CD Burners are burning me up!

[KnuckleHead]

I have two Plextor PlexWriters, one is a 16/10/40 (my older model), and another is a 52X - PX-W5224TA. About a month ago my 52X went into hibernation. My system sees it, says the drivers are fine, but it will not recognize any discs. If I put a disc it and ask it for action (read or write) it asks me to insert a disc. I thought this was a problem with the 52X unit. I started to use my 16X unit until I could get it fixed. Then a similar problem started occuring with my 16x. If I reboot or keep trying I can get the 16x to work. I can't ever get the 52x to work. My 52X is the master and the 16x the slave. Should I take the 52x out and make the 16x master? Is this my problem? It just seems coincidental that I have problems with both of my drives at the same time. Any ideas? I have reloaded the drivers and windows says the drives are working fine.

Burned UP!

[Iniamyen]

The first CD-R drive I had did the same thing. The problem with it (I think it was a Creative 4X write) was that the laser burned out, and I guess this was a problem many early CD-R drives were prone to. The symptoms were exactly those you describe, except the drive would not work at all, and could not be fixed by rebooting. Is it possible the drive is dirty, or that there is a loose cable somewhere? This doesn't seem like a software or compatability issue, since one of the drives works intermittantly.