zd7000a (Win XP MCE) DVD drive will write to CD, not to DVD

[Spinland]

My optical drive suddenly stopped writing to DVD. Using Nero it aborts with a generic failure message. Using Win XP's native ability the drive title changes from "DVD/CD+RW" in the Explorer window to just "CD Drive" if I insert a blank DVD, and refuses to let me drop files into the window.  I can write to CD just fine both using Nero and using Win XP.  I can read DVDs, as well.

I've tried deleting the drive in the hardware manager and re-booting to force re-installing the driver; no help.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[Huffer]

XP has no native ability to burn DVDs so what you see when you try to drag and drop to DVD is normal. Nero also has a way of getting corrupted and it rarely does any good to install and uninstall it. Have you run a system test on Nero to see if it still recognizes the drive as a DVD burner? The best way to test it I hate to say is a system restore or you can run a Linux Live disk and use k3b to see if the drive will burn a DVD from a different environment.

[Spinland]

It's Nero version 6, but yes, it detects it's a DVD drive just fine.  I just tried an open source DVD creation application and after a few seconds it failed during a write, too.  I also tried the Microsoft system check utility and it said the DVD drive had no ability to write.

I'm thinking the drive has gone south (this system is nearly 5 years old now).  New drives are cheap, cost less than a new copy of Nero, so just ordered one.

Thanks for trying!

[Huffer]

good call

[Spinland · Accepted solution]

Follow-up for completeness.  New drive arrived today, installed without a hitch, just burned a DVD with over 2GB of data.  Worked like a charm.  As a bonus the new drive is twice as fast as the OEM it came with.

Case closed.

Thanks again!

[jwick]

What drive did you wind up ordering?  I just lost mine too, the hardware system sees it but won't register it.  I guess its planned obsolescence  has expired.

[Spinland]

I got it from an eBay vendor called "outletforparts."  The specific offering was entitled "NEW DVD±RW Drive Burner for HP NX9000 Pavilion ZD7000" item number 350282038423 and was $49.95 with free shipping.

Good luck!