Hello all,
My computer is an HP desktop, running MS XP Media Center 2005, less than a week old. It came with a Lite-on DVD+/- writer/CD writer drive, but when I insert blank DVD+R disks, the drive name changes from "DVD-RW Drive (E" to "CD-Drive (E" and the drive recognizes that the disk is there, but says it's full. These are new Verbatim disks. When I check the disk properties, it says Used Space: 0 bytes, Free Space: 0 bytes, Capacity: 0 bytes.

I then put in a new Sony DVD+/- RW drive from my old computer and it does the same thing - but it used to work fine for these same blank disks. Then I tried blank Memorex disks - same problem.

Both drives recognize and play recorded DVD disks, and no problem with blank CD-RW disks. I just can't burn any DVD's.

Any ideas? Please advise. Thank you.
ovey

Howdy there Ovey and welcome to PCHELPFORUM

• Have you installed any new software recently or have you installed any codecs?

Just have a quick check through your system and if you can uninstall anything you have recently installed, and if you have installed any codecs try uninstalling them.

I have heard of a codec causing this (but if you haven't installed any then we will have to look into other causes)

Thanks for the reply Zimbo. I don't know what a codec is, but the only software I installed is nero and dvdfab. I uninstalled them and rebooted, but it didn't help. Any other ideas?
Thanks again.
ovey

I just had a thought, are you trying to burn information onto a DVD by using the windows burning tool i.e when you insert a CD it asks you what you wanna do with it, do you choose "Open writable CD folder"?

If the answer is yes then that is your problem, you can only burn information to DVD by using software like Nero or whichever software came preloaded on the machine.

When you open the software it should ask you if you wanna burn a CD or DVD, you need to select DVD.

No, I prefer to use Nero (never tried the windows tool though). Whenever that window pops up, I always choose "take no action" and check the "do this everytime" box.
When I try to use Nero though, it says not enough free space on the disk, please insert a new disk. The disks are new, empty, and big enough. It's weird.
Let's suppose that I had inadvertently chosen to open a writable CD folder. How can I 'reset' that option? Thanks for your help.

What version of Nero are you using?

Try to run the nero wizard, it should give you the option.