Windows 7: Burned CD-R reading as Blank Disc

I have a pile of CD-R disc's with music, photos, and other files that I burned several years ago. All of them work fine on my husbands desktop, which I believe may be Vista (I cannot remember ), but not on my new laptop. I just bought an HP Pavilion with Windows 7. When I put the discs in, my autoplay options are for a blank disc. I decided to go into My Computer and go into them from there and it is saying there are "702 MB of 702 MB" remaining. In other words, blank discs!

Any idea why my computer is not reading these discs?



They play fine on our DVD player and the kids Radio/CD Player. They are imitation and Sony brand discs. CD-R 1x-52x, 700MB 80 min.

Thanks!

Keri

Not all CD or DVD discs work in all drives. There are different types of drive, drives which are adjusted differently, etc.

Some CD's will only work in specific drives. This is normal.

Regards....Mike Connor

Also maybe your drive has slower speed of reading cd's. Try on other cd/dvd drive.

I do not know anything about my cd/dvd drive. How do I figure out which discs it is compatible with?

I've faced this issue between two computers using windows 7 both new drives. Still don't have a solution and don't give a damn as i don't use cds much anyway. Would like a solid solution though.

Unfortunately, the only simple way to find out is to try them.

There are "special" programs which can burn discs which will function in various drives. ( For "Home Entertainment Devices" for instance). Other burning programs produce discs which only run on specific drives, and there are lots of different types of drives.

Drive adjustment, speed, capability, all play a part. A slightly maladjusted drive ( nothing a home user can normally do anything about), will often produce discs that only run in that drive. They simply wont run in another drive.

For some info on drive adjustment and repair, ( although I don't advise you to try it unless you have very good technical knowledge and skills),

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/cdfaq.htm

<http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/cdfaq.htm>

I have adjusted and repaired drives for a few people in the past, because they wanted to be able to read CD's on various machines, and unless the drives are nearly perfectly adjusted this wont work, but it is an involved and complex procedure. I don't like doing it. Perhaps I ought to point out here that I am a trained technician, ( Electronics Engineer actually),with a lot of experience and plenty of tools and equipment. Messing about with the innards on CD and similar drives is not for the casual handyman, and you can easily ruin a drive very quickly.

Regards....Mike Connor

I actually don't use them too much either. Besides liking to have the option and being able to read my old CD's (they're from as far back as 2003) on MY computer and not just my husbands, I have a lot of CD's with music burned from my old computer. Lost ALL the music because my old computer crashed and now my only access to it is on these CD's. I'd like to be able to get it back onto my iPod, especially for my son, who uses my iPod a lot.

PS. I don't know whether this is relevant for you, but this program is very good, reliable, and free!

CDBurnerXP: Free CD and DVD burning software

<http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home>

There are also problems with various CD's, and similar, produced for specific purposes.

One point here which is often overlooked, NEVER try to burn audio and similar CD's etc at the maximum speed of your burner ( Which itself is a special drive), use a maximum of 4X writing speed if you want them to run on anything else, ( Like a CD player) and use good quality media. Raw discs from a good company. A lot of "No-Name" discs will cause problems.

Also many commercial CD's and similar are specially coded or protected to prevent them being played in other countries, or on other equipment, or being copied or "ripped" ( "Ripping" means extracting the audio or similar data to get individual tracks for instance), and so on.

Some more technical info;

Reed-Solomon Codes and CD Encoding

CD-ROM Technical Summary

CD Data Coding - Hydrogenaudio Forums

General info on CD's;

Compact Disc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The whole thing is quite a complex matter.

Regards....Mike Connor

Well, there is a trick you can use to copy the content of the discs and then burn them again if you want so that they are compatible with your present machines.

You need to use the drive from your old machine, or use a machine where you know the CD's work. Now load this free software;

Audiograbber, free CD ripper, mp3 encoder and audio recorder for Windows

<http://www.audiograbber.org/>

This software will extract the audio data as tracks, ( individual songs etc), and you can then copy this and burn it on another machine. Once you have the tracks you can copy them to an iPod or whatever you like.

Or just keep the copied data as MP3's on the machine you want to play the tracks on. Here is another nice free software which will allow you to organise and play your music directly on the machine. No discs required;

http://www.jaangle.com/

<http://www.jaangle.com/>


Regards....Mike Connor

PS. If you need any help on using the software, ( although it is quite easy to use), just come back and ask. That's what we are here for.

You can use a similar trick to extract your photos etc.

Then you can use something like this on the machine with the photos;

http://www.studioline.biz/EN/downloa...ic/default.htm

<http://www.studioline.biz/EN/downloads/photo-basic/default.htm>

there are a lot of such photo organiser programs freely available, but that one is very good and also free.


Regards....Mike Connor