can't write to DVD, but it plays movies fine!

[hoceen]

My Dell Inspiron 2200 laptop has a
Philips CDRW/DVD CDD5263 drive.

I can play movies on it. ( I just tested that I can do that ) but when I insert a Memorex 2x DVD-RW disc, I cannot write my backup zip data files to it. The drive starts making periodic sounds as soon as I insert it a blank DVD disc, as if it was formatting, or something like that. [I tried 2 different blank discs]

And the writing software gets hung (hourglass), as it tries to access the drive, and the whole system gets hung.

I haven't done any writing with this drive on DVD's in months, but last week a friend was using it a lot for writing CD's and worked just fine.

What could I try to debug this problemo?

 

[EricB]

CDRW/DVD CDD5263 drive.

this says it all. get a dvd burner

 

[Corallis]

Your current drive is a CD-RW/DVD-Rom... that means it writes and CD-Rs and CD-RWs, but only reads DVDs. It doesn't burn DVDs.

 

[hoceen]

Thanks for the enlightment guys! I really appreciate, especially the explanatory details from Corallis. (Newbies get sometimes mystified by short answers) - Hoceen

 

[EricB]

I only give short answer when needed because i'm not a great typer