Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > DVD/CD Writers > [Solved] DVD-R/RW Drive Won't Work with DVD's

[Solved] DVD-R/RW Drive Won't Work with DVD's

Forum Storage : DVD/CD Writers - [Solved] DVD-R/RW Drive Won't Work with DVD's

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Best answer from zipzoomflyhigh.

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Since at least 2005, I've owned an IDE Memorex DVD-R/RW drive that, for whatever reason, didn't possess the capability to burn items to a DVD. Stunk, but I never really needed to burn anything to DVD that often so just being able to read them was fine.
Last weekend I picked up two Samsung OEM SATA SH-S223B drives, but the problem in the lack of ability to burn to DVD seems to persist. Reading CD's and DVD's has been fine, as has burning CD's. The whole list of problems I've found is as thus:

-Out of the two drives, it seems only one drive at a time can be set to allow recording in the Properties > Recording tab of Windows. This, from what I've seen online, seems to be a known issue with Windows. If anybody knows anything else I'd appreciate, but it's admittedly not my primary focus.

-The drives list as DVD-RAM in My Computer. This didn't occur with my old Memorex, but I imagine this is more of a name-only thing and of no real concern.

-After inserting a DVD, the drive will be renamed to "CD Drive" in My Computer.

-While having a DVD-RW in the drive, there is no option to Erase the DVD via Windows.

-While having a blank DVD in the drive, anytime I attempt to copy something into the drive to be written Windows displays a copy error with the options to Retry or Cancel.

There seems to be some issues similar to this from what I've found online, but nothing really tacks it down enough for me to really put much trust behind it. I've updated my BIOS, drive firmware, and Windows entirely. Computer specs are below:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-D3SL (rev. 01)
DVD Drives: Samsung SH-S223B
OS: Windows XP Pro SP3

Anything else that may be notable is the motherboard lists its four SATA ports as 0, 1, 4, and 5 and on the board they're in clusters of two (0 and 1, 4 and 5). My HDD is plugged into port 0, while the drives are in 4 and 5. I imagine this wouldn't be a problem, but any chance? Given the behavior of the Memorex, I'm thinking this is a Mobo or OS problem. I had the Memorex in another motherboard before, but it's been so long I'm not sure if DVD burning worked with that piece or not. Also, I'm pretty new to SATA on the whole I guess. I've had my SATA HDD for some months now and never really needed to install any drivers for it to work, but I've seen stuff about SATA drivers needing to be installed (sometimes before installing Windows) for a drive to work. Perhaps they were talking about the advanced features like ACHI for Vista, but I can't tell. Can anyone shed a light on any of this?

Much thanks in advance.

Ok well you know you need dvd burning software right? Like Nero. Even OEM drives come with this.

Maybe you think you have a DVD-RW but in fact you have a cdrw/dvd combo drive (which only reads dvd's, not write to them)
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Best answer

Ok well you know you need dvd burning software right? Like Nero. Even OEM drives come with this.

Maybe you think you have a DVD-RW but in fact you have a cdrw/dvd combo drive (which only reads dvd's, not write to them)


Message edited by zipzoomflyhigh on 09-17-2009 at 03:20:52 PM
Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

Judging from the product specification on the manufacturer's website, seems to be a Writer. http://www.samsungodd.com/Eng/Prod [...] l_idx=4447

As for software, I do have the software that came with my old drive (Nero 6), but I figured that given Windows XP's built in CD writing ability it must support DVD's as well. I was holding off on installing Nero until I could ensure proper functionality of the device is present. I'm a stickler and if I should be able to use Windows but don't need to, I'd still like to get it working for the sake of knowing something's not broken. Have I been wrong about Windows XP's native abilities?

Reply to cyber_bruno

I'd try Nero, if that doesn't work then I would recommend spending $30 and getting a new DVD-RW.

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

Turned out I did make a bit of a bonehead move by assuming Windows XP had built-in DVD support. Sorry all. Was definitely a software issue. -.-

Reply to cyber_bruno
Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > DVD/CD Writers > [Solved] DVD-R/RW Drive Won't Work with DVD's
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