CD Burner Works With CD-Rs, But Not CD-RWs

I have a Sony CRX185E3 CD-RW burner, on XP/SP2. It works fine with a CD-R disk...reads, burns, etc. But with a CD-RW disk, it's no go...won't read, write, format, or drag-and-drop...usually get a message to "please insert disk into burner" or "burner not accessible, incorrect function "...and sometimes a freeze. Once in a blue moon it does work, but this appears totally random. I've tried both Roxio and Nero software, same result (XP burning capability is disabled). I guess there are two possibilities: (1) the burner is terminal, needs replacement, or (2) something in the XP software (registry?) is messed up so that CD-RWs don't work on my burner. Any thoughts which one it might be? Thnx [it doesn't help that Sony's support web site never heard of this model, even tho it's only two years old]

 

Has it ever burned RWs?

Did a quick search and found this page which lists you number as doing only CD-Rs in their test.

Sony's support web site never heard of this model?
Google certainly gave me lots of hits.

You can use CD-Rs for everything you can do with CD-RWs, including Roxio drag and drop. CD-Rs are less expensive and have larger capacity; you're not losing anything by being limited to CD-Rs; just toss 'em instead of erasing and re-using them!

 

Ahhhhhhh, Sparrow, I would agree except that a CR-R will not allow packet writing such as with InCD. Once a CD-R is written you may be able to add to it but you can't change what's already there as with a CD-RW.

 

Okay, here is a broad general explanation which should answer your question, I hope.

When an optical disk (CD, DVD) is made commercially; an acrylic disk is covered with a layer of metallic foil and a mechanical press stamps this foil to make pits. which will reflect the read laser differently than the flat undisturbed surface. This foil layer is then covered with a protective surface (in some cases another acrylic layer in others merely a label). Damage to the lower acrylic layer can be polished out, but if the top layer is damaged and the foil marred, the disk is not repairable.

Now we come to Recordable optical disks CDR and DVDR either + or - (the difference I will cover later)
The lower acrylic disk has a spiral groove cut in it and an optically sensitive (changes color when exposed to the right frequency and power of light) dye is put in this groove and then covered with either reflective foil or a doped layer of acrylic to accomplish "total internal reflection" as is done in fiber optics, where the refraction caused by the medium change will completely reflect certain frequencies of light (but be transparent to others) . The burn laser burns this dye , thus changing its color and hence the ability of the read laser light to pass through it . Once burned, this dye cannot change back ; so disks may be burned but not erased.


Rewriteable disks are similar , but use a liquid crystal (or liquid metal ) in place of the light sensitive dye; which at one power level will crystalize in one direction causing light to scatter, and when hit with a more powerful level will remelt and return to the original reflective state.

Now how does the drive know what type of disk it is? In the very center (all optical disks start at the center and work outwards) is a thin metal ring with the information needed for the drive to know what type of disk it is, what speeds it is designed to be burned at , and what power levels are needed to read, write, rewrite, erase etc as applicable. Then there is a "test" area for "calibration" of the needed lasers .

So now you know the difference between the different types of disks and how the drive determines which you have and what it needs to do to use them (note that this explains the calibration failed errors, if the calibration area of a write once disk is full or if the laser cannot meet the requirements of the disk you are using you get a calibration error). But what is the deal with the + and - .
Well these are "formats" or different manners in which the data is saved.
Just like when they first came out with video tapes there were two competing standards Beta by Sony and VHS by Phillips because of licensing restrictions of the original format so two different groups came up with differing standards for recording to DVDs. DVD-R was first, but some companies did not like the licensing and royalty scheme so they came up with their own format DVD+R . Think of it this way, one format the spiral is wide and the burn is perpendicular to the direction of the groove. The other the spiral is narrow and the burn is in the direction of motion. So in one you have a bunch of ------ along the spiral to represent data, and the other they are | | | | .
Now obviously you cannot burn one format on a disk designed for the other and you cannot burn one with a drive designed to burn the other. So many modern drives can burn either format depending on which type of disk you have.
DVD-R disks tend to be cheaper, but DVD+R tend to support higher burning speed.

Again, this is not a completely technically correct explanation, but it is putting things in "laymans terms" so you can get the idea.



So, sometimes one particular brand of CDR or CDRW works better than others for a given drive. So before you give up on burning CDRW, try a few different brands.
Also as noted, CDRW are designed for packet writing (Format with directcd or incd and then drag and drop or copy and paste to the cdrw) while CDR are designed for write once and close permanently using the main burning suite.

 

Sparrow...perhaps you have found something, I'm not sure. With a RW, I used InCD or DirectCD (the Roxio equivalent for packet writing/drag and drop). I was able to get a few CDs formatted with Roxio so I could D+D (good for taking pix to Walgreens for development!), but Roxio was always cranky (freezes, etc)...but now it's worse so that even Nero won't work. I'm not sure what the implications of RW not being in the chart are...no packet writing (even tho it worked a couple of times?)? But just dropping a RW (packet formatted or not) into the burner can't be read (in my regular CD-ROM it can)...the burner apparently doesn't recognize a disk is in there. That's why I'm getting very suspicious of the burner. [I found all the Google stuff, too, but it's not a model supported by the Sony site]

Osh...I'm familiar with that problem (I won't use Memorex), but I've tried several brands.

 

jaylach

Note that I said you can do drag and drop (=packet writing) to CD-Rs in Roxio. I've done it for years, even back when it was Adaptic. Works just fine. You can overwrite, but lose the space taken by the previous version of the file, not a problem because of the larger capacity.

chrisw
I'm talking about Roxio v.7 OEM. You may need to upgrade to a current version. Look on the web for the best price; just the CD, you don't need a manual. However, it may be more cost effective to go for a DVD-RW drive like the NEC at Newegg.com for around $50.