HELP! WTF?! PC suddenly refuses to burn CD / DVD!

[dubrichie]

alrighty,

i have a major problem that has me flummoxed.

my Win XP DAW has, all of a sudden and for not apparent reason, refused to burn a CD or DVD.

i have both a CD and a DVD burner in the machine and everything was working fine until 2 days ago.

now, when i try to burn an audio CD in WMP it says "connect a burner and restart the player". when i try to burn a disc outside WMP it says "insert a blank disc".

i have checked every setting that i know of, have performed a system restore to a week ago (before the problem) but all to no avail.

i need to burn mixes for clients and this is going to be very embarrassing if i don't get it sorted PRONTO.

suggestions please!

cheers,

[Altitude909]

try something other than WMP to isolate the problem. The Official ImgBurn Website is excellent and free

[ark]

I had a similar problem recently, which started about the time I installed Internet Explorer 8.

The problem went away when I unstalled Roxio DLA, which I never use anyway. Apparently there are compatibility problems between IE8 and the free version of DLA that is preinstalled on many computers.

[dubrichie]

thanks for the replies.

i haven't installed IE8, my windows is a clean install of XP SP2 from the CD without any updates since.

i have tried to use Plextools Pro to burn with my Plextor CD drive and it just crashes.

like i said, i cant even write files to a CD in windows explorer, without involving Media Player at all.

this problem popped up completely unexpected. i didn't install any software or mess with any system settings. i have restored the system to a week before the problem first appeared and it did not fix it.

WTF?!

[larrygates]

Yes same EXACT thing for me. I suppose you have 3rd party burning tools Right?

Well, what's happened is something has disabled your IMAPI service.

type in "services.msc" from the run box, and look for that service and enable it.

If you don't see you, you'll have to reinstall the service. Now that's a problem, because I have NO IDEA how to find or reinstall it.

I searched for HOURS looking for the solution to the missing IMAPI issue.

Good news, if you download IMGBurn, you can Burn ANYTHING you like to almost any type of media you have. You can also burn direct audio CD's from whatever format you have. You might need FFDSHOW, but you just make a CUE file and you're good.

I do know that other programs will mess around with the IMAPI service, and I'm sure that's happened to both me and you.

I don't even bother with fixing it, I just IMGBurn for everything now. I used to only use it for DVD burns, but I do EVERYTHING burning in IMGBurn now. Don't need any other program Pay or Free. Well except MAGICDISK. Which handles all my .ISO mounts.

Originally Posted by dubrichie

thanks for the replies.

i haven't installed IE8, my windows is a clean install of XP SP2 from the CD without any updates since.

i have tried to use Plextools Pro to burn with my Plextor CD drive and it just crashes.

like i said, i cant even write files to a CD in windows explorer, without involving Media Player at all.

this problem popped up completely unexpected. i didn't install any software or mess with any system settings. i have restored the system to a week before the problem first appeared and it did not fix it.

WTF?!

[sleeper1400]

yo.
bad news ....

sounds like your drive has failed.

unlike RAM or HD's windows will not give a blue screen of death..

it will just think its the media, not the reader.

....IMHO

[theblue1]

Sounds to me like Larry has the probable answer: a disabled IMAPI service.

Do not throw out your burner.


(I have no clue why sleeper thought it was hardware, since he didn't share his reasoning with us. It certainly could be a hardware failure: a drive failure, a drive controller failure, even a loose cable. But the first place I'd look would be software, since the IMAPI service is easy to check and a frequent culprit in such cases. IMAPI is not, however, the only one transfer/burning protocol. But it's most common at this point, I believe. It is certainly one place to look. And I'd certainly explore that and other software/system settings before heading down to the computer store.)

[dubrichie]

ah lads, thanks a million.

checked the IMAPI service, it's not running, can't get it to run properly, no idea why.

i downloaded and installed IMGBurn and i'm back in business, problem solved.

funny aul station, these computers...