having trouble with my dvd-ram

My dvdram is telling me that the cd-rw that is in it is a cd-r.
it will not format it, it will not record anything on it saying that there is a problem with the disk. It does the same thing with dvd-r or any disk I put in it.

basically it refuses to burn anything.

I've used nero, deepburner, and sonic multimedia center all with the same result. I did a clean install of XP some time back (2 months maybe) and this is the first time I've tried to burn anything so I can't say that it worked before.

I'm using a T60p, and the operating system correctly identifies the dvdram. Did I miss a driver or something?

 

Did you try running the cd-test in PCDoctor5? It does test write, and may give you something more diagnostic, if it fails.

 

ok, currently downloading and installing pcdoctor5. Will get back with results.

 

As a place to start you might want to dump DLA.

 

I had the same problem, my dvd-ram hadn't burn anything. Than i had changed following : go to energie manager from TP/ than global setup/ than the first button for "more" / cd- rom speed : set here normal, than make a restart and now it must burn, becuase with setting low speed it doesn't burn correct.

i hope you had understand me, I have only the german vista and the butons have other names.

 

Ok I think I have a solution to my problem.

I followed the suggestion to test with pcdoctor and here is what I found.

My drive actually passed all tests except for dvdram media because I didn't have any to test, but during the test something interesting happened.
I was asked to replace the cd-rw media because the drive believed it was to dirty, when it was actually a brand new spot free disk. So i put in a different one with the same result. Finally I got a cd-rw of a different brand and it worked flawlessly.

Apparantly my drive is particular about what type of media it likes. The one it rejected was Memorex Ultra Speed CD-RW. It wouldn't even recognize it as acceptable media of any kind like it was completly smudged. The other media it did not like was maxell DVD+R, it treated it like there was already data on it and would not write to it even though it was brand new.

I have various media lying around and tried a few.

TDK DVD+RW worked great.

Office Depot branded CD-RW also worked flawlessly. BTW I have had problems with almost any brand, but have never had a problem with office depot branded media, surprisingly.

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

 

media incompatibility is a common issue. sometimes it's not fair to blame the media readers.

 

Usually firmware updates incorporate improvements to media compatibility in optical drives. I believe that Lenovo releases firmware updates to its optical drives so its a good idea to update to the latest firmware.