Hi noddymate,

Dell has a couple of test articles; click on the CD/RW link in my post and scroll to Section 11, article 9 and Section 12, article 3.

Some additional standard steps:
Open the case and reseat the IDE cable going from the motherboard to the back of the drive; Same CD/RW link- Section 15, article 1; Section 20, article 3; Section 11, articles 2 & 1.

Best Regards




God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the
difference.

---

CD/RW Link

Message Edited by Predator on 09-21-2004 04:19 AM

Thanks Predator for the advice

I tried some of the things suggested and it pointed to the CD-RW drive itself. I ran through various checks with a guy in Dell Technical Support and he came to the same conclusion. I have a new drive on the way.

Trying those things first made me sure of my ground before troubling anyone. Anyway thanks again.

I had the same problem, same discussion with tech support, and same conclusion - new drive is on the way. How long did they tell you it would take to get your replacement? They told me 3-4 business days. That was last Wednesday. The online status system shows expected ship date of this Thursday with expected delivery on Friday - 7 business days after they said they were sending a replacement.

I was told a couple of days from Monday evening which should mean it arriving on Thursday. I was surprised that they would trust me to fit it (when it arrives)but I suppose it makes sense saving a service operative having to come out. I expected to be told that if I opened the box I would invalidate the guarantee.

Hello Folks,

I too have this problem. It started with the drive not recognizing blank discs at first. I would retry it a couple of times and it would work, but often would stop and error out in mid-burn. Then it started happening with pre-recorded discs such as Madden 2004. It would tell me to "insert correct disc and retry". I have called Dell support and the rep seemed to focus on the blank discs not burning. I was advised (after some troubleshooting) that I was trying to use the wrong kind of disc to burn with. I was using Memorex CD-R's and was told to get CD+R's (?) and e-mail the rep back if it still didn't work. I went to Best Buy and found nothing with a "+" sign on it except DVD+R or DVD+RW. Since this a Combo drive that writes CDs but can't burn DVD's, I didn't think those were right. I am bit of a novice, but I think the rep I got was confused about my computer. It sounds from these posts that I probably have a bad drive but I not gotten a response from the Dell rep. Should I just try to start over with a different Dell rep?

Hi teweiser

The problems I was having with my CD-RW drive started not recognizing blank disks were blank, then occasional burning problems and finally when I realized that things were getting worse I noticed that the drive wouldn't read system data disks. Knowing that there could be a multitude of problems causing the burning problem i.e burning software, media, etc. I decided to emphasize the CD reading problem. You could check to see if your drive will read know data CDs reliably.

To stillwaiting9.8 - I can report that after the courier failed to find our address on Wednesday, the new drive arrived yesterday. So far so good but just have to find the time to fit it now.

Hi Nod,

I finally gave up again and called Dell again. This time they went ahead and decided to send me a new drive and since I have a service plan, they are going to have a tech install the new drive. I will let you all know what the resolution is.

 

Thanks all.

Hi Teweiser,

You are not the first person to mention getting advice from a Tech to use CD+R discs, unfortunately you received bad information, there are no such beasts, the CD media will be in either CD-R or CD-RW format.

Hope the new drive fixes the problem.

Best Regards





God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the
difference.

---

CD/RW Link

Thanks Pred,

I suspected as much, but I always enjoyed going on a "snipe hunt" errr...going to Best Buy for no particular reason. Thanks again everyone

Well, the new drive was installed and works great. Only problem now is that the tech never checked the old drive before replacing it and it had a program disc in it. So I am now waiting for him to mail it back to me. Luckily it was only a $10 program so no biggie.