I got a new DVD burner a few weeks back. I thought it would enjoy life on my desk, but apparently not: it lies to me.
If I tell iTunes to burn an album to CD, the burner goes through the motion: LED flashing, motor whirring, etc.. And it finishes without reporting any errors. And then iTunes shows the contents of the newly-burned CD. And if I use Windows Explorer to look at the disc, I can see the songs files. It looks like the process worked.
But if I then eject the disc and look at it, I don't see that telltale slightly-lighter band where the songs should be. It looks ... blank. And if I put the disc back in the burner, the burner grinds and coughs as if I inserted a blank disc. And if I then look at the disc with Explorer, Windows tells me the disc is blank and asks me what I want to do with it. This is the same disc that Windows just said was full of music.
And yes, the disc is actually blank: I can burn it again. And sometimes the contents will actually be written.
This is baffling.
Baffling indeed. I wonder if iTunes and Explorer are just showing the contents of the “CD Burning” virtual folder that at least some Windows versions used as a temporary data source for burned CDs. Or maybe delayed writes are enabled on the drive ;).
Could it be down to some form of memory cache? I’ve had this happen before too, many years ago.
Burning CDs is a little mid-2000s though. I’m intrigued…
I’ve had this happen before too, many years ago.
apparently it’s somewhat common. though nobody knows what causes it or how to fix it.
Burning CDs is a little mid-2000s though.
alas, my car is a 2007, and has no aux audio or iP* input. CDs are all i got.
bought a new burner (#4, in a month! QC on burners sucks ass).
worked fine, first try.
Yeah, for some reason CD/DVD drives/burners break really easily. I’ve been through four or five of them in the last few years…not to mention which, DVD/CDs burned on older hardware can be unreadable on newer drives, for no apparent reason. Pain in the ass.