How to Troubleshoot CD-R Drives | Tech Info | Troubleshooting | CD-R drives |

There are two distinct sections in troubleshooting CD-ROM recorders.

First, determine if the CD drive is properly connected and operating like a standard CD-ROM drive. The procedure for troubleshooting CD-ROM drives is in the section Troubleshooting CD-ROM drives.

Second, are problems relating to the recording part of the drive which are outlined below.

Causes of Problems with recording

1) There are programs running in the background while you are trying to record. This tends to cause buffer overflows and ruins the disks. The solution is simple. Do NOT run any other programs in the background while recording.

• Log off a Network (if you are connected to a network)
• Disable Screen savers
• Disconnect from the Internet
• Close programs like ICQ
• If you are on a network log off the network
• Disable Advanced Power Management (APM ) in Control panel/Power
• In the CD-ROM Properties/Settings, uncheck the Auto Insert Notification, Sync Data Transfer, and DMA

 Problems in General

• The recorded CD can not be read on other CD-ROM drives
  Try finalizing the recording on the CD disk. If this does not work, then there is not much that can be done. The different construction of the recordable CD disk makes it harder to be read on some drives.

• WNASPI32.DLL -
  Some times the WNASPI32.DLL file is updated with a version that causes problems with accessing the drive. This can be caused by installing Adaptec's Easy CD Creator software. You can try extracting the original DLL file from the installation CD and overwriting the version installed by Adaptec.

• Auto-play does not work - more info on KB article Q126025 @ Microsoft Link,
  Auto-play only works with 32-mode drivers. Check the files autoexec.bat and config.sys and see if they load up a CD driver. If they do then auto-run will not work. The solution is to get windows specific drivers for the CD drive if possible and to disable the DOS mode drivers in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

• Error "writing lead in" at the end of the Writing Process -

  After the data is sent to the recorder when writing in "track-at-once" mode, the recorder is sent the command to finalize the CD. The recorder then reads all the data from the CD-R required for finalization and writes the lead-in. This means no information is delivered from the system. If the finalizing process breaks off after once having started then...

  1) either there exists a compatibility problem between the medium and the recorder or
  2) the recorder has overheated
  3) the drive is defective
  4) the drive does not work well with that brand or type of disk, try out different types of CD-Recordable disks (blue, green, gold)
  5) If you Pre-Format the disk, you will NOT be able to use it for recording music CDs or other data, since the formatting of the disks prepares it for PacketCD writing and not for standard recordings.

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