Dvd-rw changes to cd-rw in my computer !?!???

Win xp. I'm trying to burn a dvd which I have done before, but all of a sudden my cd-rw and dvd-rw drives are not working properly. They will play music, but will not burn. I was getting an error. "drive not accessible / incorrect function". I tried going to properties and under recording, enabling the record button. Didn't work. I tried updating drivers...nothing. I tried uninstall and reinstall...nothing. I did make some progress...I updated the firmware to my Plextor dvd-rw and now I am not getting the error anymore when I try to access it, but I can still not record a dvd cause when I put a dvd into the drive...the drive switches from dvd-rw drive(F to cd-rw drive(F in MY COMPUTER !!! When I take the dvd out and watch my computer...it reads the disc and switches back to dvd-rw. PLEASE HELP !!!

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Welcome to the forums!

You did pretty much everything you could.
I suggest you get a new drive. They are pretty cheap.

------------------------------ Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle
Reply to evongugg

Its not a problem with the drive itself. It seems to be a problem with the updates on the computer. It happens on 3 completely different burners on my computer so it is in no way a device problem nor is it a burning software problem. People who have never experienced this problem dont understand. They will say get a new drive but that wont help one bit. I am currently researching a solution to this. I will try rolling back the updates and reinstalling the OS.

Reply to choochlarock

Iam getting the same sort of problem but its to do with putting in blank dvd's. When i put a blank dvd in my drive, my DVDRAM drive changes to a CD drive and my DVD burning program doesnt seem to detect my DVD drive and so i cant burn anything on it. It works fine when the DVD has sum information on it but not when its a blank DVD. SOOOOOO ANNOYING, and the problem just started aswell ;(

Reply to robz88

robz88, Hi. I'm having the exact problem as you but also no solutions. I just posted, but if I find any help will check back to see how you are doing...gwb56

Reply to gwb56

7/17/2009: I have the same problem. My DVD-RW drive is fairly new and it worked just fine. Today, i put in a blank CD to copy some pictures and it didn't recognize the drive. I was finally able to burn to it via Nero 6, but Windows won't write to the file and I don't have the "recordable" tab to change. I edited the registry to change the drive type per the Microsoft site, and still it won't open a blank CD.

Reply to Rainbows7777

I found a fix, hope this helps!!

I am running XP Professional SP2 and then SP3
My dvd drive worked great until sp2, I read installing sp3 would fix it, it did not. Then I tried to delete the upper and lower filters, nothing. I tried uninstalling the disk drives, nothing. I tried changing the values in the HOTKEYS, nothing. I always got "Drive:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function"
After searching for days on end to find a "fix" for not being able to write data to a blank dvd without software I came across the reason. Windows XP, for some messed up reason, did not support dvd writing. But now as of July 23, 2009 they do. This is the first thing I have found to work.

You must install two things KB932716 and Windows Feature Pack for Storage. Both found on this page in the first box. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li [...] S.85).aspx I hope this puts an end to most peoples suffering like it did mine.

Reply to anolla

I really appreciate that! However, it didn't work for me.

Here's what I've done:

Last week, I tried to write to my CD/DVD-RW drive (LiteOn Atapi DVD/CD+RW DH20A4P) and got the error "E:\ is not accessible. Illegal Function" when I tried to open a blank CD. I was able to burn a CD with Nero 6.6.14
I found all the articles from Microsoft on how to fix this problem and none of them worked.
I took my PC back to the computer store that installed the drive in Dec. 2008 last Monday and they kept it until Thursday. They tried to install my original CDRW drive, which also won't write CDs anymore. They also tried all the fixes on Microsoft's website.

In addition, I did the following: before I took it in:
- tried deleting the Upper/lower filters in Registry per MS article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060
- tried changing the drive type from 1 to 2 to 3 to 2. I do not have the "recording" tab on the the drive properties so can't set that
- tried installing Service Pack 3 for XP
The computer dealer did these things while they had it:
- tried re-enabling the IMAPI CD service
- tried utilities provided by MIcrosoft sites to fix the CD problems
- Uninstalled Nero 6.6
- still couldn't burn CDs
- installed Nero 7 Essentials, which came with the new drive - problem
persisted.
- "Refreshed" the operating system
They could not fix it after all that, and wanted to wipe my PC and start
over, which would be a major chore and take me 6 months to get back to working order, so I declined that suggestion.

After I brought it home, I have:
- Spent hours trying to get my computer back to where it was before this
problem happened as many of my software programs had to re-install themselves or be re-set up after the refresh of the operating system.
- Let Windows update re-install all security patches offered (except IE 7 & 8 and a few other drivers known to be not needed or previously caused problems)
- re-run the fixes offered on Microsoft's website, changed the drive type from 1 to 2 to 3 and back to 2 - no change. (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316529/)
- restored the upper/lower filter registry entries previously deleted, then ran the fix provided on Microsoft's website to delete the upper/lower filters; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/
confirmed they are gone.
Microsoft suggests this problem is related to Roxio or EasyCreator in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315350/ (I've never had those).
- uninstalled Nero 7 Essentials
- uninstalled iTunes (because one of the MS fixes referenced that program)
- at each step, re-checked to see if I could burn CDs. Shut down and
restarted my computer more times that I can count to make sure everything is installed correctly.
No other CD burning software has ever been installed that I am aware of other than Nero (versions 5, 6, 7) and iTunes (not sure it even does it)

From the XP Hardware Newsgroup, I tried Doug Knox's CD-DVD fix and rebooted. Still no recording tab. Again, tried the change of the Drive key as described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316529/. Still no luck
I currently have no CD burning software on my PC and Windows won't burn CDs.
I don't know where to turn for help.
Thank you.

And, I did the 2 steps suggested by Anolla, with great expectation that would help. It did not!
I have sent technical support requests to: Microsoft, NERO and LiteOn (my DVD manufacturer).

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Rainbows7777

My apologies for replying to an old thread... but did you ever resolve this issue Rainbows7777?

I'm just wondering if at any point in time you had iTunes installed on your computer? And if so, did you by any chance try and uninstall it? If yes to either one or both of these, you might want to start focusing your research in that direction.

~duggy

Rainbows7777 wrote :

I really appreciate that! However, it didn't work for me.

Here's what I've done:

Last week, I tried to write to my CD/DVD-RW drive (LiteOn Atapi DVD/CD+RW DH20A4P) and got the error "E:\ is not accessible. Illegal Function" when I tried to open a blank CD. I was able to burn a CD with Nero 6.6.14
I found all the articles from Microsoft on how to fix this problem and none of them worked.
I took my PC back to the computer store that installed the drive in Dec. 2008 last Monday and they kept it until Thursday. They tried to install my original CDRW drive, which also won't write CDs anymore. They also tried all the fixes on Microsoft's website.

In addition, I did the following: before I took it in:
- tried deleting the Upper/lower filters in Registry per MS article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060
- tried changing the drive type from 1 to 2 to 3 to 2. I do not have the "recording" tab on the the drive properties so can't set that
- tried installing Service Pack 3 for XP
The computer dealer did these things while they had it:
- tried re-enabling the IMAPI CD service
- tried utilities provided by MIcrosoft sites to fix the CD problems
- Uninstalled Nero 6.6
- still couldn't burn CDs
- installed Nero 7 Essentials, which came with the new drive - problem
persisted.
- "Refreshed" the operating system
They could not fix it after all that, and wanted to wipe my PC and start
over, which would be a major chore and take me 6 months to get back to working order, so I declined that suggestion.

After I brought it home, I have:
- Spent hours trying to get my computer back to where it was before this
problem happened as many of my software programs had to re-install themselves or be re-set up after the refresh of the operating system.
- Let Windows update re-install all security patches offered (except IE 7 & 8 and a few other drivers known to be not needed or previously caused problems)
- re-run the fixes offered on Microsoft's website, changed the drive type from 1 to 2 to 3 and back to 2 - no change. (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316529/)
- restored the upper/lower filter registry entries previously deleted, then ran the fix provided on Microsoft's website to delete the upper/lower filters; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/
confirmed they are gone.
Microsoft suggests this problem is related to Roxio or EasyCreator in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315350/ (I've never had those).
- uninstalled Nero 7 Essentials
- uninstalled iTunes (because one of the MS fixes referenced that program)
- at each step, re-checked to see if I could burn CDs. Shut down and
restarted my computer more times that I can count to make sure everything is installed correctly.
No other CD burning software has ever been installed that I am aware of other than Nero (versions 5, 6, 7) and iTunes (not sure it even does it)

From the XP Hardware Newsgroup, I tried Doug Knox's CD-DVD fix and rebooted. Still no recording tab. Again, tried the change of the Drive key as described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316529/. Still no luck
I currently have no CD burning software on my PC and Windows won't burn CDs.
I don't know where to turn for help.
Thank you.

And, I did the 2 steps suggested by Anolla, with great expectation that would help. It did not!
I have sent technical support requests to: Microsoft, NERO and LiteOn (my DVD manufacturer).

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to duggy09

Duggy,
I don't have itunes installed now. I did at one time because it loaded with something else I think. I uninstalled it a while ago as I didn't have any use for it. I deleted the program directory just now, which was empty. I found itunes files in the recycle files when I searched the C: drive. Also, found several itunes cab, setup and msi files in several "C:\Windows\downloaded installations" directories. I have deleted out all all those that I could just now also.
Do you have any other suggestions where to look for something that it might affect?
To answer your original question, no, I was NEVER able to create a CD via Windows directly since I posted the message. I have had to use the Nero that came with the DVD drive ("Nero 7 Essentials" ). The DVD drive manufacturer and Nero gave me things to try, to no avail. I never got any response from Microsoft or anything useful from posting on the MS support newsgroups.

Barbara

duggy09 wrote :

My apologies for replying to an old thread... but did you ever resolve this issue Rainbows7777?

I'm just wondering if at any point in time you had iTunes installed on your computer? And if so, did you by any chance try and uninstall it? If yes to either one or both of these, you might want to start focusing your research in that direction.

~duggy

Reply to Rainbows7777

It sounds like a virus to me. If it is telling you that you don't have permission or that a drive is inaccessable? If it is showing in your device manager and there are no driver conflicts. I would suggest going to geeksquad.com and letting them run a free scan on your computer. I wouldn't recomend that you let them fix it remotely but you can take in to a Best Buy near you for virus removals.
TeraByte

Reply to Anonymous

TeraByte,
Sorry, it's NOT a virus. I have good firewall and virus protection that is updated constantly and I run regular full scans also.
If you read my messages and know about this problem from others all over the Internet, you will see that it is a problem with Windows.

Barbara

Reply to Rainbows7777

Focus On

Forum Storage : DVD/CD Writers - Dvd-rw changes to cd-rw in my computer !?!???