Dell CD/DVD burner situation

[nicolenanette]

FIRST, i sure wish i could find the post that brought me to this site, for i could THANK, HUG, GIVE HONOR to who posted (years ago) a post that saved our computer..... but i found you........ YAHOO!!!

Now to the situation at hand which caused the problem (computer died and now resurrected)................
I have an 5 year old computer, Dell 4600C .......peek in my profile for more details if needed..
i have had only 1 problem in the 5 years, and that is the dvd/cd burner died 4 times.....

1. 14 months after purchase (sonic product) the dvd/cd burner stopped working..
after talking to INDIA,,, for 2 months, dell finally listened to me and sent someone out to fix, replace the hardware and give new software.

2. about a year later the same thing but it only took me 2 weeks this time to convince dell what the problem was... but this time dell used roxio for the software
(sure hope i am using the correct terminology)

3. a little less than a year later, it happened again and they replace the same items, and left me witha a roxio cd to go with the new hardware.

4. now (2008) the warranty is gone and (should i have kept it, too late now),,, the same thing happened and i took it to a reputable computer store for repair. they repaired it and i used (burned cds, i am a photographer) it about 20 times. and it quit. I took it back and they couldnt find a problem for the burner read thier dvds and played their cds.

i brought it home and nope it wouldnt work for me... (reading my image of photography)

i used my sons computer and sure enough it (dell laptop) read my cds without a problem.

so end result is this.............
my computer plays dvds, reads cds that have messages to listen to, plays cds with music, but refuses to burn or read my images.
i used cd-r disks. not cd-rw disks.
I hope i have described this correctly....
sincerely Nicole

 

[Rich-M]

It could just be a bad cable but this really sounds like a bad power supply ( inadequate voltage can blow components, but why just the burner?), so it is more likely a defective motherboard.

 

[muppy03]

just out of interest right click your dvd drive in 'my computer' page and see if use with DLA is checked/ticked. if not select it.

 

[DaveBurnett]

There are some possibilities here.
1) Often CDs written on one physical drive will not read on another.
2) More commonly - and easier to fix, is that CDs written using one software package (Roxio) will not read using different software (and vice versa).
3) Have you change the make of CD as that can have an effect.

 

[nicolenanette]

still trying to figure this thing out. took it in to a computer place and they cant figure it out.... just wanted to say THANK YOU FOR the help
sigh... might have to buy an entire new computer since i am a photographer and NEED this drive..... thank you .. (i think) giggle
i have asked dozens of people and had 2 guys over and no one can figure it out... sigh
Nicole

 

[nicolenanette]

oh, just wanted to share this:
we had roxio and now have nero software with a lite-on sdrw-DVD 24 X combo NB....
we deleted, got rid of roxio, as well as sonic......they are no more
so now there is NO use with DLA listed..

THANKS AGAIN>...
Nicole