Lost CD/DVD ability to record,or write

[kriket]

I have a toshiba satellite p505D 64bit vista HP.I had no problems with it before was working fine.I can,t say when it stopped working because I didn,t use it for quite a while.I,ve run every scan and diagnostic test I could think of and all come back showing no problems.Drives show their fine software ,no virus,etc.etc.I,m at the edge and figure I,ll have a better chance of blowing out the sun than fixing this.I,d appreciate any advice in fixing this please.

[online_fixes]

Can you take a look and tell me know what kind of Optic drive it has and what kind of third party burning software you are using?

What happens when you right-click on a file and select Send To the Optic Drive?

[lorraine]

Hi, I have a couple of questions for you, also, that might help us understand your problem a bit more. I looked at Toshiba's support and saw this article that describes the media that your drive uses (that is, if it is a DVD-multi drive): http://goo.gl/VGRS2

Does this seem to apply to your particular laptop's optical drive? DVD drives are very specific as to the media that they will write to even though they can read all media. This happened to me at work when someone accidentally purchased DVD-R media when our drive would only write to DVD+R.

If the link that I gave you does not describe the optical drive that you have please tell us what it is.

Are you using WinDVD Creator for the software?

Finally, when you say that you have 64bit vista "HP" do you mean "SP" instead, as in SP1 or SP2? If so, which SP do you have installed? SP1 support has ended so if you don't have SP2 you should install it. In fact, if you have a Blu-Ray writer for your optical drive SP2 adds support for writing to it.

Lorraine

[kriket]

First I,d like to say Thank You for your help .The toshiba site goo.gl did not refer to my lap top.My Optical drive is tray type,I,m not using WinDVD Creator,,Vista Home Premium sp2.My CD Drive is MatshitaDVD-RAM UJ880ES SATA CdRom Device. In regards to The thrid party Question I don,t have aclue where to look or what I,m looking for,I,m sorry,I,m at level just above begginers.could you explain what to do to obtain that info.Theres one thing I should mention when I would record Movies,music etc.I could use just about any type of disc. CD-R DVD+R DVD-R

[online_fixes]

Lorraine has some good points above. I missed the HP item.

To check you Service Pack do the following

1 Click on the Start Button.

2 Right Click on Computer and select properties from the menu that pops up.

3 Near the top of the window that pops up the fifth line down should say Service Pack 2. If it doesn't stop here and do a windows update and get that service pack installed.

If the above is OK go to the link that Lorraine has supplied and follow the steps to make sure your settings have not been changed.

[lorraine]

Hello again,

Thanks for the drive information. I still have a couple more questions for you. I've been looking on Toshiba's support site but I cannot narrow the search because the model that you gave did not appear in the choices. For example, here is one page that I got when I narrowed my search to Satellite and a model that included the term 505D: http://goo.gl/nE7UC I then narrowed it to drivers for Vista x64 but nothing came up. I'm thinking that you have more characters to your model number other than 505D. Can you kindly check to see what they may be? It should be on the laptop itself (often a sticker on the bottom) or in the documetation that came with the laptop when you purchased it.

Is the Matshita DVD-RAM the original optical drive or did you replace the original drive with it at a later time? I ask because an SATA device can be tricky to set up if the laptop wasn't originally set up for it (it has to do with something called the BIOS).

Was your laptop originally Windows Vista or was it XP that was upgraded later? Which version of Vista is it--Home Premium or another version? Often there is a difference with how drivers behave when moving from one Operating System to another.

Did you install any other software or hardware (such as a printer) right before you had the trouble? Sometimes there can be driver conflicts.

When you go to Windows Update in the Control Panel do you see any optional updates listed that apply to your device?

Have you checked the Device manager to see if there are any yellow triangles (an indication of trouble) and/or error messages?

I have seen many posts online with problems similar to yours with the same optical drive for different laptop manufacturers so it may be more specific to the drive than your laptop. It also can simply be a dirty or failing drive (how old is it?) Again, having a few more details from you might help us to help you.

This last comment is for Gary: I saw suggestions for deleting the upper and lower filters. I did that for a donated computer at school that kept "losing" both optical drives but it was only a temporary solution (and we eventually ditched the computer as too time-consuming for troubleshooting an old device). Do you think that's worth a try in this case? I hesitate to suggest it since it involves the registry and many people are not comfortable doing that even if they export a copy as a backup first.

Lorraine

[kriket]

HI Lorraine Hope this helps you a little more..Everything on my laptop is the original installed equipment when purchased.The Model Satellite P505D-S8934,windows Vista Home Premium SP2 (64-bit version)AMD Turion X2-Dual-Core Mobile Processor RM-74 Fixed Optical Disk Drive DVD Super Multi drive with labelflash Supports 11 formats.I checked Device Manager,no problems,I didn't install anything,and updates were ok.I just looked down and saw Gary,s comment and I suddenly remembered those filters.I did the same thing following that suggestion and deleted them.Problem is that if this is the problem,I haven,t a clue where or even how to replace them. Gary Thank You so much,and even if it doesn,t fix it I can eliminate it.Lorraine do you think it could be the filters,and if so would you push me towards replacing them but in the simple/easy mode,Please.

[lorraine]

Hi,

Thanks for the additional information I'm on my way out and won't have time to look at this in detail until later. In the meantime you may want to give this article that Gary wrote a look just to prepare yourself:
http://www.internetfixes.com/readers_qu ... F01718.htm You can see that the filters will rebuild themselves upon restart.

Be sure to read this before doing anything with the registry: http://www.internetfixes.com/vista_tips/IF01185.htm

Also, take a took at this: http://www.internetfixes.com/vista_tips/IF01159.htm Have you tried running sfc /scannow yet?

Lorraine

[lorraine]

Once again I need to ask more questions.
!. On this page for your laptop: http://goo.gl/k8pE3 Click on Detailed Specs. You multi drive is a LabelFlash and from what I've read you need media that is specifically labeled " USE FOR LABELFLASH". Is that the type of media that you are using?

Have ever visited the LabelFlash site? http://labelflash.jp/what/index.html

I know that it seems as if this is only necessary if you want to burn labels but I'm curious if you ever used the LabelFlash media successfully before your current problem. Perhaps it's not a factor in your case but it might help to know exactly what you did before vs what you're trying now in case there are any differences.

Back to your specs, I see software listed for Toshiba Disc Creator and Corel DVD Movie Factory and PowerCinema for Toshiba. Which of that (or other) software are you using, if any?

[lorraine]

This is an addendum to my last post since I have looked around once again, using more keywords. This forum http://www.fixya.com/support/t1301461-v ... am_problem has a suggestion by a Toshiba owner may be useful for you to try:

"when you first start up your computer or reinstall the software and restart, the computer asks you to disable the built in recording software to be able to use the Toshiba Disc Utility in full.
The recommended option is to just use the Toshiba Disc Creator utility itself. I use it and it is really easy to use.
It is located at Start->All Programs->TOSHIBA->CD&DVD Applications->Disc Creator."

Try the suggestion above and let us know if using the Toshiba Disc Creator option works for you.

Another point--when I looked at the list of features for your laptop earlier today I saw third party software listed. If this software was "trialware" and has since expired it may have disabled some of it's features so check to see if the software is current or not. If it is an expired trial simply uninstall it. You can read more about trailware here (it applies to all Operating System versions): http://goo.gl/Qt49l