I am new to the DVD burning experience, and nothing has gone right yet. I bought an Iomega internal burner and had someone install it for me. Ever since I got it back I have to open up my DVD burner as soon as I start the computer or it will just get stuck on my HP blue screen (I have Windows XP). When I go to burn a movie with DVDXcopy it will do everything that it needs to do and then it says Write failure when it starts to copy to the disc. If my computer goes to stand-bye mode then the computer freezes on the blue screen. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
First of all, don't allow windows to go into standby or sleep mode. Historically, it crashes or applications mess up when this is used. As usual, microsoft added a function to their OS that isn't perfected. Mebbe LongHorn will be better. Secondly, it looks like you need to get a bit more familiar with yer puter. The first thing I'd do is uninstall all the software and drivers for the burner and reinstall them yerself. This will help u get better acquainted with yer system. You'll thank yerself later, cuz familiarity with yer puter is imperative when burning dvd's. If you had a bad software install, or if your firmware is out of date, it can cause the problems yer mentioning. Since someone else did it, there's no telling what they did to get the software to install. Lastly, go to the manufacturer's website and look on their FAQ or message boards. There may be others who have had the same problems. Blue screen errors are usually, in my experience, due to a screw up in drivers or software or even hardware installation. They prolly have customer support also....so try that if reinstalling the software and drivers doesn't help.
Tuubing, Something isn't right with your drivers or setup. Clearly, the system is NOT recognizing the drive easily. It doesn't sound like you're up to handling it, so ask someone to come by and UN-install and re-install the drive. They should examine XP's Hardware manage to ensure there are no conflicts, driver problems or other issues. When you do that, check to see how it is PHYSICALLY wired in your computer. Optical disk drives (CD,DVD) work off the IDE bus in most cases. (SCSI is another case entirely...) Most motherboards have two IDE plugs, the primary and secondary. More importantly, each one of those plugs can handle a Master and a Slave. If you have only one Hard Disk and one burner, then make sure each one is the Master on its own IDE connector. No matter what you have installed, the burner should be configured as a MASTER on its connection. If DVD-XCopy doesn't start WRITING within a minute or so, try putting in another disc...there may be a problem with the blank media. Doesn't seem likely, but it's worth a try. Hope that helps.
Ok, I think I am starting to figure out what the problem is. My computer is a Hewlitt Packard and it came with a CD-RW/DVD drive already with an expansion bay. I think when it got installed they both were set to primary master. I was just wondering what I should set each of these two drives to. Sorry if this is a stupid question, I used to think I knew a little bit about computers, but now I realize that I don't. Thanks in advance.
If you have a cd-rw/dvd player installed, AND a DVD burner installed with it, those two are likely wired into the same IDE plug. All you have to do is pull out the dvd burner, look at the back of it, and see how it is set. I didn't even think of that in my earlier response, but sounds like a good possibility. Where the pins are, it should have a small diagram above it that sez...put the clip here for master...and here for slave. make sure it's set to slave. Most drives I've looked at in the last year or two have this diagram. If it's set to master, pop it out and put it on the pins for slave. If that isn't the problem, I'd go back to my earlier post and follow my instructions. Good luck.
