My DVD burner reads but has stopped burning...

I've been having issues with my main desktop computer which runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. My DVD burner stopped working a couple of months ago. When I say it stopped working, I guess I should say that it stopped successfully burning discs. It still reads just fine. It just won't burn. Any discs I try to create seem to make it to about 25-30% before failing and I wind up with a coaster. I don't tend to need to burn all that much anymore and my wife and I have been extremely busy around the house so I've put off troubleshooting for a while.

Skip ahead a couple of months. A couple of days ago, I decided to swap the drive with a known good spare that I have. Guess what? The same results. The drive reads just fine but only burns to about 25-30% before failing. The suspected bad drive works fine in another computer. Obviously I have some software/driver issue. Unfortunately, I have no idea what may have changed to cause this. Also, after two months of installing and uninstalling this and that, I really don't think I have any good Restore Point options.

Before I decide to reformat and start fresh to fix the problem, does anyone have any ideas of any settings or anything that I could look at that may help?

Thanks in advance to anyone that may have any ideas.

- Byron Followell

Boozad said:

What program are you using to burn?

All of them!

Well, I guess that's a slight exaggeration.

I typically use the newest version of Roxio, Roxio 2013 currently, fully updated. Since this trouble started I've tried various other apps I have and trials I've downloaded. I've tried Roxio, Alcohol, Nero, I'm certain there are others that I'm forgetting but those are the main three that I know for certain that I've tried. Oh, and the built-in Windows Image Burner or whatever it's called.

- Byron

Could be drivers or could be the hardware. It's not uncommon for cd/dvd's to quit burning but continue to read OK. Is the dvd showing in device manager as OK?

madcratebuilder said:

Could be drivers or could be the hardware. It's not uncommon for cd/dvd's to quit burning but continue to read OK. Is the dvd showing in device manager as OK?

madcratebuilder,

Yes, it shows up in device manager just fine. Yes, I realize that it could be a driver issue and stated as much in my original post, just as I'd stated that I'd already checked out the hardware.

When I swapped this drive with a known good drive, the good drive fails in the exact same way that the original drive did. When I put the drive in question in another machine, it burns just fine. That's what lead me to believe it's strictly a software issue and why I inquired about such.

Thanks for your reply.

- Byron

Strange one indeed. I would remove all burner software, do a clean install of the dvd device driver and then use the W7 imbedded burner and see what you get. Cable issue?