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General discussion

Dell 8200 CD-RW problem

Dec 25, 2009 2:35AM PST

I have an old Dell Desktop 8200 Pentium 4, running Windows XP Home Edition w/SP3. I am having a problem with my CD-RW drive. My original
Dell Spec says it is a 40x/10//40x CD-RW Drive. The Device manager says it is a HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8400B device. This is my problem:
When I load a CD-RW disk in the drive, I cannot eject it by either the front button, or the Eject option from "My Computer". The only way I can remove it, is by pressing the front eject button during a restart. I can load a program or music CD on the drive, and eject it without a problem. The device manager says it is working, and I am able to read and write on a CD-RW disk without any problems. I just can't eject a CD-RW cd once I load it, without using the eject button during a restart. I was afraid to uninstall it via the device manager, because I am not sure I can re-install it not knowing if there is a driver for it on my C drive. I have not found a Dell CD disk with a driver for it yet. Could this be just a bad Drive? Any way to prove it without replacing it? Thanks for your help. Charles Ranheim

Discussion is locked

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That's a known bug in
Dec 25, 2009 3:20AM PST

Both ROXIO and NERO softwares.

Your post didn't tell which you might be using.

EXAMPLE at http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/18672881.aspx

There are hundreds more with some being more specific to less specific to this issue. The title can be Dell, Sonic, Nero, Roxio and others.

At least the cause is well known. Your machine hardware is almost always just fine.
Bob

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Dell 8200 CD-RW problem
Dec 25, 2009 4:30AM PST

Bob,

It looks like I have Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Basic. I have not made any changes to this software for years. I can't remember exactly when the problem started, but I have been using the CD-RW drive for years, the last time would have been a few months ago. I did not associate the Roxio software with this problem. I thought windowsXP would be controlling the simple function of loading and unloading the CD-RW disk. Please understand I am not a PC guru, making it difficult to know where to look for answers. Charles Ranheim

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Hi, Cranheim:
Dec 25, 2009 4:34AM PST

Roxio version 5 is not going to work with XP SP2 or newer. You have two options. Pay for a newer version of Roxio, or just use a freeware CD burning program like ImgBurn.

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Dell 8200 CD-RW problem
Dec 25, 2009 10:10AM PST

My Roxio level is 5.3.5, where it had been for a long time. I am sure the eject has been working long after I was at that level. Is Roxio involved by me just pressing the eject button on the drive itself? I can see something going wrong if I was doing a disk copy using Roxio if it was not supported. By the way, I just copied a music disk to a CD-R CD using my level of Roxio! The CD-R ejected normally, and the recorded music played OK. I also loaded and read a TurboTax installation disk, followed by a normal eject. I can load and eject a new blank CD-RW disk OK. Again, for some reason, I can no longer load and eject a CD-RW data disk with information on it. Does this information shed any more light on the problem? Thanks for your time. Charles Ranheim

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Yes it does.
Dec 26, 2009 2:03AM PST

It only means you are in uncharted and unsupported territory. I can imagine many will write "it worked before" but the issue is known and related to the titles given.

It will be interesting to see if you'll take the new information to fix it. And no, there will be no fix from Roxio as this version is not supported on this OS. Again the fact that it worked has no bearing on it being supported or supportable.
Bob

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Yes it does
Dec 26, 2009 10:45PM PST

Bob,
I certainly appreciate your suggestions, and have been looking at what level of Roxio I should be using. I am not a PC guru, and do not understand how Roxio comes into play in the way I have been writing data on a CD. When I do backups to a CD-RW disk, I do it using the windows copy and paste. Does this simple process use Roxio software? All my years working for IBM as a technical specialist on Main Frame processors, just makes me want to better understand the problem, even though it is probably a Roxio problem. Being my only working PC that I depend upon every day, I will probably do a complete system backup using Acronis before I make any software changes. Can you suggest what level of Roxio will support what I am trying to fix? Again,I appreciate your time and suggestions. Charles Ranheim

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Does this simple process use Roxio software?
Dec 26, 2009 10:59PM PST

Yes it can. Roxio changed the name of the feature over the years so I'll probably call it by the wrong name. Let's say it was DirectCD. That feature is known to cause the locked door issue.

I see that you are more a guru than you think. The hard part I find today is how to help people solve the issues when they won't let go of titles that cause it.

-> The old drag to CDRW feature was convenient but I found it to fail at the worst of times so I stopped using that years ago. Today I'll just do the quick erase of the media then record what I want there. If I want it to be compatible all over I'll use a single closed session.

I read you want to understand the problem. That may be rough as Roxio and others never revealed why this happened. They only issued patches or brought out new versions.
Bob

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Dell 8200 CD-RW problem
Dec 28, 2009 1:03AM PST

I just realized something else changed with the way files are written on the CD-RW disk. Before the problem, when I did a copy and paste from the c: drive to the CD-RW drive, the reading and writing seemed to occur at the same time. When I do it now to a new CD-RW disk, it appears to copy all the data first, then a message comes up saying ?You have files waiting to be written to the CD. When I click on the option on the left side of the screen to write to the CD, a Wizard comes up, and indicates it is doing some preparation as well as writing the data to the disk. When this finishes, the data on the disk is good, and it will eject normally. Also, when I look at the properties of the disk, it says the File System is ?CDFS?.
When I load one of my previous disks that copied the data quickly without the wizard coming up, the file system is ?CDUDFRW?. I can read the data OK, but I cannot eject this disk with the CDUDFRW file system. This must be why I could load and eject a clean CD-RW. It had no CDUDFRW data. The ones that no longer eject are the ones that were written in the past (the normal copy and paste) in the CDUDFRW file system.

I hope this additional information helps figure out what happened, and how best to fix it. It appears if I could get back to the old working enviroment, it would write in the CDUDFRW file system without the Wizard coming up, and it would eject properly. Now it writes in the CDFS file system, and will no longer eject a CD-RW that had been created with the CDUDFRW file system. I hope this makes some sense to you. Do you still think a new level of Roxio will resolve it, or is there some option that changed that could be reset? I just wanted to pass on this new discovery about the problem. From my many years in tech support on IBM Mainframes, I learned the more you know about a problem, the better the chance of fixing it. Thanks again, Charles Ranheim

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Sorry.
Dec 28, 2009 1:34AM PST

But I've fixed this one some hundred plus times. The thing is that I found I have to give some owners time to think over the issues. Some don't want to remove what's causing the issue and some want some one at Roxio to explain why.

I'd spent too much time on this over the years to do anything more than eject the failed software and move on.

If you need more time to think it over, try patches from Roxio then go do that.
Bob