What media does my optical drive use?

R

remember

New Member
I have to do some complicated hard drive partitioning and I need to back up my hard drive.

I bought some DVD+RW discs and I cant seem to record anything. I had no problem recording to a CD-R disc, but obviously I dont want to have to use 25CD's to back up my 17GB hardrive.

How do I figure out which DVD media formats my drive takes? and if possible at the same time, Is it ok if I use Roxio Easy CD creator to back up my hardrive?
 
i prefer nero, but u positive u have a dvd burner, and if so +/- formats supported? dont waste money on rw's just get some dvd-/+ r's
 
Why are RW's a waste of time? You can record and erase them forever.

But first things first. How do I figure out what kind of DVD drive I have? or essentially what kind of DVD disks I have to use? It says DVD on it the outer face of the disk drive. It looks like it says DVD+Rewritable, but I cant be sure, without a magnifying glass. But it definitely says "RW" above it.

So, how do I figure this out, so I can record the data from my harddrive on to whatever type of media I can? hopefully the DVD+RW discs I already bought.

I'll have to look up that Nero program tomorrow. Im getting tired now.
 
remember said:
Why are RW's a waste of time? You can record and erase them forever.

But first things first. How do I figure out what kind of DVD drive I have? or essentially what kind of DVD disks I have to use? It says DVD on it the outer face of the disk drive. It looks like it says DVD+Rewritable, but I cant be sure, without a magnifying glass. But it definitely says "RW" above it.

So, how do I figure this out, so I can record the data from my harddrive on to whatever type of media I can? hopefully the DVD+RW discs I already bought.

I'll have to look up that Nero program tomorrow. Im getting tired now.
Click to expand...

Look on the front of the drive... it normally says. Does it have 'RW' anywhere on it? If it doesn't have it on there, take it out and punch the serial number into google and you should find the specs pretty easy.
 
remember said:
Why are RW's a waste of time? You can record and erase them forever.
Click to expand...

False. They wear out after a certain amount of writes.

remember said:
But first things first. How do I figure out what kind of DVD drive I have? or essentially what kind of DVD disks I have to use?
Click to expand...

Open up System in the Control Panel, or alternatively, right click on My Computer, go to Properties, then Hardware, the Device Manager and see what it says about your drive, and post it here, or google it.
 
My first dvd recorder worked with -r's only, no + media.

And I also dislike rewriteable media. It's slow, expensive, has very limited compatability reading wise, and very easy to damage.

You can scratch a dvd pretty badly before you can't read it anymore, but writing is a whole different story.

The only time i'd RELY on a RW disc is after i tested it EVERY time i wrote to it, to make sure the data transfered to the disc correctly.
 
Well, I tried googling the exact name of the optical drive found in the "Device Manager", but I still cant figure it out.

Here's what it says.

- :eek: Unidades de DVD/CD-ROM
l_ :eek: Slimtype DVDRW SOSW-852S
("Unidades" literally translated into English means Units; I cant remember what its called in English, but I assume most people here know, but please see attached photo)

There is this website,
http://www.photodex.com/support/drivelist.html?make=Slimtype
that lists my exact optical drive, and it does say it supports DVD+RW, but I dont know if thats just reading or recording as well.

Anyway, I dont have a proper, methodical way of recording material or using my DVD burner or using my computer in general, but usually I just click and drag a folder or icon and drag it on to the "E" drive or right click on whatever item I want to record and look for the "copy" or "send to E drive", but for whatever reason(s) this time, I cant seem to get anything recorded on to these DVD+RW discs.

Please let me know if this drive can record on to DVD+RW discs and if I can, what do I have to use and do to record on them. Thanks.

I tried to take the best picture of the inscription writing on the door of the CD drive, which you can just about see, with max zooming that says DVD+Rewritable on the face of the drive, but I cant upload it, because it exceeds the max upload capacity and I dont know how to compress these pictures. I'll have to learn about compressing photos very soon. Please let me know if I should be able to record on to these DVD+RW discs, and if so, what am I doing wrong?
 

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Try deleting the drive from the task manger, restart the computer and then it should reinstall the drivers. See if that does it. :)
 
I should say, I dont have any of the original CD's that came with the purchase of this laptop and the Acer website is terrible, everything there is totally disorganized. If I "uninstall" it, (by right clicking on it it, in "device manager"),
will the computer automatically re-install this "driver"? because again, I dont have any of the original CD's/software that came with this laptop and the ACER website is pretty lousy.-I dont think they would make available any driver/utilily recovery software downloads, or whatever its called. I just looked on their website and couldn't find any "driver" that seems to describe optical drives, so I hope there wont be any problem to just uninstall the CD drive driver, without the original CD or any driver downloads from the manufacturers website.

To Emperor nero: I havent uninstalled the driver for this optical drive yet, for the reasons stated above. Can you tell me if this computer will still be able to function if I uninstall the driver, but then for whatever reasons on the restart, the computer does not automatically? attempt to re-install the driver? that I also can not find on the Acer website?
 
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Well, I did that uninstall of the driver and my DVD+RW still dont seem to work.

I thought that by posting the name of my drive, someone would be able to tell me what kind of DVD's I can use?

I want to buy some tomorrow-
 
I looked around and saw that many people have had problems with this burner, mostly with the laser. You can do one of two things, try this firmware update, or you could buy a new one.
 
So which one do I download and save and with what program?

LiteOn SOSW-852S
• P9S2 - stock (2004/06/24) (no +R DL)
• PS01 - stock (2004/06/28)
• PSF2 - stock (2004/06/28) (no +R DL)
• PRS7 - stock (2004/07/14) (no +R DL)
• PCS3 - stock (2004/08/13)
• PSX1 - stock (2004/09/21)
• PST3 - stock (2004/10/15)
• PRS9 - stock (2004/10/19)
• 6S07 - stock (2004/10/21) (6x max.)
• P3S4 - stock (2004/11/22)
• PSX3 - stock (2004/12/30)
• PS08 - stock (2005/04/08)

My Drive records fine with CD-R's but I just want to know if I should buy a box DVD-RW? The DVD+RW do Not work, so I dont want to make 3 trips to the store, get stuck with all these DVD's and then end up having to buy a whole new drive. Can you tell me which and how to download the "firmware" listed above and if I should try and buy the DVD - RW first or after the firmware install? Thanks for any help again.
 
False. They wear out after a certain amount of writes.
Click to expand...

yea i used a couple dvd r/ws they lasted about a month after using them so much plus the price of them u can get a 100 pack of dvd-r +/- for like 10-15 dollars now
 
Use this one, PS08 - stock (2005/04/08).
Don't buy any new dvds till you have this figured out, otherwise you'll just get a stack of coasters. It may be that your burner is burned out, no pun intended. :)
 
This is very complicated. I have WinACE, but what do I do? Open it or save it and if save, where? If I open it? what do I do once the WinAce program opens up? Ive never used it before?
 
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