I bought an old CD-R drive and can't get it to write

Ripcord

New Member
I need to burn a CD from time to time (it's an Ebay requirement that you can't sell E-books without physically mailing a CD; I don't know the reason for that in this day and age but...) so when the drive in my desktop gave out I bought an Iomega external RW drive for a few bucks that is fairly old but works fine. I can read disks but it won't recognize a blank disk or give me the option of burning it.

I'd like to be able to figure out how to use it so I don't have to spend money on a new one, since I don't need it for anything else. I have Windows 7 installed and I'm wondering if that might be the problem. I might try installing XP on an old laptop to see if that solves it but I wanted to ask first. I can't find Iomega drivers anywhere for download so I'm just using the Windows automatic driver install.

I thought at first that it might be a ROM drive but it does say "Re-writable" on the case. Is there something else I might try to do t make it write?
 
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johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
If it reads disks fine but won't write to one it means the laser that writes to the disk is bad. Buy a new drive.
 

tremmor

Well-Known Member
Ive had this problem years ago. I used a different cd or dvd with a different color dye. example is if the cd has a red dye. use a different color. gray, blue etc.
 
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