Problems writing to CD-RW (1 Viewer)

[Andres Munoz]

My CD-RW drive is the AOpen CRW-1232Pro. I have Windows XP and I'm using Nero 5.0.

I've been burning all kinds of things to CD-Rs with no problem since I bought the drive last year. But a couple of days ago I tried to burn to a CD-RW for the first time. Every time I tried I got a message asking me to insert a blank media even though the CD-RW was already in.

I bought a pack of 5 CD-RWs (700MB) and I've tried 2 so far with the same results. They are meant to be recorded to at 4X (or lower) which is the speed that I tried.

I went to the AOpen website and downloaded and installed the latest driver they have. That did not fix the problem.

I don't know what's wrong. Any help will be deeply appreciated.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

You need to format CD-RWs before you can use them. In Nero, go to Recorder, then Erase Rewritable.

You'll need to go through this procedure every time you rewrite the disc.

 

[Andres Munoz]

Rob, I tried that. A progress bar comes up showing you a percentage and the minutes left. But the bar disappears with no warning or message and it isn't even half way done.

I will try that again with another disc. In the meantime, is the bar supposed to disappear just like that without showing you a warning that it's done erasing?

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Yes, the progress bar just disappears when finished, but it should reach the 'end' before going.

 

[Andres Munoz]

My bar never made it not even to the middle. Very strange.

 

[Dave F]

This may be a long shot, but it cured my CDRW problems. Try right-clicking on the CD drive and choosing "Properties". Then select the "Recording" tab. Uncheck "Enable CD Recording on this drive".
In my case, XP kept trying to reserve the drive for it's built-in packet writing. By disabling that, Nero was able to take control and do its job.
Good luck!
Dave

 

[Andres Munoz]

It seems that one of the CDRWs that I tried must have been bad.

I tried a brand new one last night, erasing it first like Rob said, and then I was able to write to it no problem. The progress bar still disappears before it reaches the end but I make sure it's empty by going to "CD-Info". There it says "CD is empty" (Can't get any clearer than that, he, he).

Is there a limit as to how many times you can write to a CDRW?

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

There may be theoretical limits, but I've quite a few CD-RWs go 'bad' after a few cycles of use. These were Verbatim-made discs.

 

[Andres Munoz]

I can't remember which ones I got. I hope they last a while.