Member Avatar for Murray Pryor

My Acer F5P4 computer has an un-branded CD/DVD reader/writer, shows up as an HL-DT-ST-DVDRRW GWA-4164B in the "my computer" info, and the manufacturer is shown as "Standard CD ROM drives". It uses the driver from Windows XP Pro, "\system 32\DRIVERS|cdrom.sys"and does not have it's own driver.
It will read DVD's and CD's burnt on my other computer, but when asked to write to CD, it can't find the blank, either for CD, or DVD. ACER tells me it is a software problem, and I should reload Windows. This seems to be a major drama, for just a driver problem, and just uninstalling the driver and re-installing it from Windows doesn't work. Any ideas

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Short summary and focused next steps for (and others seeing the same symptom): the behaviour you describe (commercial discs read but blank media are never detected by the burn wizard) is commonly caused by one of three things — Windows not recognising the drive as a recorder (Recording tab/registry filters), a third‑party burning-driver conflict, or a hardware/firmware failure of the drive. Start with the software checks below before considering replacing the drive.

  1. Verify Windows sees the drive as writable: open My Computer, right‑click the optical drive → Properties → Recording tab and enable “Enable CD recording on this drive” if present. If the Recording tab is missing, Windows didn’t detect the drive as recordable; follow the XP checklist in this HP/Microsoft guidance. (Setting up disc recording in XP, see step on the Recording tab). (learn.microsoft.com)

  2. If the Recording tab is missing, back up the registry / create a System Restore point, then remove the UpperFilters and LowerFilters values under the class key
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
    (only after a backup). This is a well‑documented fix for blank‑media detection problems. Follow Microsoft/Dell instructions and be careful when editing the registry. (learn.microsoft.com)

  3. Other quick checks: uninstall the optical device in Device Manager and reboot so Windows reinstalls the driver; remove/disable any third‑party burning suites (Nero, Roxio) that add filter drivers; try different blank brands and a lower burn speed; test with a different burning app (e.g., ImgBurn or InfraRecorder) to rule out the wizard. If software fixes fail and the drive still reads commercial discs but will not accept blanks (or the tray behaves erratically as described), the write mechanism or firmware is likely faulty — replacing the drive (or using an inexpensive external USB burner) is the practical next step. (learn.microsoft.com)

Cautions: always export the registry before editing and prefer the uninstall/reboot and software‑conflict checks first — reloading Windows is usually unnecessary unless multiple fixes fail.

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Member Avatar for goldeagle2005

To ensure that the drive itself is fine, try using the Windows built in CD recording s/w to burn a disc. Insert a blank CD in the drive and open a My Documents window. Right click on any file, point to "Send To" and select "CD-RW drive". Once you do that, you'll see a popup at the bottom right of the screen that says "You have files waiting to be written to CD". Click that baloon and in the wizard that pops up, follow the on screen prompts. If while doing this you receive an error, reply to this thread with the exacts error message and we'll go from there. If this process is successful, the drive is fine and the issue could be with the recording software (Nero, Roxio, Sonic etc).

Member Avatar for Murray Pryor

The windows burning software (wizard) is the only burning software provided. It is this wizard which cannot find the blank disc

Member Avatar for darkseed_uk

Hi, I am having exactly the same problem with an Acer aspire 1640z...!

Either the blank disk (or dvd) spins up after insertion and does not stop spinning OR it stops spinning after a few mins and then wont eject (via explorer or button press) leaving me with no choice but to reboot!... this is only with blank cds and dvds !!! I am running xp aswell.

nero wont work, nti wont work, and i tried the recomended solution written above but just get an error message saying the cd/dvd is not blank please insert a blank disk....they are blank (brand new off the shelf, just unwrapped type!) tried 700mb cds and dvd+r
any ideas here people? please help as Acer do seem to have the fob off approach with me aswell!

:/
thanx 4 ur time folks :)

Member Avatar for Braintwit

You should carefully follow the steps of determining whether the is okay. Some devices have poor performance. Good luck!

Edited by Braintwit because: n/a
Member Avatar for Braintwit

Hi,
Have you changed the brand or interchanged the burner with another burner of same brand? This is a great way to locate hardware fault. You can easily detect whether your is okay. Thanks!

Member Avatar for Braintwit

The first solution which says windows built in testing system is a good choice. By this way, you know that whether the fault is hardware of software related. Second way is reboot the system. Sometimes, reboot helps a lot. Third way is to change the drive with another brand or same brand of different one. After these steps, your problem may not exist.

Member Avatar for Bobs-Your-Uncle

Go to Device Manager, select the DVD/CD Drive, click Properties, and select the appropriate region for your player - usually problems like this are down to the wrong region being selected or indeed no region atall

Member Avatar for khmeryeun

Hi everybody!
I expect to have the similar burning problem as you all guys, but the difference is that I can burn any DVD that I want. So does someone have the solution for that, my Laptop model is Acer 5050 Aspire with DVD burner Matsushita and XP Media Center 2005.
Thank for all!
Yeun!

Member Avatar for goldeagle2005

Is this post for real?

Member Avatar for leaner

i have an acer aspire 5315. the dvd drive runs and stops a fews times and then ejects when i try to record on a blank disc. it says please insert a blank disc, but the discs are blank. it will read, but won't write. does any have the answer to this problem?

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