CdWriter has just stopped Writing ?

Feb 11, 2008

- You can find out everything on your PC, including registration numbers, with a great free program called Belarc Advisor. It will inform you which CD-DVD program came with your PC, or perhaps you purchased in separately. If it came with the PC, you should just go to the maker's website for an upgrade. If you bought it separately, go to the Software supplier, and get an upgrade or re-download it. The fact that you don't hear a whirring sound means that your PC doesn't recognize that you have a CD-DVD player, (which happens when the burning software stops working), so. cleaning it will be of no help, since it isn't trying to burn anything.

Feb 11, 2008

- Did you find Belarc ok online to download it? I presume you did--it usually tells you what type of CD/DVD drive you installed, but as i said, it really doesn't matter, because the thing doesn't need driver or software upgrades--it is just a piece of hardware used by your burner software. Now, that is what you need to fix. Under Software programs, look for programs like Roxio or other CD/DVD burner. If it's 3 years old, it isn't going to be fancy. With regard
to the type of CD burning capability of whatever you put in, do you remember whether it could burn DVDs too, or just CDs? And, by the way, did you back up your system ever? the whole think might be fixable by trying a system restore back when you can remember the thing working.

Feb 12, 2008

- Well, you are a little like my wife in computer skills--(she is excellent at other things); Using Belarc Advisor, it lists all manner of drives, including your hard drive (which stores all of your programs and data on your computer--gte Maxtor is your hard drive, and it is essentially a 40 GB (gigabite) hard drive (HD), (maximum capacity) and you obviously don't have a huge collection of photos or music, as they require huge drives (say 500 GB). 1000 megabites (MB) = 1 gigabite. One high-def photo may be 1.5 MB. The other drives listed are your 3 1/2" floppy drive, and your DVD read only (it doesn't burn data to a DVD, it just reads it) and your CD drives, which you use to read data, music, or pictures stored on CDs, and which you used to be able to use to burn CDs to keep.
On my 3-month old computer, Belarc says I have the following:
Drives

149.56 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
61.29 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ-850S ATA Device [CD-ROM drive]

WDC WD1600BEVS-22RST0 [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WXE407514017, rev 04.01G04, SMART Status: Healthy
In other words, I have a 160 GB HD, and a combo CD/DVD reading and burning drive (it's a laptop). The info you have so far is that you have two CD drives, but no info about them. Did you get the Belarc installed? If so, they are truly generic. But it doesn't matter--since the burning CD drive doesn't require any updates--it requires a working CD burning program, which you will find in Belarc under "Software Versions", which lists all the programs you installed on your computer, including the burning program which came with your CD burner. I have a few on mine:
CyberLink - PowerProducer Version 3.07.3523 *
CyberLink Corp. CLDMA Version 1.00.5103 *
NewTech InfoSystems, Inc. - NTI Backup NOW! for Windows Version 4, 7, 5, 11 *
NewTech Infosystems, Inc. - NTI CD&DVD Maker 7 Version 7, 7, 0, 11 *

Unless you have burning software alive and well, your CD burning drive is useless. Do dry the system restore, if you have a date where you know it was functioning. Otherwise, look for the name of the manufacturer of the drive you installed, and go to their website--they should have support for it, including the program it came with. Good luck.

Feb 13, 2008

- Cyberlink may or may not be your burning software--they definitely make burning software, so click on the asterisk in Belarc, and the name of the program appears. Cyberlink Power Producer is a movie-making program. Power to Go is a DVD-CD burning program. Go to either Roxio, Cyberlink, or NTI, and try a free download of a simple CD burning program. If it works, then you know that your CD drive works, and you need to upgrade whatever program you had previously. Or find one on freeware. Good luck.

Feb 15, 2008

- Most likely, you have the volume turned down on winamp. There are loads of free cd players, and all have volume controls. You are much better off being able to burn DVDs as well as CDs, and your Roxio program will handle both, although learning to use it can drive you to distraction. Try playing your CDs with Windows media player, or another free program. Look at your new CD/DVD hardware--it may have built in volume controls!
I should have told you to go to Control Panel, open device manager, and and check for any yellow checks for your CD/DVD ROM drives,your sound, video and game controllers. If there are none, your system is go. Then go to your audio manager on control panel, and set it up for whatever speaker configuration you have. If you can't find your volume control, call Roxio or your new CD/DVD manufacturer, if Microsoft help can't get you the info on how to control your volume, Good luck.

Feb 15, 2008

- Please tell me that you have installed Nero!