Optical drives doing wierd things

I'm working on a PC and the DVDRW is acting wierd. If I put in a burned CD or DVD, WinXP picks it up as a blank disc and opens the burning diaglog; asking if I want to burn w/ Nero or WMP or whatever... If I put in a 'factory' disc (including DVD movies), WinXP doesn't see any disc at all and thinks the drive is empty. I thought maybe the DVDRW was malfunctioning, so I hooked up an external USB CDRW... it does the exact same thing, so it's not the drives. There's something in WinXP that is jacked up.... The PC also will not perform any Windows Updates: it just stops responding, but it will surf the internet just fine.... any help or suggestions will be appreciated!!!!! THANX!

hopperdave2000

 

I just tried a 2gb USB thumb drive and WinXP installs it OK; but when I go to read it, I'm told that 'Drive G: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?'.... WIERD! It has about 1.2gb of data on it (misc. .txt files, .pdf's, and some apps and utils). Anybody? Any ideas??? I'm thinking I'll try a safe reload of the OS. It seems to me that the core Windows files are jacked up somewhere. There are some other problems w/ the software (see my thread about Windows Update not working) so a reload may be the best route. I'll wait a bit and see if anyone has any suggestions.... thanx!

hopperdave2000

 

I'd check the event logs to see if we can get any additional information. Here's how:

1. Right-click 'My Computer'
2. Select 'Manage'
3. On the 'Computer Management' window, expand 'Event Viewer'

Here, we want to investigate the 'Application' and 'System' logs for any red x's or yellow exclamation marks. Take note of the error source, the event ID number, and the exact error text, and post here.

 

Attached are the logs from Application (app log) and System (sys log)... thanx for your help!!!

 

Upon examing the event logs, it seems to me that these errors pertain to my Windows Update problem (see my other thread) and not to an optical drive problem, but that's just a guess.... thanx again!