MY Drive Won't Read CD-RWs
 

Recently I was given a fairly old Pentium 2 computer with a newish CD-RW drive by a relative. I formatted the hard drive, installed Windows XP, and noticed a strange problem. The Philips CDRW4012P drive won't read CD-RWs. I tried 12x and 24x ones, and it won't even recognize that they are in the drive. I also tried them on another CD-ROM drive already in the machine, a generic 40x reader, and the same problem occurs. I tried with both burned and blank CD-RWs, and the result is the same. Even the Disc Info window in Nero Burning Rom sees the drives as having nothing inside when a CD-RW is in them. Pressed factory CDs and CD-Rs, work fine, however. Please advise.

Most likely a driver issue. XP has generic CD-RW drivers, so you wouldn't have to install them for the CD-RW to WORK, but it might not work CORRECTLY without the actual drivers. And since it only half works, that's what it sounds like. Look on the Philips site for your model, and install them.

Use nero's drive info tool, and see what version firmware you have on it.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/drive/355
P1.5 seems to be the newest.

Or if it has a firmware similar to these following series:
V.TW
V.VZ
V.LC
You have the BenQ brand (99.99% same drive, different name on it.)
http://www.cdfreaks.com/drive/114

I looked for drivers for my drive, but unfortunately, there are no drivers for IDE CD-RWs, as they are supposed to be supported by Windows universally. I also upgraded the firmware to 1.5. CD-RWs are now SOMETIMES recognized, and I actually managed to burn one. However, the drive wont read the disc that it itself burned. Any other suggestions?

d/l the latest service pack if you haven't already.

I have SP1