[RESOLVED] Blank DVD looks like CD!

This is a strange problem, and as far as I can tell, just started in the last couple of days (no new software installs or major changes).

I have 2 DVD burners in my PC (details in my sig). These show up correctly in Device Manager and Windows Explorer. However, when I insert a blank DVD, it suddenly shows up as a CD drive (and of course, I can't burn them as DVDs)! I get the Autorun pop-up asking me what I want to do with the CD drive, and when I look into Windows Explorer, that drive letter shows up as a CD drive. I tried a reboot but no luck.

I tried a couple of different brands but all show up as a CD. I tried a system restore to the last time I was able to burn a DVD but no luck.

Both of them will play DVDs just fine. Any idea what is going on?

EDIT: After doing some searching on the internet, it seems that blank DVDs showing up as CD-Rs on XP is not that uncommon. I guess I never noticed it before.

But still a strange issue going on. I also tried these blank DVDs on a different XP machine and they work fine. (incidentally, on that machine the blanks show up also as CD-Rs)

What program are you using to burn the DVDs? WinXP has no native DVD burning capability, it can only burn CDs.

And with Nero if you choose the wrong drop down box option for the type of burn you wish to do then a DVD can be mistaken as a CD and vice versa.

I'm using Nero for the burning. To clarify what is happening: Nero doesn't complain at all. It shows up the DVD-R (regardless of which drive I use), shows its limit correctly as ~ 4.5 Gb and then starts burning. But it will fail in the middle of burning every time. I have version 6 and 7 - both are failing. I also tried a DVD-RW and that fails too (at least I can erase it though! :) )

I might try another burning software next.

I thought maybe the drives were going bad. But then these are different brands bought at different times. Pretty big coincidence if they're both going bad at the same time.

Have you tried slowing the burn rate down?

I find 12X will complete when 16X will not.

Oh yeah, even down to 4X. No luck. :(

Okay, I think I got it working. I swapped the ends of the IDE cable connecting these two drives. i.e., the master & slave ends of the cable. The burners were not on cable select, so the master/slave relationship is still the same. I've done a successful burn, but of course I won't know for sure until I burn more discs.

I have no idea why this worked. The cables were seated nice and tight to begin with.

Those IDE cables are notorious for making bad pin contacts. Just unplugging and replugging them cleans any corrosion from the contacts and they start working again. I've had to do it myself many times, and I'm glad my latest rig is all SATA (though SATA connectors could be a lot better designed too).

Good to know! Yeah, my next build will probably be SATA all the way too. This machine is quite old so I'll be building a new one soon...