Several problems
 

It won't work anymore. Meaning, I can't burn CDs and/or DVDs anymore. I get errors every time saying the burn failed. I tried loading a CDR full of music and it didn't even recognize that. I stuck in a music CD from the store and same thing, it doesn't read it. I seriously don't know what's wrong with this. I've run through the options for the drive, troubleshooted it, and the result is still the same. It's not a new drive because it came with the computer when I bought it a year ago.

Also, I get a Windows error every time I try to load a movie editing program onto my computer. I had one that was working fine, but the stupid Windows error happened.

I'm dying to know what I've done wrong. Please tell me before I sacrifice everything on my computer and do a system restore. I'm not even sure that'll solve either problem.

Well, if the drive is failing to read or write much of anything, odds are it's probably going dead and needs to be replaced. To check, however, if it is some software problem, try uninstalling and reinstalling the driver to see if it makes it work any better.

Regarding the error you get when installing your movie program, it would simplify matters to know exactly what the error says.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the driver. I attempted to write a CDR and a DVDR and neither worked. Would a system restore help?

Here's the errors for the video programs:

http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/7861/error1vk8.gif

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/4131/error2hy1.gif

I don't understand this at all. What have I done wrong?

Oy. Unfortunately, those kinds of errors are so generic that it's almost impossible to tell what causes them. Common causes I've seen are remnents of registry files that are damaged/corrupt and aren't uninstalled with the program itself, virus infection, or even damage in the operating system. Do you get any similar errors when loading other programs?

Try performing a system restore back to before these problems occured. The kind you can undo within Windows, of course, not the sort that formats the hard drive. It might take care of both problems at once.

Optic drive = Dead

How about programs that play video files, are they ok?

Have install any codec packs recently?

Anything in Event Viewer logs? (Application and System)

Start -> RUn -> eventvwr.msc

I'm having a simillar problem here.

My dvd burner suddenly refuses to read burned cds and dvds altogether. What happens when I pop a disc in the drive is that it tries to read it (the light is on and you can hear that 'dunk' sound every other second as it, I guess, unsuccessfully attempts to read the disc) but then after a few tries it gives up and the drive is as if it was empty (to the computer). Sometimes there's also a 'squeeky' ish sound as it tries to read. As it stands, the only things it'll accept are authentic cds. And when reading from them it only does so at about 3X.

Drive should be about 3 years and I reckon I've burned about 400 or so discs in total. I guess it couldn't be anything but the laser. So would you guys say that it's pretty much done for, or what?

Only way to find out for sure is to swap out the drive, and see if the problem is replicated on another computer, AND if the problem does not recur with a new drive on the same compu ter!

I don't see how it could be related to the computer though. The drive has been working fine up until yesterday. I was burning an RW, and as it was doing the lead-out the session failed. And it's been wonky since.

Anyways, I'll just get a new drive.