Problems burning with Nero or problem with burner?

[mustang_marc]

I've had this CD burner for just over a year and last time I used it - almost a year ago - everything worked fine. But now that I want to use it again, I'm having issues. I'm using Nero 5 on Win XP. I drag the files where they need to be to be copied and then after a long pause, I get a message "waiting for medium" "Please insert the medium to write to" "Medium type in the recorder: (Empty). I'm getting this message while I have a blank CDRW disk in the burner. I know it's not the disk because I've tried about 5 different disks. Have any of you encountered this before? BTW, the burner is a Buslink RW4848.

[mustang_marc]

I've determined that it's the burner. I tried using the CD Writing Wizard that comes built in with XP and I place the files in drive ready to be burned and I get a message to "Insert a writable disc to continue. There is no disc in the drive. Please insert a writable CD into drive E:\. So now I know the burner is not recognizing the disk that I put in. But the odd thing is that the drive itself seems to recognize that a disk is in the drive because the little green LED that indicates a disk is inserted is on. Any thoughts?

[O2BQIK]

Try with a normal CD-R. Maybe something about the media is pissing it off. I've noticed that when trying to use CD-RW, the media seems to make a bigger difference. I have a 32x drive at work but with the bulk CD-RWs we bought, it will only burn them at 1x which is excruciating. I just use CD-Rs and throw them away when I'm done.

[mustang_marc]

I'll have to give that a shot. These particular discs worked on a different burner, but not this one. Fortunately, I think I have a few CD-Rs laying around, so I'll try those and see what happens.

[mustang_marc]

Doh! The discs I were using actually were CD-Rs and not RW. So is the burner toast? Or maybe I should take it out and reinstall it to make sure all connections are up to par?

[O2BQIK]

It could be toast, but I'd try a few more things before tossing it. Since it's Buslink I assume it's USB? If so, try unplugging and replugging it. If it's EIDE/ATAPI, try another EIDE controller. Another thing you might try if it's USB is plug it in to another computer and test. It also might be worthwhile to get another CDR from a different spindle (preferably manufacturer) and try that.

I just hate to throw away barely used hardware, so I'd try anything you/we can think of.

-Ty