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my new cd-rw drive refuses to write cd's... constantly
telling me to insert a disk with more space, even tho the
disks are brand new (they are 700mb sony disks) I have
tried everything I can think of to get it working, including
uninstalling the cdrw drive, and all cd writing software,
and reinstalling it (and even upgrading it)... I tried
removing DMA, and restarting the comp.. still no luck...
does anyone have any other suggestions? (before this
problem started, I had successfully burned 3 cd's from
the same stack i'm trying to use now)

You Philips 8x4x32 is new? I assume you mean new to you, because that's quite an old drive.

What software are you using (pick one - the main one you use), and what version is it? What are you trying to burn, and what settings are you using? Also, the three CD's you successfully burned from the same stack, were they burned on the Philips or on another (even older ) drive?

cfitz

yeah... new as in.. bought brand new online (it's only a 450mhz machine, so i had to buy an older model)

I use easy cd creator platinum 5
also have tried nero

In the category of water under the bridge - you didn't have to buy such an old model for your system. Newer burners work with older systems as well. Although they will burn at high speeds, they can also be set to burn at low speeds (e.g. 4x) if required. And they offer buffer underrun protection so that even if the flow of data to the burner is interrupted, you won't make a coaster. Oh well, sorry to tell you after the fact.

Back to the problem at hand - what are you trying to burn, and what are your settings?

cfitz

Trying to burn audio cd's... and data... both failed

burning at 8 or 4x... tried both speeds

the cd's are sony 700mb

What is your exact model number? The CDD4801?

I hate to ask the obvious, but are you sure you aren't making a compilation that truly is too large to fit on a 700 MByte disc?

cfitz

Also, are you burning DAO or TAO? Are you burning multisession discs? Are you trying to copy existing CD's, or are you burning new compilations?

cfitz

yep, I'm sure i'm not making too big of a cd.. or tryng to...

as for exact model number, I'm not sure... I would have to pull it out of the machine tomorrow and look

as far as i know, philips only made one 8x4x32 model tho...

New compilations...
on data i tried burning from the cd-rom drive, and from the hard drive... with no success...

I have tried both disk-at-once... and track-at-once

Put a blank disc in the drive and, before attempting to burn, start Nero and select "Recorder"->"Medium-Info". What does it tell you?

Have you tried doing a simulated burn, and do you get the same error? Have you tried any other blank media (other than the Sony discs)? Have you tried burning to an image file?

cfitz

There are a bunch of posts on the Philips site (under the "lighting" category, of all places - not very confidence inspiring ) from people wanting drivers for the CDD4801:

http://www.lighting.philips.com/forum/f ... 6298.shtml

I honestly don't know exactly what they are looking for. I'm not aware of any CD-RW burners that need a special driver, at least not any modern burners.

One of the people posted a problem that sounds like the same one you are having:

http://www.lighting.philips.com/forum/f ... 6731.shtml

Maybe it is a hardware failure.

If I were you I would be thinking about returning the Philips as defective (which it appears it might well be), and getting a more modern, better supported drive in its place.

cfitz

One other thing you might try is updating the firmware. The latest is 2.5 from 7/2/2001. I wouldn't hold out much hope for this though, seeing as your drive was able to burn some of the Sony discs and then stopped. That doesn't sound like something a firmware update will fix.

You can get it here if you want to try it:

http://www.cdr-download.de/index/Firmware/

Of course, if you try it and something goes wrong, you may no longer be able to return the drive.

cfitz

A friend of mine has the Philips CRW800 (8X4X32) and it is very picky about which blank media it will burn successfully. In fact, she has not been able to burn a successful data CD on a 700MB disc; it is entirely possible that the drive does not like 700MB discs. Try using different media, especially 650MB discs. My friend hasn't tried many brands of media, only a few, but the best results she has gotten were with Maxell 650MB CD-RW discs, not CD-R.

given what the other posters have said, i would return that drive while you can.

A newer drive (while it may list faster minumum specs than your current computer) will work better than an old drive.

1) It will probably be better supported by software

2) it will support more features like BURNproof and SMART burn to name a few.

3) It will probably burn faster and more reliably.

4) it will be able to burn at full speed if you get a newer computer.

vanilla_kisses wrote:yeah... new as in.. bought brand new online (it's only a 450mhz machine, so i had to buy an older model)

I use easy cd creator platinum 5
also have tried nero

if you are using Easy CD Creator ..do a Google search on " aspi "..as it might be needed (Win98) and when burning Ctrl Alt Delete (End Task) unnecessary running programs under the Task Manager as to free up resources reducing the amount of running tasks on a non buffering(turn off set to none any screensavers as well as making sure under Power Management your harddrive is never set to idle and/or turn off after x amt of time ) ..(Smartburn,Burnproof,etc.) drive and possibly reducing the burnspeed can help but if you can return it without incurring to big of a penalty ..do so...good luck

I tried EVERYONE's suggestions here... nothing worked, so, I packed up the drive, and I'm sending it back (actually, the company I got it from is sending fedex to pick it up foc)

I appreciate all the replies, and help I got in here

Thanks everyone

vanilla_kisses wrote:I tried EVERYONE's suggestions here... nothing worked, so, I packed up the drive, and I'm sending it back (actually, the company I got it from is sending fedex to pick it up foc)

Sounds like the right decision to me, and what a bonus that they are picking it up from you at no cost.

Two questions: What retailer gave this good customer service, and are you going to buy a newer model in its place? If so, what are you thinking of getting?

(hmm... I guess that's actually three questions, or at least two and one half )

cfitz