Trouble with TEAC CD-W540E (can't write?)

[capsaiicin]

I'm trying to burn an iso image. I've tried Nero (which I usually use) and Fireburner. And they both dont work. The burner has had issues since I built this computer in summer. But it usually was sporadic and would burn sometimes. Now it never works. You begin to burn and in nero it pauses at 4% and just sits there. Aborting does not work. You have to close the program forcefully plus nero doesnt close full and the drive keeps spinning up and down and flashing the write light like it's actually doing something. Fireburner says it cannot access the disc and pops the tray open and aborts. What could be causing this? Any similar problems for any of you?

And sometimes, the drive doesn't even let you read. You have to reboot for the computer to recognize any CDs. As in, it knows there's a CD-rom drive there, and designates a drive for it and everything but it can't read any CDs.

Thanks.

PS: Happens to the two different media I've tried.

[cfitz]

What is your IDE configuration? Have you tried running the Teac as master on an IDE channel by itself? Have you tried replacing the IDE cable? If there is any other drive on the same channel, is it having any problems? What is your DMA setting?

cfitz

[Johan L]

I have almost the same problem myself, thats how I found this site and joined the forum.
I have bought an external cdrw: ASUS 4012A-U with usb2 interface.
My computer is a HP Omnibook XE3 (swedish market) with winXP Home edition.
Its conneted via a Sandberg PC-card with 2 USB2 slots.

This is what happens..
1. When start of burning the statusbar stopps at 2 %
2. The CDRW continues to flash (untill I disconnect power)
3. It is not possible to kill the burnprogram without rebooting the PC.
4. Sometimes even the mousepointer freezes.

I have used Nero 5.5, CloneCD and the mediaplayer to burn with, but nothing helped.
I have used two differnt CDR medias, different speeds (4X is the lowest)
I have tried both musicfiles, datafiles and imagefiles...

Any ideas ?

Regard Johan

[cfitz]

Captn Hank was able to solve a somewhat similar problem with his USB drive by switching his drive to another USB port:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=8004

Unfortunately for you we haven't yet figured out exactly why that worked, although I suggested some possibilities.

Have you tried your drive on a different port? Have you tried it as the only USB attached to your computer? Have you tried it on another computer?

cfitz

[Johan L]

Well, I have not tried on another computer or another bus, the PC-card has two ports but no one is better...
The drive is the only USB device, I have also disabled the internal usb1 ports without luck.
I loaded the Service Pack 1 today, but it didn't help me.
I have noticed that if I have the drive connected to the PC even without
using it, it occasionally can freeze the mousepointer.
Is there any drivers or other files that can be updated ?

// Johan

[cfitz]

Have you checked the HP and Sandberg sites for driver updates?

One of the beauties of external USB drives is that they can be so easily moved from one computer to another, so if you can, I really would recommend trying it on another computer to see if that makes any difference.

cfitz

[Johan L]

Problem solved !!!

I used the HP E-diagnostic program that came along with the notebook
and there I could let the program check for a newer BIOS version on the net. It found the latest version and I chose to download it and upgrade the BIOS, this was really simple, could be done by anyone.
After reboot everything worked perfect, both Nero and CloneCD !

The old BIOS: GF.M1.04
The new BIOS: GF.M1.14

Thanks cfitz for your replies,

// Johan

[cfitz]

Good deal. Happy burning!

cfitz

[capsaiicin]

Unfortunatly, it is already acting as a master on the secondary IDE channel. I have one HD (master on primary) and one CD-RW (master on secondary). I will try right now to swap the IDE cables and see if that is the problem. DMA is enabled on the drive. Thanks for your help.

[capsaiicin]

Using different cables doesn't work. And I know the cable works as it was just the one that I was using for the primary IDE channel (swapped the two).

[cfitz]

You haven't ever had any troubles with the hard drive, have you? If not, then maybe there is something wrong with the secondary IDE channel. Just to see if that might be a problem, try putting both drives on the primary channel, with the hard drive remaining as master and the burner switching to slave.

If that makes no difference, you should also look into new drivers/firmware/BIOS for your IDE controller/burner/mobo.

cfitz