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The Strangest Thing You'll Ever Hear....

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Last response: in Storage
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I recently built a new system, and I used a CDDVDW drive, a Samsung SH-S202G, from a past build.

The specs of the rest of my system are as follows:

- Intel 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo E4600 Allendale at stock speed
- ASUS P5KPL-CM motherboard
- RAM: Wintec Ampx, DDR2 800mhz; 2 sticks of 1gb.
- GPU: EVGA 8800GTS 320bit 640mb video memory; running highly overclocked, far passed the EVGA overlock on this card.
- 1x160gb Western Digital hard drive at 7200rpm
- Running under WinXP Home SP2

Everything is updated. The drivers, the firmware, everything. The updates for the operating system are custom, as in I've decided what it needs and what it doesn't. There aren't any hardware or software updates that need to be done.

The problem that occurs is, I can burn DVDs, but I cannot read them. It locks up explorer.exe and crashes it, and I am forced to log out of my account through task manager in order to regain control (I tried to execute a new explorer.exe through task manager which sometimes works, but lately it hasn't).

What I tried to do is burn a Linux ISO, as well as a Windows Server 2003 ISO, neither of which worked (don't complain about pirating, I legally own licenses for WinServ 03), neither worked.

I'm using Hewlet and Packard DVD+RW discs that are rated for 4x speed. I used Roxio, and some other open source programs, but none worked.

It did this on my old build, too, which leads me to believe it could be a couple things:

- The drive itself is shot
- The discs are shot (I bought five and used three of the same kind, none worked, so I doubt it's the discs because 3/5 is pretty lucky for disc failure)
- I need WinXP Service Pack 3 (I very much doubt that)
- I didn't burn the discs correctly

The two most likely reasons are the drive, which I sort of doubt is the problem, since it can read game discs (like Quake 4, Oblivion, etc.), or perhaps I didn't burn the discs correctly.

I think it is me not burning the discs correctly. Here's what I did...

I opened up Roxio (or a program that has a "Bootable" indicator for your planned burn, I can't remember which program), I selected the ".iso", which the program indicated as bootable, and I then burnt it to a disc. I tried varying the speeds as well, one burn at slow, one at a faster form of slow, which were the only two options. Didn't work.

I can't boot from the disc. I can insert the disc while started up, and nothing happens, but if I open "My Computer" and so much as click on my DVD Drive icon, it locks up (not completely, it just freezes "My Computer", which forces me to close explorer.exe).

Does anyone have even the slightest idea what the problem is? I would very, very much appreciate any form of assistance anyone could provide! I would be very grateful.

Thank you very much in advance,

~ Omnibus

EDIT: the correct video card has been placed in this post.

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I've had the exact same problem with my hp computer. I've found that when it locks up explorer and won't read that I need to pop open the drive, sleep the computer, then push the drive back in and turn the computer back on. Sometimes I'll have to do this more than once, but it eventually works. See if that works for you.

I would however recommend getting a new drive. It's a pain.

It could be the fact you are using rw dvds these are re-writeable. I've burnt lots of iso dvds and I always use -r which are burn once.
I use roxio and can't remember the last time a dvd failed...
With roxio open the program, select burn image to disc, select the .iso you want and let it burn.
You're probably getting the lockup from the iso not being able to fully close the rw dvd.
Hope this helps!

I'm not computer illiterate by any means... but this is just strange.

Alright, then. It's either my drive, my discs, or my own stupidity in burning the discs correctly (Roxio said that the content I was about to burn was bootable, and I even followed their official tutorial).

The drive does seem to behave strangely at times, but if I could burn a disc and not read it, however still being able to play games and listen to audio cds... how could it be toast?

Here's a link to the drive I have.

EDIT: I just tried to put some audio files on one of the remain 2/5 HP DVD+RW discs, and I received an error stating "Windows encountered an error while trying to copy this file. What do you want Windows to do? -Retry- -Cancel-". I tried putting some other things on it, and I received the same error. Tried to "erase" the disc even though there was nothing on it, simply out of curiosity, and the erasing wizard said that it couldn't be completed.

Lol, what the hell...

Sorry friend, didn't mean to imply anything by what I said previously, just gave you a quick rundown on what I do to burn dvds.:) 
If you have more than one burning software installed you might have conflict/corruption in your system.
I've had that years ago when looking for a decent burning package.
You could try and uninstall all your burning software then run a registry cleaner(to get rid of the leftover junk), then defrag your C drive and install only Roxio. Then try to erase/format one of those rw discs.
Failing this look at a new drive! It is possible for a drive to read comercial discs and not be able to burn a disc. But I wouldn't expect that from a drive under 3years old.
Hope this helps.

Sorry I didn't mean to seem ungrateful, I was off doing other things in the meantime... like work. =P

Thank you very much for your insight. I'll look for another drive, this thing has given me trouble in other areas as well.
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