volume can be mirrored onto another dynamic disk, as
long as there is sufficient unallocated space on that disk. If you do
not have a dynamic disk with enough unallocated space, the Add Mirror
menu item is unavailable. (To verify you have enough space, right-click
the disk, click Properties, and then check the size in Unallocated
Space. This size may be slightly smaller than shown in the graphical and
list views.)
Mirrored volumes are fault tolerant and use RAID-1, which provides
redundancy by creating two identical copies of a volume.
You cannot extend a simple volume after it has been mirrored.
Both copies (mirrors) of the mirrored volume share the same drive letter.

--
o-o-o-o Ride-A-Lot o-o-o-o
www.schnauzers.ws

In article said:

The DVD+RW drive in my 2 year old Dell is having problems and I wonder
if I should get something new or if it is a driver conflict. Quite apart
from difficulties in finding the DVD+ or the now non-existant CD+ media
in my part of the world, it seems to have problems burning.

It reads fine with anything - no problems there. It burns fine with DVD
Decrypter. But that's the only thing that will burn to it.

I can't get it to copy stuff from Windows like it used to. I'm trying
to back-up folders of photos by using the ol' "Send to D:" from the
context menus, or dragging and dropping in Explorer. I use a DVD+RW.
It tells me that "Windows does not support this CD-R format. To use
this disc, please choose the task "Erase Disc"". I try to erase it and
it starts the erase wizard and then immediately tells me that "Windows
cannot finish erasing this disc and has stopped the process. Please try
again." I close that window and then Windows often responds like I've
just inserted a disc into the drive - bring up the dialog asking me what
I want to do with the disc.

Sometimes the drive locks up, keeps spinning, and won't respond to an
eject command. I have to shut the system down. Sometimes I poke the
drive door open with the ol' paperclip and the disc shoots out still
spinning....

I'm stuck. I've tried different programs, I've tried restarting. I've
tried different discs, both CD and DVD. I've tried all sorts of things....
Any thoughts?
--
Westie

Real self respecting geeks wouldn't be caught dead doing anything
other than play games on windows😉

--
Tim.