OEM DVD Burner - am I screwed?

Factual Questions
1

OK, here’s the story:

I just built a new computer myself. Everything has gone fine, and the new machine has been up and running for a couple of weeks.

However, I’ve run into a problem recently. I tried to burn a DVD, but got the “Insert a recordable CD into the drive” error.

Note: I am NOT trying to burn/copy any copyrighted material; this is simply a video capture from some of my Video8 records.

The DVD/CD burner in question is a Sony DW-D22A-B2 Dual-layer OEM version.

I’m now thinking that the “OEM” part, which saved me about $60 on purchase will now come back to bite me. The drive came with no software whatsoever, which means that I’m using Windows XP drivers to run it (I have tried the Windows Driver Update function but came up dry). This means that it operates as a CD burner only and doesn’t even recognize DVD-Rs.

The Sony website seems to wash its hands of me by not even listing my model number.

My question (finally) is this: is there a way to get the software for DVD burning that would come with a retail drive? Or am I going to have to buy Nero6 or something similar in order to have the drive realize that it can burn DVDs?

2

I think you will have to buy a third-party application like Nero or Roxio.

3

I have the same burner, but not OEM, I don’t think. I got OEM software with it. But no drivers, they’re all XP drivers.

4

AFAIK, DVd burners almost never come with drivers. The difference is in the box, and supplied software.

Does your machine ‘see’ it as a Sony DW-D22A in the hardware profile list?

5

Make sure whatever software you’re using (Nero, Easy CD Creator, etc.), you have it upgraded to the latest version. I had problems with my DVD-DL burner, and I’ve seen at least one other person here mention problems, that were resolved by upgrading Nero.

Once I got my burner recording correctly, I had trouble with it playing DVDs. I had to get a firmware update for the drive to fix those problems.

6

Thanks for the replies everyone.

It looks like Windows XP comes with CD-burning capability built-in but for DVD burning I need extra software.

Since the drive came with no software it looks like I need to buy some third-party stuff.

So much for saving $60 on the DVD drive!

7

Couldn’t you download Neros free trial just to make sure before you shell out for the retail version?

8

Try downloadiong either CDBurnerXP or BurnOn CD/DVD which are freeware DVD burning software.

9

I second this recommendation. There are quite a few free DVD burning tools out there.

10
      • You might get a better deal with the retail version of software anyway. OEM sellers select the features they wish to include [pay for] in their distributions, and then the software company gives them a serial that unlocks only these features. Typically, OEM versions do not qualify for regular upgrade discounts at all, only previous full-versions do. …So if you had bought a retail DVD-combo drive and gotten a partially-enabled version of Nero or Roxio and decided later that you wanted the full version, whatever amount over the cost of a bare-drive that you paid for the partial software would be wasted anyway.
        ~
11

One last bump to say thanks for the suggestions.

I downloaded CD Burner XP and have successfully burned a DVD+R and DVD-R.

Fear my archiving ability!