CD/DVD burner won't recognise blank CD\DVD's

The DVD burner in my laptop will not recognise that a blank CD or DVD is installed.

It will play CD's and DVD's, audio and movies.

It will recognise and read CD's or DVD's with data on them, originally burnt on this laptop.

Specs are Toshiba Tecra A7 laptop, 1 gig RAM, 60 gig hard drive, XP pro with SP2, factory fitted CD\DVD Burner.

Blank CD's are Sony, DVD's are Sony and Verbatim. Same as those used originally to burn backups and stuff onto them.

Error message comes up to insert disc into drive, when the bl**dy disk is already in the drive. No choice in the error box to choose OK as OK does not appear, just a cancel box?

Need help. Bazza

PS: Laptop is less than 2 month's old so is still under warranty but it is Saurday 5.30 am now and I'd like to do a full backup over the weekend, if possible. Baz

 

im not sure if u can do a firmware update or not? try n see. if not then the best bet is to return it cos its under warranty....

 

Thanks, prankz, but I don't want to do anything that will void my warranty for the balance of the warranty period. Hope to have solved the problem way before then. Bazza

===

 

Hi Bazza... I take it you have uninstalled the rom from device manager then rebooted ???

 

Doh, No. Will do. Bazza

===

 

Tried deleting the DVD burner using Device manager, even tried re-installing driver from Toshiba disks. It now recognises blank CD's but not blank DVD's. Tried standard 4.7 giggers and double layers (8.5 giggers). No joy. Back to the shop today, I guess.

Specs for the laptop say it should recognise just about every type of CD and DVD (and all + and - variations). I use +R on DVD's only, and brand name media such as Sony and Verbatim. Still no luck.

Bazza

 

Hi again bazza, what has worked for me in the past on a similar problem is to swap the master/Slave setup on jumpers at rear of rom, why it works I dont know but it has on 2 occasions.

 

Sorry, mate, but I've got a laptop.

Today, on bootup, out of the blue, an error message popped up stating that I had the CD-RW active and that my DVD writing function was in-active and did I want to activate that.

Hell, yeah. !!!! I didn't know that are apparently 2 functions, 1 for CD, 1 for DVD.
Need to do some more research on this 'gotcha'. Never heard or read about this before.

Gotta try this out later and backup my system to DVD. Will advise later. Bazza

===

 

I was just going to say you could try accessing the DVD or CD with another program like Nero. because my computer wont burn CD's with Windows. I have to use Windows Media Player, or nero ect.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to remember that possibility. Bazza

===

 

Looks like the (Toshiba?) program ramasst.exe controls the DVD burner, I am guessing.

Running SmartClose, it closed this program automatically. Thus I couldn't get my laptop to recognise a blank inserted DVD. I have now added ramasst.exe to the (small) list of running programs that I want SmartClose to ignore.

This hopefully will fix my problem. Will try it out later today. Bazza