dynex dx-ecdrw100 not recognized by windows?!?

[thoroughlyfedup]

i'm having problems burning some photos through my external dynex cdrw drive model dx-ecdrw100...i've burned many audio cd's through musicmatch jukebox and have no problems with it being recognized, but as soon as i try to use any other software programs, i get an error code saying E:device is not ready. i can't burn any of my digi photos off and it's seriously impacted my memory space. I had nero do an infotool scan on my drive and got an email back saying that windows doesn't even recognize my burner so there's nothing they can do for me. I'm running win98 and my friend mentioned something about ansi drives being difficult and turning something called dma on, but i'm kind of a technotard and really don't understand what's going on. it's reading fine in my device manager and says that it's working properly. although when i look under settings for it while i'm in properties, there's a little box checked that says disconnect. could that have something to do with it? under the driver heading it says no drivers are required or have been loaded. i clicked update driver up popped a security warning and it prompted me to install and run c:\\windows\temp\direct.b1. it said the publisher can't be determined because the object to be verified is unkown to the trust provider. i haven't done it because i'm scared to mess anything else up. my computer has taken to random crashing because of lack of ram. i have just a normal cd-rom toshiba xm-1920b in my laptop. could it be conflicting with it? i still have the nero infotool scan. would it help you to see that? please help. i'm tired of rebooting.

[hudsonsmith]

If the drive shows up in device manager and can write using musicmatch, then I doubt the problem is with windows. From what you are saying, the drive is in fact being recognized by windows. In any case, the drivers for cd drives are native to windows and shouldn't need to be updated.

Are you using nero to write or some other program? What version? Have you tried updating nero to the latest version?

[thoroughlyfedup]

yes. i updated my nero to the latest version. i went to the site and downloaded all the necessary updates. still doesn't work.

[geoscomp]

have you installed the dynex drivers for your cdrw? there appears to be on located here (http://list.driverguide.com/list/company2346/) that you could try

[thoroughlyfedup]

ok. i went to that link and downloaded the driver and sent some poor hotel in alabama a bunch of tourist crap that was mandatory to sign up for. rebooted. still nothing. it STILL says "E:/is not accessible, the device is not ready" when i try to burn. it also did the same thing when i went to 'my computer' clicked on my e drive, hit properties with a blank cd in it and tried to fill out the volume label. what's going on?!?!

[confus-ed]

If the drive shows up in device manager and can write using musicmatch, then I doubt the problem is with windows ..

From what I can gather thoroughlyfedup (nice name btw ! :thumbs: ) besides being their name, has lots of bits of burning software ? In which case I'd like to thoroughly disagree with you :p & say this sounds like exactly the kind of thing windows would cause !

So this unit appears to be one of these ? (http://http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1077624448644&skuId=6302681&type=product) & I guess since something (musicmatch) can 'see' it we can assume (for now, as I don't like assuming) we have some working USB connection .. so my money would be on errant 'filter drivers' - filter drivers are class objects which allow windoze to use extra funcionality of a device without changing the core driver for everything, so for example a filter driver might add writing function to a cdr's driver set, but not any cd roms etc ... these regularly 'get mussed up' on many systems, & its caused by folks who write individual class filters not being able to anticipate what someone else might write for theirs, so very often they conflict, & you can get symptoms like here (its very common & increasingly so as folks itroduce more & more combinations of writing software)

There's a tool you can use for NT systems here (www.bustrace.com/products/devfilter.htm) to see if you have any filter drivers installed, but it won't work with 98 sadly, & all I can suggest is removing every bit of writing software you've got & see if it helps ? (then reintroduce them one at a time, testing as you go)