CD RW problem

[willhems]

I wonder if anyone has a possible solution to my problem. Since yesterday evening, for no apparent reason, my CD drive refuses to acknowledge blank discs. It will read fine, even copy onto hard drive. However when a blank disc is inserted the drive tries to read(with the green light flashing) then a message box appears that asks me to insert blank disc . After this the green light on the front of the drive stays on as though it is continuing to search for a disc. I have a Toshiba SDR 1002 CD/DVD combo with burn4free and WMP burning software. I have all the correct drivers and Windows updates although I have had problems accessing my Norton Utilities & anti-virus over the past couple of days. I have attempted to burn with various makes of CDR without success. I am running on P111 933mhz with 256mb of RAM.
Any help would be invaluable.
Cheers
Will

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

Is there anything else on the same IDE channel (cable) as the CD-RW drive, I had a similar problem, and my cd-rom drive was causing it.

[willhems]

No, nothing. It has worked fine for the last three years but has decided to have a bit of a tantrum. I have a feeling that it could be the re-writer itself as it will read the same discs (that have previously been burned) that I am having problems with.

[flanzig1]

The burn laser has probably gone bad. So now you have a basic CD-Rom drive.

[glc]

That's a very likely possibility. Can it still read DVD's? 3 years on a heavily used burner is not bad.

[willhems]

Apologies for not replying, whatsthisboxfor? Been away for the weekend. Yes it reads DVD's fine. I suppose an upgrade will be my only option if flanzig1 is correct. Still I waslooking forward to buying a DVD re-writer though not quite this soon.

Thanks for your help, guys.

Will

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

If you are looking for a DVD-RW this: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=62725 is the cheapest dual layer burner I could find, and its made by a good company.