cant burn a cd

I cant get files to cd. It starts to happen however it stops suddenly, the drawer opens up and it tells me that an error occured. It also says the cd may not be useable again. I've tried different cd's and have tried updating the drivers which were ok. I have tried changing to a slower speed. Nothing helps. Can anyone Help me with this???

please explain you're problem more. Are you trying to copy files to a CD or burn songs and other stuff. Please reply and then i can help you in farther problems.

Okay,
Have you been able to write to CD's in the past?
What is the error message?
It would also be easier to help if you post the CD drive's specs.

Thanks to Jake and Stark for their swift attention.

I am trying to copy files to a CD. I have done so in the past without any problems. I can play a music CD in the drive. I clicked on to Properties and looked under hardware and it says the drive is functioning fine. It is a Sony cd-rw crx215e5.
The cd writing wizard instructs me to insert a cd when I have already inserted one. I procede and it starts writing for about 5 seconds and then says "There was an error in the writing process. The disc You have attempted to write may no longer be usable.
I have checked the setting for IMAPI cd burning com. It was not diabled however I have changed it from manual to auto.
I hope this helps. Let me know if You need more imfo. Thanks Richard

The disks you are using, are they new or used? If they are previously used CD-RW, you may need to format them/it. If the CD is blank/unused, try formatting the CD (NOT your hard disk) by,
1.open MY COMPUTER
2.Right-click on your CD/DVD drive (Whichever your CD is inserted into)
3.From the list, select FORMAT
4.After that is taken care of, try the CD again, and post w/ your results, I'll be online almost all day tomarrow.(Jan. 21)

DON'T FORMAT A HARD DISK BY ACCIDENT, I know it may sound obvious, but while helping a friend with a very similar problem, he managed to do just that.

I put in a new cd. right clicked the drive. wasnt given an option to format the cd

The XP burning wizard has no format option. Just an option to Erase this CD-RW.

A simple test to eliminate hardware/driver errors is to delete the drive and reboot which will reinstall the drive and drivers.

To do this just open the Device Manager (Start/Run/ devmgmt.msc) and expand (click +) the DVD/CD-ROM drives line; right click on the drive in question and choose Uninstall.
Do all the Yes' and OK's and then reboot the computer. The drive will be detected as new hardware and XP will load its' drivers.

If the problem persists then you have a software or XP issue. Just by the way do you have any third party burning software installed?

Well I tried it and it did'nt work. I don't know where to go from here. I don't think I have any third party burning software. I do have musicmatch, realplayer etc and you can burn cd's on these. Could that be the problem? I'm at a loss? thanks help!!

There are a lot of similar issues posted about:

http://www.google.com/search?q=There...ch&sa=N&tab=gw

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Th...e.&sa=N&tab=wg

This Microsoft site covers some errors although not specifically yours':

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=324129

As a last case scenario there is the reinstalling of XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q315341

Just another test would be to turn off Auto Play. From My Computer right click your CD drive & choose Properties then Auto Play and choose Take No Action.

I have seen conflicts with Music Match. Were you ever able to use the XP Wizard while Music Match was installed?

Also: look in your Event viewer: rt. click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
Or: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/ eventvwr
Open the system as well as the application tabs & look for X errors. Click error line for details.
Post back the source & event id especially of errors that seem to coincide with this issue. Also check the Information lines that might coincide with this issue.


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