I cannot copy to my CD drive?

Question

I am totally new to burning discs. I am using, or not, the Sonic program that came with my Dell laptop. First, my computer says there is no disc in the drive. Then it said it is read only. The label on the first disc I tried says DVD-R write once, the next says DVD+R write once.
I would rather not buy the entire stock of discs in my local store
before working this out, so advice would be much appreciated.
By the way, it plays back commercial films on DVDs fine.

Thank you Dewcoons.
I have found the original documentation, which tells me it is a CD/DVD drive!!
Fortunately, I have also found the original newspaper advert which says that it has an 8x DVD-ROM/24x CDRW Combo Drive.
I guess that this means I can't write to DVD discs but I can to CDs? Is that correct?

Answer 1

Check the documentation with your laptop to see what kind of a drive you got. It will be listed as either a CD, CD_ROM, CD-R, or CD-RW. That will determine what kind of CD you need to use. It may also be a DVD drive, either DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD+R, DVD-R, or DVD-RW. (Have I confused you yet).

if the drive is a CD or CD-ROM, then it can not burn CDs, only play them. If it is a CD-R, then it can only burn to CD-R disc. It can burn to each disc once, and then you will get a "Insert Blank Disc" error if try to write to it again. A CD-RW can use CD-R for one time use, or CD-RWs, which are "rewritable". You can format them and then use them like a giant floppy disk.

DVD drive are similar. DVD-ROM can only play, not burn. DVD+R can write once to +R disk, DVD-R can write once to -R disk, and DVD-RW can format and rewrite to -RW disk.

SO check the specs and it will tell you which type of disc you need for the drive....

Answer 2

Mine is doing the same sort of thing. I can't copy ANYTHING to a cd, or dvd. Keeps saying wrong format and I kept buying new disks and still wrong. I'm using different software though. I'm using cyberlink for my dvds. I have a couple for my cds and nothing works. And i got this installed last summer and hasn't worked since then. The guy isn't even at the shop anymore for me to complain. :( grrr.

Good luck.