Uncreative Labs

Guest

I have just recently acquired a IBM TP 760EL with 6x UltraBay CD-ROM drive. When I try to run CD-R discs that I have recorded with data and programs, Windows 98 recognizes it as an Audio CD. This has happenned with 99% of the CDs I tried. The only few cd-r that would be recognized were linux cds that were burned from ISO disc images.

Is there a way I can get my CD-ROM drive and Windows to read these discs or do I have to upgrade to a new CD-ROM drive that will read them?

As always any help is appreciated. Thanks.

*WING*

Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:13 am

Have you got all the latest Windows updates?

Have you tried removing the drive and letting windows "find" it again?

Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:18 pm

Settings when you burn, set to "older" less demandig settings ?

Drive to old for CD-Rs ?

Guest

bear wrote:

Settings when you burn, set to "older" less demandig settings ?

Drive to old for CD-Rs ?

1. I do set the burning to lesser settings and I even set burning speed to a real slow 4x speed.

2. This is exactly what I am thinking. IBM doesn't give very detailed information on their website and they don't even support the 760EL. They want to charge me $8.40 for a digital PDF copy of the reference manual to the laptop. I was lucky to find drivers for it free of charge.

This CD-ROM drive is only a 6x, I feel lucky I can even read pressed CD-ROM discs. If I can't read CD-Rs at this point, thats okay. I am not wasting another $20 on this old computer. Not worth it.

I have a wireless network card that I can use to transfer files and things.

Thanks to you both for your info. I'll keep it in mind in the future. Cool

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 4:57 am

In some cases, the error can be traced back to Windows itself. The 9x versions of Windows aren't exactly known for their robustness and accuracy. (-;

I guess if you've got time to reinstall Windows, you can try that. Chances are good it's the hardware though. NAS (network attached storage) may be the best way to solve your problem still.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 377 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

I think it's simply that the cd drive is too old. Our 486 had a Toshiba 4x IDE CD-ROM from 1995 and it couldn't read any CD-Rs. Other drives from the same era could only read 650mb cd-rs, not 700mb cd-rs. No cd-rws at all.And they had to be FINALIZED in order for the drives to be able to read them! No multisession!

Guest

i had a 2x cd that was borderline on reading cd-r disks
usually faster disks and especially 8x and faster have no problem
we did have this problem of seeing data disks as "audio disks" a couple of years ago. the problem went away and i don't know why, i honestly don't remember if it was anything I did.
we were and still are using win 98 se. maybe a few patches have been added and the cd creator 5 std was updated with roxio patches, but the problem has no re-occured.

it was vexing, reminds me of all floppies reading as the same disk, same directory
the cure for that is to read another drive and go back to a: again, but of course you cannot pull that with cd's

Guest

Puckdropper wrote:

In some cases, the error can be traced back to Windows itself. The 9x versions of Windows aren't exactly known for their robustness and accuracy. (-;

I guess if you've got time to reinstall Windows, you can try that. Chances are good it's the hardware though. NAS (network attached storage) may be the best way to solve your problem still.

I did a reinstall from the CD-ROM, Windows 98 FE that shipped with the notebook (looked like a retail copy, not IBM OEM). I performed automatic updates and installed them (there wasn't any, AFICT that were related to the CD-ROM drive). I've tried black CD-Rs burned at 4x. I haven't tried gold pthalo dye cds, cost too much for me to buy. I had one around here but can't find it, oh well.

NAS is great but not when the cheapo card doesn't support WPA and I have to have my router/AP broadcast SSID for the entire neighborhood or the card doesn't connect, even if I type the ssid into the software.

Now that I have secured me an IT job (Yippee! A real IT job!) I will buy a centrino notebook and probably toss this old TP in no time. Very Happy

Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 7

From my sources (cdrecord documentation), it seems that some old CD-ROM readers are only able to read compatibles manufatured CD's.
So, don't burm multi-session CD's to use with these, because they break the manufacured compatibility. In contrast, CD-R readers can read multi-session CD's.