Yeah, I tried it and nothing happened. i'll try it again though.

Hi Gabe. (Aether).

It's so strange that DXC recognizes your dvd burner, but that you can't burn! (red button or not).

From what I understand, Win-XP doesn't come with an aspi layer, (I'm using Win-98) so I'm sorry that running 'force aspi' didn't seem to work for you.

But you can always try some other stuff. I don't know how appropriate the following is to your particular situation, but I did some simple testing with your problem in mind:

I wanted to try a DVD+RW without first erasing it, and regardless of *what* was on it. So I started with an old dvd+rw data disc loaded with a lot of outdated files & folders on it. I didn't put it in the burner right away.

I put a retail dvd in the dvd-rom and ran DXC. While DXC was processing the movie, I noticed a little check-box "Output Disc Is Ready". I did NOT check-off this box, because I wanted to see if DXC would be able to determine the disc's status by itself later on.

After processing, I got the red dot message, "Drive Is Not Ready". (Correct), so I inserted the full data disc. Within seconds, I got the 'dimmish' green (amber?) button with the messages, "Used DVD+RW" and "This disk contains data which will be overwritten." (Both messages correct). I even got a third message politely asking me, "Is it ok to overwrite the information on this disc?" (Yes) - So far, perfect!

Adter I clicked "yes", there was a bit of dvd-burner activity, and then DXC *ejected* the disc. Why, I don't know, but perhaps DXC requires a re-insertion of the disc to initialze it. (??) I got the new message, "Waiting for a disk to be inserted". So I just pressed the burner's 'close' button.

A few more seconds, and now I got the (bright) green button message, "Empty DVD+RW" and "This disc is reading for burning". Perfect!

And of course, the dvd is now playing perfectly in my set top Sony player as I type this.

My conclusion? DXC will correctly recognize and format a dvd+rw as necessary. (You may just have to re-insert the disc).

When you get to the burn screen Gabe, you should see a box "Target Drive". In my case it says, "D: DVD+RW RW5120" Do you get a similar drive recognition?

If yes, and you *still* can't seem to burn a disc, look at the row of DXC option buttons...

[Eject] [Load] [Quick Erase] [Full Erase] [Refresh] ...

Try the 'Quick Erase' option and see if that works. (If not, it's not likely that a full erase will work either, so I wouldn't spend the time). DVD+RWs have the inherit ability to erase "on the fly" as new data is being written, which I believe the DVD-RW format does *not* have. So, you shouldn't ever have to do a 'Full Erase'.

I have on occassion, pre-erased a disc with both Nero and Primo Prassi, but that was purely an unnecessary option. (But you could try a quick erase with either and see what happens).

The internal DXC Gearworks driver(s) have never failed to burn a disc for me.

And as advised, NO, I myself would stay away from Roxio software (the successor to Adaptec); a LOT of people have conflicts with it, including DirectCD (the Roxio UDF packet-writing software), which royally screwed up things for me.

Let us know how you make out.

-- Mike --

A_Klingon, I have to agree with what you have said with a few minor differences. Aether , keep in mind that there is NOT just one answer or solution to every problem......

First of all a while back I had a problem using Gear to erase my discs so I`ve used EZCD exclusively since to pre-erase with no problems.

I did everything you did up till here : " And of course, the dvd is now playing perfectly in my set top Sony player as I type this. " Except in my case I did not use EZCD to pre-erase and my movie would not work.

I have on occassion, pre-erased a disc with both Nero and Primo Prassi, but that was purely an unnecessary option. (But you could try a quick erase with either and see what happens)." I do this automatically with EZCD and I have never had a bad burn afterwards.

"The internal DXC Gearworks driver(s) have never failed to burn a disc for me. " I agree Gear works great , I do not own any Nero software , I have never needed it , but it is a nice option to have. You may have to go to Nero.

"And as advised, NO, I myself would stay away from Roxio software (the successor to Adaptec); a LOT of people have conflicts with it, including DirectCD (the Roxio UDF packet-writing software), which royally screwed up things for me." I disagree and agree, I love the Roxio EZCD software I use it to pre-erase my Dvd+rw`s , it has always worked very well for ME, with the exception of the Direct Cd part , which has always been buggy for me so I never install it. I have posted similar messages about EZCD on this forum and I have gotten replys that the Direct CD worked well for them....go figure.I use the latest version of EZCD Platinum downloaded from Roxio.

The bottom line from all this is that NOTHING is set in stone, what works for me may or may not work for you. There are a lot of things and combination of things to try . Even maybe uninstalling software.

I usually do not recommend using a Dvd+R to experiment , but I remember a post from someone who was having problems burning to a Dvd+RW , at some point they tried using an R and it worked but the RW would not. Good Luck

To those who would like to own nero, check out ebay and our www.pricewatch.com, you can pick up for 5 to 7 dollars, not bad for a pretty good program (just consider it as a snap-in for DXC!)


<Its worth bearing in mind however, that some of the really cheap versions of Nero are OEM versions.. and these releases will sometimes only work with specific pieces of hardware.. (The burner, the software was originally designed to be given away free with) and not every burner as the full package will>

<Just a word of warning ....>

<Regards... Mag>

That comment about Nero is oh so true!!!! I have a OEM copy of Nero v 5.5 that I picked up , that will only work with Cyberdrive brand burners. I tried to install it on my machine and it F**KED it up ,DXC nor any other burning software would work afterwards. I had to do a system restore to fix my machine.

OEM stands for : Original Equipment Manufacturer.

I stole it from a P2P system, but I'm not proud to admit that. I don't use it. It just sits there in case I need and/or want to help someone with a problem, and frankly, I only wanted to see why everyone was drooling such praises for it. (Haven't figured out that one yet).

And yes morgan, you bet, nothing IS carved in stone, but I sincerely hope we can get Gabe up 'n running. I'm gonna try

Hi Mag. :-)

I don't know what 'type' of Nero I snitched, but I think it's 5.5 Nero Express or something. (Does that = 'OEM')? The guy that put it up for $0.00 provided a serial #, which works perfectly. (No, not 'Key Gen'). I don't need the damn thing, but neither does does DXC or *anyone* reading this thread.

I'll delete it off my system as soon as someone can make me feel guilty enough that I shouldn't-a-snitched it in the first place.

-- Mike --

Hi Mike :)

Nope.. Nero Express is just a very cut down version of the full Nero package.. which I think some OEM's were including with their equipment too.. but I don't recall seeing a version of Nero Express that was dedicated to just one set of equip unlike the various OEM versions of the full Nero program itself.. (Might be wrong though..)

I feel I had better come clean too about something in the past.. I reported the original problem with using a keygen'd serial for Nero and DXC because that was exactly what I was using at the time and had done so for many moons.. and when DXC begain to have probs.. I realised it was my illegal version of Nero that was the cause..

Now I can honestly say I paid for the program.. so my guilt is cleansed!

Ok.. beat me.. whip me.. make me write bad checks...

<g>

Cheers...

Mag

Klingy

You will give up your pirated Nero as soon as someone can make you feel guilty enough? Now how do we go about making a Canadian Klingon feel guilty about ANYTHING? Especially one that still uses Windows 98 and is happy with it (actually, I was as happy with it as I am with XP). ;)

<heh-heh> "True Confessions" I love it! :)

How does one make a Canadian Klingon feel guilty? That's a good question. I don't think you can. (I have no shame). <much> Don't forget, Klingons got to where they are today by invading planets, roughing up the inhabitants, and confiscating all their booty.

But like my counterpart, Commander Worf, I too am a sort of 'wayward' Klingon in that I'd rather not swipe people's stuff if alternatives exist (as the venerable Spock tells us, 'There are always alternatives'), so yes, I will nuke my ill-gotten Nero very shortly.

You're an *honest* man, Mag! My my, I wonder how many computer users have installed a P2P system (in itself, a free & legal program), and then *never* use it? (yeah, right, I thought so). And of course, I know that no one *here* would have any copyrighted .mp3s on their systems when those poor, floundering International Recording Conglomerates are suffering so much.

And you're being honest too, Glass. (wow!) Yeah, Win-98 works just fine! (And it even came legally *bundled* with my computer).

Gee.... I guess it's fortuitious I don't back-up any movies I haven't legally obtained !!

P. S. Public Libraries are free & legal. :-)

Any other ideas to help me?

Aether,
One thing I didn't notice anyone mention although I may have missed it. There is one button that says REFRESH. I have had to hit this a few times after inserting a disk into the drive and not getting my green light of acceptance.

Did hitting the 'Refresh' button (one or more times) give you the green light?

Maybe he could trying hitting 'Quick Erase' and then try clicking the refresh button a couple of times.

But I suspect ther's something else (probably quite simple in-and-of itself) that we are missing. Aether, you still cannot burn discs?

Does your dvd burner show up in the DXC Drive: box? Little else matters, if the drive isn't showing up.

No, the burner doesn't show up in the drive.

Aether, What ver. EZCD creator do you have loaded on your system.If you are running XP have you updated it @ Roxio? Also they have Patch for newer drives this also includes DVD drives.If I remember when installing my HP drive and software The DLA part would not be installed because Roxio uses it also.I did find info concerning this at Dell.Take a look at this link.
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_cdrom&message.id=54731
Does EZCD Creator recognize this drive?Are you able to just write data to it? Must be frustrating,been there many times,feels like your just going around in circles.

Found something else you might be able to try at Dell site.It's the last message.
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_cdrom&message.id=49931

Up grade to to easy creator cd/dvd-6,it just came out march 1st.Its will work on win-98,2000,xpppp.I can tell you this it will copy copys,read my post on page-27 on form
(dvx v1.41 problems and issues)

If EZCD Creator came loaded on your system it is most likely the Basic Version.I found a link for EZCD Basic to update to 5.3.4 adds DVD drive support.

http://www.roxio.com/en/support/ecdc/ecdc_basic_xp_updt53.jhtml

I did at one time had basic easy creator-5 on my system,i went to roixo upgrade site downloader the upgrade,and tried to install,it would not install,there is a code in basic that won't let the upgrade install.That is until you get the full ver,then it will let you upgrade.
i started out with easy-4 by adaptec,went to easy-5 by roxio then went to easy-6.
by far easy -6 is the best.It does a lot for your money.It helps a lot with DVD X COPY,you'll
find out how much if you get it.

I'll try to install the upgrade from roxio & see if that works. I am able to burn data and audio discs from the burner, just not DVD discs. I'm running EZCD creatore version 5.3.2.34

P.S. I just want to thank you all for trying to help me, I really appreciate it. Take care.

-Gabe

Nothing has worked. Any last suggestions?

Aether,
The latest version of ECDC 5 is 5.3.4.21. Have you been able to upgrade to that? Does your dvd writer show up in that as the correct device? I've checked back over what you have said so far, but I am still unsure of what your setup entails. You say you have XP. Does the dvd burner show up correctly in MY COMPUTER? Is the drive on the secondary IDE controller by itself, or is there another device connected to the controller? Could you post the following:

Computer: INTEL P(?) or AMD (?)
Motherboard or make of computer: Is it a Laptop??
Memory: ???? MB
Harddrive: ?? GB
OS: XP
IDE-1: c: and ??
IDE-2: dvd\rw and ??
XCOPY v.?
POWERDVD or WINDVD v.? or ??
ECDC v.??
NAV v.??

Correction, I do have version 5.3.4.21

I have an intel 2.4ghz processor, it is a Dell desktop computer, 120gb hard drive, i have a c, d(Dvd-drive), e(dvd-rom), & f drive, DVD-x copy v. 1.4.1. Also, the DVD burner does show up under "my computer". Anything else?

Aether
Are you saying your dvdr/w is on the primary ide controller with your boot harddrive? It's usually better not to have on the same controller. Or is it on the secondary controller? Also since you have XP and ECDC make sure that DIRECT CD is not running while trying to burn. Hit <ctrl><alt><del> before running DXC and check the processes running. If DIRECT CD is listed, turn it off. Is gearsec.exe listed? Twice? Turn it off. Turn off NAV if it's running. Turn off anything else that doesn't have to be running such as anything that could start using the harddrive while you're burning. Try this and let the group know what happens.

After about 2 months of trying (off and on - unfortunately work gets in the way of my play :--)) I have gotten this to work!!! I wanted to pass along a couple suggestions that helped me.
1) Heed the warnings of everyone who posts on this board - DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING ELSE RUNNING - ESPECIALLY NORTON AV or File Sharing to other machines. This was one of my main causes of frisbees.
2) Get a secondary DVD Reader - DVD Writers STINK at reading - it only cost me 40.00 delivered, and it now makes my full copy time (for a one disc to one disc dvd) UNDER 50 minutes. It also makes it unattended with the "Output Disk Ready" checkbox (WAY COOL).

3) Get Media that someone on this forum says works with your writer. I made many a frisbee because i didn't just go out and order what others said works with my DVDR (Pioneer A05).

4) Practice on DVD-RW discs - if it works on a DVD-RW it will almost ALWAYS work on the DVD-R (unless you don't follow suggestions 1-3 both times - Learned that the hard way).

Thanks for a great product - and all the hassle I went through was definitely worth it.

Aether,
I had the same problem with DXC 1.4.1. My Plextor PX-504A did not show when time to burn, yet it worked in every other way and was seen in Device Manager. I had an updated version of EZCD creator 5. First I uninstalled Direct CD. That didn't help. I then uninstalled EZCD creator totally, uninstalled DXC 1.4.1 and rebooted. Reinstalled DXC 1.4.1. It then showed my burner in DXC. I have since purchased Roxio EZCD creator 6. It all works together with no problems. Not brave enough to upgrade to DXC 1.5. By the way, I elected not to install the replacement for Direct CD. Don't know if that matters.
Very happy with DXC, now that all are getting along.

XP Home, ASUS A7V333, AMD XP-2100+, 512 2700 DDR, BUSLINK-DR16 (LITE0N LTD 163D), PLEXTOR PX-504A, WD 40GB HD