Member Avatar for nicole922

I tried to burn a CD this morning, and it got all the way to the "finishing" part, and then it wouldn't stop spinning, then it said that the CD could not be completed and that the disc may or may not be usable again. Of course the disc is no longer useable~I tried on another computer and was able to burn with no problem, so it wasn't the program that was burning or what I was trying to burn. I don't know what to do! Please help! Thanks!

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Brief diagnosis and practical steps based on the symptoms in the thread: when a burn gets to "finishing," the drive keeps spinning and the disc is ruined, yet the same media and files burn fine on a different PC, the fault is almost always specific to the problem machine (drivers/filters, firmware, cabling, DMA/settings, or a failing writer), not the source files. The Device Manager reinstall idea from is a sensible first move because it clears corrupted controller driver stacks; 's request for system details is also useful when narrowing causes.

Common, effective troubleshooting steps:

  • Use fresh, reputable CD-R media (not scratched or very old) and burn at the lowest available speed (e.g., 4x or 8x). Cheap or marginal discs often fail during finalization.
  • Try a different burning app to rule out software quirks (some testers use ImgBurn or CDBurnerXP as a second opinion).
  • Inspect Windows Event Viewer (Application and System) for IMAPI/cdrom or driver errors recorded at the time of the failed burn — those log entries often point to driver or hardware faults.
  • Check for UpperFilters and LowerFilters in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. Export the key first, then remove those values if present and reboot (only do this if comfortable editing the registry; backing up is essential).
  • Verify DMA mode is enabled for the IDE/SATA channel and ensure the data and power cables to the drive are seated and in good condition. On older machines, a bad IDE cable commonly causes write failures.
  • Check the drive manufacturer's site for firmware updates that mention burning reliability; follow vendor instructions carefully.
  • As a diagnostic, try burning from a bootable Linux live CD or use an external USB burner to separate OS-level issues from hardware failure.

Note on the "3–5 songs then stop" symptom (as reported): that often indicates a capacity/mode mismatch (audio CD minutes vs data size), buffer underrun or on-the-fly encoding issues. Lower burn speed and ensure the burn mode matches the intended output (audio vs data).

If software/driver fixes are exhausted, the optical writer itself is frequently the culprit; replacing the drive is inexpensive and usually resolves persistent failures.

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Member Avatar for RueB2sDe


Hi Nicole,

I would recommend that if it worked before and now it's not try the following.

Go to your control panel and into Systems.
Hardware then Device manager.
Click on the plus sign next to IDE/ATA and ATAPI devices.
Right click on IDE Controller
Left click on remove.
Restart the system (it should automatically ask to restart).
When the system restarts do not close the Found new hardware wizard. Allow it to install and wait for the message to disappear.

Once it disappears restart again.

Then try.

Hope that helps

RueB 2s De

Member Avatar for tleviner

I was once able to write cds. Now I am unable to. I can't save files to a disk and I can't burn music to a cd.

My Device Manger says the CD Rom drive is working properly. I can't figure it out.

Please Help.

Member Avatar for donta

everytime i try to burn a cd it only put 3 or 5 songs on the disc
and than it will stop why dose it do that..

Member Avatar for caperjack

everytime i try to burn a cd it only put 3 or 5 songs on the disc
and than it will stop why dose it do that..

not sure ,why not tell us a lttle about your computer,speed and ram and harddrive size to start with ,and why not share with us what burning software you are using to burn the music to disk ,name and version # thanks

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