Problem with CD Rom - CD Burner changeover

[Byron172]

Hi guys,
This one is probably real simple for most of you to solve, but its got me stumped. Tonight, I changed a CD rom drive over to a CD burner..simple process, but no!!! The computer recognises the new drive on start up and also in the Hardware manager (LITE ON blah blah). However whenever I try to use Nero or even the Windows CD player, the drive is scanned and I am told that the drive is empty or not ready. Is this a problem with the actual drive or am I missing something really obvious......
System specs are real basic - Windows 98SE and nero 6. The computer is going to be used exclusively for backing up old CD's (hence my dillema). Any advice will be much appreciated.
I should also mention that the jumper is in the exact position as the previous drive - (slave) - and cable and power plugs are firmly in place...????!!!!

[Straight_Man]

I have gotten this, but only if Nero is opened with no CD in drive. My LITEON CD burners here work fine if I stick a CD in first, then open the program I want.

Possible bad data cable-- also possible wrong cable for your new LITEON drive, try an 80 conductor cable, please. Also, I would run the LITEON drive on a seperate channel from HD-- ie NOT on same cable as HD.

[Byron172]

Thanks for the quick reply StraightMan. I'll give your suggestions a try with the cabling. The quick fix about having a CD in the drive befor opening programmes didn't work, but anythings worth a shot.
What spins me out is that I have done this thousands (OK two or three) times before and it has always been a real simple procedure. As I say, the cableing, jumper plug and power supply is all as it was with the previous CD ROM drive, and everything worked fine before.
Anyways, back to the work bench I spose.
Cheers.

[profdlp]

Try having it re-detected in the BIOS. If it's set to "AUTO" see if there is an option to set it as "CDROM". If it's already set to "CDROM" try switching it to "AUTO". (The point is to try and make a change, since what's going on now is not doing it for you.)

Then boot up in Safe Mode, go to Device Manager, click on View>>Show Hidden Devices, go down to the DVD/CDROM Drives category and uninstall all of the devices you find.

Cross your fingers, reboot, then see what happens.

Another idea would be to try reinstalling Nero. You should also make sure you have updated the core burning program (I wouldn't worry about all the extra frilly stuff just yet).

If you're still up a creek, try and narrow it down to either hardware or software. Give a test run of BlindWrite (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4039) a shot and see if your luck improves. :)

EDIT: Does Nero detect the new drive correctly?

[Byron172]

Thanks for your advice, tried all of the above to no avail, so I grabbed another burner from a mate of mine and install went just fine. Therefore it was probably the actual hardware.
Thanks again.

[profdlp]

Yeah...

If I had back every hour I've wasted trying to get a dud piece of hardware I bought "configured properly", I'd be able to take a two-week vacation.

Glad to hear you're back in business. :)