[afakeleg]

I have a Dell inspiron 1520.
I think my laptops trying to die, so I'm trying to save my daughter's pics and videos I have saved, to a disk.

When I click a picture file then select "Burn" a message appears saying "Insert a Disk ... Please insert a writeable disk into drive E."

Whether I put in the disk then or already have it in, nothing else happens. It'll make some noise, but no messages come up, the first message doesn't go away... nothing. And I sure can't seem to get anything to happen.

The disk is a blank Sony DVD+R disk the dude at Walmart told us to buy...

Any help would be great, usually my comps excellent at walking me, half confused, through anything I need to do, but this time it's failing me.

[vicks]

Welcome to TSG:

I have found that our computers recognize only a couple brands of disks for burning to.
I would suggest a faster (easier to me) way to save this information is to a thumb (aka flash)drive. You can just open it, and your stuff you are trying to save and drag/drop it to the thumb drive. I keep one just for pictures.
Vicks

[lordsmurf]

Sony tends to be one of the best brands of discs -- if it's "made in Taiwan" (or old stock "made in Japan") -- but not "made in Malaysia", those are pretty crappy blanks. More information on blank discs -- namely which discs are best, and where to buy them -- can be found at http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm

Now then, quality of blanks aside, I have to ask this --
Do you have a DVD+R/RW or "dual format" burner drive?
Or is it a much older DVD-R/RW only drive (meaning it cannot use DVD+R or DVD+RW)?

The "dude at Walmart" -- or any store, for that matter -- is NEVER the right person to ask. Not to be an ***, but if they were highly educated, would they be working at Walmart? (or Best Buy or whever). Of course not! Worst advice you'll ever get is from those folks.

[cwwozniak]

If you are running Windows XP, I believe you will need a separate program to burn DVDs. The last time I checked, Windows XP itself does not support burning data to DVD discs.

[afakeleg]

Thanks guys for answering!

Chuck: I'm running Vista.. it "looks" like it should be easy click options, makes me "think" its the disk, but I don't honestly know..

Smurf: Im not sure if I have a dual-format burner dive... and I don't know how to check. The laptop is about a year and a half old. It seems like it has pretty up-to-date stuff, but seems like they're always coming out with newer stuff... Lesson learned about "Walmart dude"

Vicks: Seems like the flash driver is the way to go. I looked at them, too, but didn't know much about them and seemed a little advanced for me, so went with "what I thought" would be easier. lol. Will try a flash driver... BUT do they have differant kinds? If so, good chance I'll buy the wrong one, which would you suggest? I would like it to hold pictures and videos....