i have a dell dimension 4550 WINXP PRO w/ a single DVD-RW tray.

now when i put a CD that someone has burned for me, it reads it as a blank CD.

any advice?

thanks!
chuck

Does it do this with all CD-Rs, or just this one? It may be a compatibility problem. Another possibility is dirty optics -- you could try a CD cleaner disc.

its happens w/ all CD-R's. it says size 0 bytes in explorer.

i can play music CD's and watch DVD's.

i can also install software CD-roms from major companies like macromedia.

Does the CD-ROM show data or multimedia files on another computer?

If a CD-ROM is not finalized when it is burned, it won't work on another computer. It may show files on the originating computer, but won't work in other computers or multimedia devices.

yes, im able to go to another computer, pop the CD-R in the drive and access the files.

i eventually just did that, Zipped up the files, and then emailed it to myself.

quite a hassle. anyone else have any clue?

thanks for the responses so far.

chuck

I had similar problem. I put in a good CDRom, anything, burnt or not, and even though Windows seems to know there is a CD there, it shows no files when I select it from "My Computer".

So I right-clicked in the Window where the files should have showed up. Then I selected Properties, selected "Hardware" tab, highlighted my CDRom drive, clicked on Properties again, then "Volumes" tab, then I clicked "Populate". The window suddenly fills with info about the CD and I hear it revving up in the CDRom drive. I go back to "My Computer" and click on the CD (drive D) and there are all the files!

So I am going go to pile on with my own question: Why did my Windows XP Home forget how to auto-mount CDs??? For surely, I think I just "forced it" manually.