Hi Russ,

You may want to revisit the settings on that drive.
Open My Computer > R-click the CD-RW drive and select Properties. 
Or - quicker - Hold down Alt key and double-click the drive.

Under the Recording tab , check if the box is ticked for Enable
Recording.
Under  the AutoPlay tab you can select the burning program (if available
on computer) when you insert a blank CD,
use the drop-down menu to select that option.

You may have to use AutoPlay Repair from either Microsoft,  called
AutoFix  http://tinyurl.com/gvw38
or from OrangeBlue
http://www-stud.uni-essen.de/~sddabacz/prog.php?id=apr.
I consider the latter being better for having more options,plus the
ability to edit the entries shown.

Hope this works for you.

Peter E.

 -------- Original Message --------
 Subject: [PCBUILD] CDRW drive problem
 From: Russ Cox <[log in to unmask]>
 Date: Thu, October 08, 2009 1:06 pm
 To: [log in to unmask]
 
 
 I put a blank CD-R in the drive to copy files on a friend's computer
and I get a message saying "drive not available, incorrect function".
But the drive does open files on a recorded CD.  It's about a 5 year old
HP, 3 GHZ P4, 1 GB RAM. Not sure of the drive brand. Same result with
other blank CD-Rs. The drive did copy files a few weeks ago.

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