CD-RW drawer won't open-sometimes

Bruce Wutzke · Post by **Bruce Wutzke** » 13 Jun 2000 1:44 am

I can burn a music CD or a photo CD and
all is well. When I use it to back files
as I do periodically, the drawer won't
open again until I reboot. What say?
Thanks, Bruce

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 13 Jun 2000 2:38 am

If you are using a particular program to do the backups, I would suspect that program is not "releasing" the drive, since you say other operations work OK.

Some programs, such as backup software, will grab a device (in this case the CD writer) and lock it out for other programs so it has exclusive use of the device. The program should release everything when it's done but apparently, in this case, it's not. Restarting (rebooting) resets all the software and hardware interrupts and that is the reason you are able to access the drive.

If this backup program is a 3rd party program (not integral to Windows) I'd check with the vendor and see if that has been reported before and if they have a fix for it. Check their web site as many times there are fixes for problems such as that or updates to the program. If there are not any fixes, I'd report it as a problem and see what happens.

You may want to check the configuration or setup, preferences or whatever they choose to call it, of the program to see if there are any options such as releasing devices that you can change. You could also try uninstalling and reinstalling the program.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 13 Jun 2000 2:52 am

One other thing I just thought of. If there is an option to 'close' the CD after the backup completes try that and see what happens. It could be it needs to 'close' the CD before it releases it.

Bruce Wutzke · Post by **Bruce Wutzke** » 13 Jun 2000 6:50 am

Thanks Jack, but all I do is go into
Windows Explorer, right click on the file
and use the "send to" to my CD burner.
Maybe that's causing it?, instead of using
a regular program.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 13 Jun 2000 8:53 am

Oh, I thought you were using a Backup program to backup files on your computer, not just saving files. The way you are doing it obviously is causing problems. I would use the copy/paste functions, this shouldn't cause you a problem and the way I save files or folders to my backup CD-RW disk. I'm using the Adaptec software for my CD burner and I haven't had any problems so far.