Help, dvd burner driving me mad!!!!

[judywoody]

Hi i have a dell dimension 4400 desktop,it came with a cd writer,then i decided to fit a dvd writer,easy peasy so i thought,well it lights up!!when i try to burn to dvd all i get is a message that the dvd is busy, the last plug on theide cable is the cd drive the next plug is the dvd drive,i have tried the jumpers master, slave, cable,etc,until now i'm so confused i've pulled all the plugs out of it!!!

I'm just a woman who has self taught the computer but this time its beaten me,and advice please, ps i'm new to ebid have been on ebay for 3 years,didnt know this existed, I do now,cheers. Jude.

[kenpem]

I had a similar problem a while back. My DVDRW drive simply would not work on the same IDE port as the CDRW. In fact, it wouldn't work on that IDE port regardless of what else was connected. So I plugged it into the other IDE port. And suddenly the world was a happy place again.

Be aware of master/slave jumpers. Most new drives ship configured as Master and if you're adding to an existing cable, that obviously won't work!

One last tip... if the HDD/IDE light on the drive or the front of your PC case lights up and stays on solid at power-up, then an IDE cable is probably plugged in the wrong way around. But in that case the PC shouldn't boot anyway, so you'll soon know.

Good luck!

[Lasso]

Hi, From what i have gathered you cd drive is at the end of the cable. This should be set to master and your new dvdrw in the middle of the cable should be set to slave. Then check your bios on boot to see if it picks the drive up. If not set both drives to cable select jumpers then check your bios. Also from what i have gathered from the drive power light. Try a different modular power plug from your power supply. If that does not work. Try disconnecting the cd drive only (meaning the ide and power cable, but still keeping the dvdrw on cable select jumper). Also if you have manage to incorrectly insert your ide cable the wrong way round ,make sure none of the ide pins a bent or broken. Hope that helps you out.