[comp.idiot]

I've burned DVD's on my laptop in the past, but now it won't burn onto DVD's anymore. I go through the steps, as usual with Nero, but nothing shows up on the disc afterwards. It does burn photos to CD-R's, but won't on DVD-R's. When I put a blanc DVD-R in the drive, it doesn't see it. It will play DVD's but the audio is jumpy and cuts out, for a split second, every few seconds. The audio seems to act like it's stopping for a milisecond, but it is not noticeable with the visual.

Does this sound like it's missing drivers or has a software problem or a hardware problem?

Can anyone help with this?

[midders]

From the spec I'd guess it's quite an old laptop. It's probably hardware failure; the only way to be sure would be to backup your data and use your product recovery disk to restore the laptop to factory defaults and see if the problem persists. It is however quite common for the DVD part of combo drives to fail before the CD part.

If it turns out to be h/w then I'd recommend going for an external drive as a replacement; it's cheaper, more reliable, and can be used on any systems that you might have access to.

Slainte

midders

[comp.idiot]

I have my photos/music/work files etc. on an External Drive already. I never save to the hard drive on this laptop anymore, just in case the laptop dies on me. If I use the Recovery Disc, what will I lose? Will I lose programs / firewall / antivirus program / video players / drivers etc..?

If I need one, can you recommend a USB powered External DVD/CD Burner?

[midders]

If you use the recovery disk, the laptop will be returned to the state that it was in when it left the factory. Any applications that you have installed subsequently will require re-installing and any data on the primary (system) partition will be over-written. Some laptops have the HDD split into several partitions at the factory; you will only lose the data on the system partition i.e. where the windows directory is located, if this is the case with your laptop.

Head over to CDFreaks (link in sig) for discussions on best external drives; as you're in the US newegg.com comes up quite frequently as a good supplier.

Slainte

midders

[comp.idiot]

Do these External CD/DVD Burners also play purchased movie DVD's?