Computer question?

[Hwyl]

I have an emachines computer. It's 4 years old.

It has a CDRW drive. I added a DVD player because I wanted to watch a DVD that a friend produced (and now watch other DVD's on it). I also added a new sound card, because I bought Dragon Naturally speaking and the original sound card did not have an amlified mic' socket.

I have two problems that I've lived with for a while, I think both are related to my "upgrading".

1) I can't burn CD's. I get a message saying put a writable CD in the drive (obviously I have).

2)I never did get the sound card to work. The sound still comes out of the old card, and I've never used "Dragon".

Did I wire something wrong. Am I out of my depth here? There are skinny wires that don't seem to go anywhere. I used the ribbon like wire in a piggyback fashion to the DVD and CD Rom.

Any simple explanations. I think it's all installer error.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Gareth, loads of questions, lets start with three easy ones.
1. Which operating system?
2. Can you still use the CDRW drive for reading data?
3. Which drive letters are assigned?

[Hwyl]

three easy ones.
1. Which operating system?

Windows XP home edition

2. Can you still use the CDRW drive for reading data?

Yes and to play music

3. Which drive letters are assigned?

Floppy "A"

Local disk "C"

CDRW "D"

CD music "E" (first time I noticed this, when i put in the new sound card I got a "graphic equaliser" display which I use.

While answering this questions I took the audio CD (pictures at an exhibition) and put it in the DVD drive. "My computer" now shows the DVD drive as "E"

[ 03-29-2005, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: Hwyl ]

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Thanks, that eliminates one of the more common problems.

What software are you using to burn CDs? and which drive is it configured to treat as the writeable?

[Hwyl]

Originally posted by P.I. Stazzer-Newt:

What software are you using to burn CDs? and which drive is it configured to treat as the writeable?

I don't know. I presumed it was Windows Media player. I did try putting on a Roxio that I had fom another computer, but i got little yellow bubbles saying It would destroy drivers.

No idea about the drive.

[Hwyl]

P.I. You are the only one responding. Let's put it on hold for a while, I have to go out. I'll buy a fresh batch of writable CD's in case that's the problem.

Thanks for your help. I've delved into it a little more. It seems the drivers for the CDRW are roxio.

Once again, let's put this on hold.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

I now use Nero (supplied free with the drive) as the writer of choice, but I blieve that there is support in XP.

This guy seems to have done his homework Click for web page

7. SETTINGS FOR THE INBUILT SOFTWARE
In My Computer, right-click on the CD-drive, then click Properties. There should be:

a “Recording” page with a check box to “Enable Recording on this drive”;
a pane to change the folder used as work space during the actual writing (which needs to have as much space available as the capacity of the CD you wish to write); and
a box to let you specify the speed of the drive.
It is recommended that you manually choose a speed in the provided box, especially if you do choose to use the technique with CD-RW media, for which the drive will usually not be capable of the speed assumed (the faster one, for CD-R writing).

In addition to these settings, you also can change the location of the “staging area” for files awaiting burning by using TweakUI for Windows XP (part of the Windows XP PowerToys). In its My Computer | Special Folders section is an entry for the CD Burning folder. Set it to whatever location you like. (If the location is on an NTFS partition, its Security must be set to provide ’Full Control’ for Administrators, Creator Owner, and SYSTEM.)

[Meerkat]

Errr... you sould take out the old sound card before installing a new one! Both cards will either try to use the same interrupt request vectors (IRQ's) or they will use up all the avaialbe ones and prevent other devices from working. Your symptoms make it sould as thought it's the former scenario and not the second.

Take out the old sound card and that just might solve all your problems! If it's built in to the motherboard, go into the BIOS and disable it - that will be the same as removing it!

[Hwyl]

Thanks Meer, I'll try it in the morning.

[Bruce Hooke]

Did getting new CDR's fix that problem? I have occasionally run into bad CD's. If that did not fix the problem you should be able to change the target drive in the CD burning software, but how you do that will depend on the software you are using. I use Roxio Easy CD Creator and like it, but there are certainly other viable options.

If the DVD drive is currently set as the master, I wonder if it would help to change it to slave and set the CD-RW as master...

[Hwyl]

Originally posted by Bruce Hooke:
Did getting new CDR's fix that problem?

Yes it did, thanks guys.

The sound board problem next

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

It is possible to run two sound cards on the same computer.

So, before you dive into the bios, or break out a screwdriver.

Control Panel/Sounds and Audio devices. The "Audio" tab brins a page which is used to select the record and playback devices. - Check which devices have been selected, there are drop down lists if the new card is there then that may be the answer.