HELP! I can't burn backups!

[PRiZ-one]

This is more of a cd burner question, I need the help to burn backups of music sounds etc... so yeah, I have a ASUS CRW-1210R aka cd burner, but it won't detect cd's at all, I burn with NERO and hvave just updated it to the latest version and still nothing, but even the Drive when explored normally won't show any files, just blank.

My normal cd-rom detects the files.
I've tried all types of differnt brands and music cd's and still it wont detect that there's a cd in the cd burner.
I've spent the last dya lookinga nd searching for possible cd-rom driver updates or anything.

It might be because I now use Win XP, but I've been using it for months and don't recall the problem being the new windows.

I've been puttying off backing up my computer on cd incase the most unfortunate happens. I year of work atleast could be lost.

If anyone knows what might help this, please drop me a note.
I've tried abnout all I can think of. thanks>

[Stealthtech]

Sounds like your writer has taken a nose dive....maybe the laser has burned out.

[PRiZ-one]

thanks for the response, but yo! I can still burn cd's~~!!! :O
I asked someone who knows computer ish and he said I need nero 6, which I can't seem to find anywhere, I don't think it even exists. But that wouldn't help my cd rom detect cd's without it anyways... I'm confused. If anyone has any info, please...?

[Sangram]

No, he's on the money. It is one of the possibilities. When the lens weakens, it will start to have problems reading CDs. The reason you could still burn is that during burning, the laser diode is working at a much higher power level. Therefore even weak diodes can complete burns, but will not be able to read CDs.

Sort of the low-end torque disappearing on a shot car engine first, before high-rpm peak power. Your drive, AFAIK is not the newest on the block (12, 10, 24 if I remember correctly, about 1 year old) and a drive that is used for burning a lot is likely to start having problems reading CDs.

If that is not your problem, you might try to uninstall Nero completely. XP has CD-burning support built in and doesn't need any external software for CD burning. I find using the XP burn features the least troublesome method of burning CDs.

[Sangram]

One more thing:

Where I work we have a Samsung SW224, a 24/10/40 burner and Nero and we have exactly the same issue. We have another CD-ROM installed and it refuses to read CDs. This is on Windows 98SE.

There may therefore be a Nero issue here. However since this is (I'm assuming) a recent phenomenon it may not be and your lens is actually dying.

[PRiZ-one]

Do burners actually wear out that quick? preposterous!!!

thanks for the response this is the best I have to work off.
But like I said earlier it can still read music cd's and cd's that arn't rewritable.

but for the "rewritable" cd's...
the ones I've already made backups of in the past and would like to expand and use again, or even erase the cd's and use again, I can't because it can't even tell their in the cd-rom/burner.

I know overall that if cd's are burned a certain way, they can't be detected but I've done this before and detected them to use again. I wouldn't have burned 20 rewritabbles the same way if not. ;(
I think it must be the NERO and Win XP combo.

I guess all I can ask for now is if anyone is using a burn program with XP that works for this let me know of it. I'll be trying to figure it out in the meantime. thanks.

[drstawl]

>Do burners actually wear out that quick

Yup!

If I had to depend on one of them to keep me aloft in a jet airliner, i.e were it a flight critical part, I'd replace the thing every 6 months. Since it ain't I just wait for it to die and THEN replace it.