The main question for this article is, “What if I can’t get my burner to do anything”? And by anything, I basically mean recording material from your burner to a CD or DVD. Yes, that definitely can be a problem, especially since you can’t really do anything if that capability isn’t working right. So, let’s troubleshoot this problem and see what we can come up with. One more thing before I go any further, this tip is only for Windows XP users.
1.) First, you need to make sure that you have the recording feature enabled. If you have Windows XP, you really don’t have to do much to get the burner to work, but without the recording feature, you can’t do a whole lot. To check this, double click on the My Computer icon on your desktop. Find whichever drive handles your CDs (generally drive D: or F:), right click on it and choose Properties. Next, click on the Recording tab and make sure the “Enable CD recording on this drive” is checked.
Note: If you don’t have a Recording tab, it means that XP is not recognizing your burner’s recording capabilities. If this is the case, you may need to consult with your CD burner manual to find out how to configure everything correctly. Depending on your situation, you may even need to change some things in the registry editor. If you have serious problems with this, you may even want to contact your computer/burner manufacturer for additional help.
On the other hand, if you do have the Recording tab, keep going with me! When you turn on the recording feature, it starts the built-in CD recording in Windows XP. Now, if you use a different burning utility (other than the one that came with XP), you can disable this and just use the other as you normally do.
2.) Another thing you may want to do is lower your burning speed. You more than likely have the software set to the fastest possible speed, but you might want to try setting it back to something like 18X or maybe even 8X. If you do this, you may see better results from your drive.
3.) Check on your system and make sure you have at least Windows XP Service Pack 1. For everything to run smoothly during the burning process, this has to be in place.
4.) And last (and the most obvious) is to check and make sure that you do have a blank CD in your CD ROM drive. You have to have one in there for the burning to start. Otherwise, the files will go no where and you will end up with nothing.
Hopefully with these troubleshooting techniques, you’ll be able to have a better burning experience for years to come!
~ Erin