Burning CD/DVDs on Laptop

October 3, 2008 9:14 AM

I own this laptop and I love it except I am having trouble with the cd/dvd burner. It reads just fine but when I try to burn, no matter what program I use, it doesn't burn properly. Sometimes it leaves the disc blank or leaves a song here and there blank while other songs are burned properly. Do you think it's a defective burner or something to do with how it communicates with the OS?
posted by zzazazz to computers & internet (5 comments total)

It could be a weak laser.

Have you tried burning at a slower speed?
posted by WinnipegDragon at 9:41 AM on October 3, 2008

Personally I would suspect the drive itself. I don't see drivers or other software causing that kind of intermittent failure. (Of course, you could check for driver updates and so on.)

I'd consider trying to get the drive replaced (if it's under warranty, or maybe you could swap it out yourself). Or, depending on the circumstances, just buying and using an external drive might be an easier option.
posted by dixie flatline at 9:45 AM on October 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Are the tracks you try to burn all digital, non-MP3 ones? If you try to burn MP3 tracks they will be ignored because of the technological "gap". Non-techy me learned about this recently.
posted by yazi at 10:39 AM on October 3, 2008

on almost every machine I have, burning audio CDs at "full speed" produces crap.

try burning them at a much slower speed. Mine defaults to like 48x which uniformly produces coasters, but if I notch it down to 8x or so, and that seems to work.
posted by jaded at 11:12 AM on October 3, 2008

Ah yeah, the burn speed is a good consideration as well.

You could also consider the media quality. If it's really cheap media it could just have a high failure rate anyway. You could try other drives, or try your drive with some really high-quality media (may take some research, I guess, since I don't think a name brand alone will be a guarantee).
posted by dixie flatline at 11:29 AM on October 3, 2008